Indesign: Workshop 3

Narrative Design

When developing visual communications, the usage of Narrative Design is of key concern.

 
When discussing narrative; it's important the establish the key components of one

• Exposition: The set up and explanations of a subject or scene
• Rising Action: The content that gets you invested/entertains
• Climax: The peak where one or more narrative beats are resolved
• Falling action: The winding down of the story
• Denouement: The resolution of  any remaining elements.

However, from a designers point of view; Our take on this structure is not as simple nor is it as conformative to this structure, as we typically need to illustrate or demonstrate the solution to a problem, rather than tell as story (Not that the two can't exist in the same narrative).

We need to tune ourselves to our audiences when creating the messages we need to send them, rather than them tuning into us; creating emotional connections and narratives to the things we want to sell, so that people could buy into.

All of these things are built up with the use of Imagery; Sometimes being enough to carry a proposal or narrative on its own, Tones of voice, Using scale and placement to invoke tones of voices(Loud or Quiet, Impacting or Subtle ect), Symbols and inconography; Restricting information to alter an audience's perceptions or using simplicity to help sell the product, and colours; helping dictate the moods and feelings an audience should have of your work.

Animating within After Effects

Having created an illustration prior, and split it up, to importing it to After Effects; some simple animation could be achieved using each element as it's own separate object.




This animation uses mostly transformations and rotations for the various movements that the character completes, however some scale animation was added to the torso section, to give a subtle simulation of breathing.

This animation, in total, took roughly 9 hours to complete fully.

The Substance of Style

Style, in a very brief explanation, is who you are; what you do and how you do it. It's a culmination of all the influences you've been exposed to and is how you view and interact with the world.

No one is free or acts outside of Style. Everyone has one.

Marcel Breuer noticed this idea of style and how it often dictated the work and artist or designer would create, and decided to divorce himself from it; creating purely logically designed items, and removing everything he deemed 'excessive' or 'non-important'.

However, Apathy to style is a style, in and of itself, and was eventually replicated and adopted into culture.

Styles are structured by their hierarchy.

Styles are made up of Classes> Which are made up of Attributes> which the Attributes can Change. 

Message and Meaning: We swim in the Media Ocean (and we control the waves)

Designed Messages always need to be understood the same way, by every time, by everyone, as well as have them react appropriately.

It'd be no use if an advertisement from Asda was cryptic and no one understood it, and the ones that did decided not to shop their.
That's a bad message they'd be sending.

Messages is the word for any communicated transmission from one source to any receiver, such as a poster or a spoken message.
Meaning is what we mean when we talk about the source of the sender's message, or their expression, and is what the receiver infers the message to be,

Often times, the ways in which a message is sent is just as, if not more, important than the message itself. It's crucial, as a poorly optimised transmission could lead to receivers have a hard time understanding your message, or not understanding it at all.

Senders is the term used to refer to designers when used in this context, or Encoders. We're the ones who translate meanings into symbols or forms to be sent as a message.
These messages need to be visualised from the point of view of the receiver, or the audience, so we can create the message more effectively, to be targeted more effectively. The more data we, as encoders, have, the easier it is to target and structure our messages.
     (-this is all important, as if decoders aren't effectively communicated to, then they won't buy into
        your message and ultimately, whatever it is you're trying to market-)

When deciding on the correct way to send a message is also important, as you need to pic the correct Channel, or the method that the message is sent (as stated two paragraphs ago). Essentially, there need to be some basic questions that you ask yourself as you're putting your message together, from the point of view of your audience (as stated last paragraph).

Some of these questions include;

• Is it Urgent/Time sensitive?
• Is immediate feedback needed?
• Does a permanent record need to be kept
• Is the content complicated? Private? Controversial?
• Is the content be communicated inside or outside?

Ideally, you'd want your message to make use of as many appropriate channels as possible, with some being more appropriate than others. The radio may be an amazing place to advertise a new song, yet a poster could lack the content. And vice versa for more visual advertisements. You need to be constantly aware of the medium and message you're trying to present.

Design Authorship is a slight deviation from the established norm in the graphic design industry, in and that it's the Designer themself that's in control of their own messages and the pursuits they take to express them, like Anthony Burrill, pictured above.

These designers often take a much more self contained artifact and use it more in place of a directed message, rather than the broad and generic messages favoured by businesses.

-

The receiver, or decoder in this instance, is what we would call our audience. The ones that we market towards, and we need to be mindful of how we approach how we word the messages we send them, in order to maximise the amount we can manipulate and influence their actions.

This topic was covered rather extensively by the psychologist of the hour, Marshall Mcluhan, who documented the effect the media had on the public.

He stated that media could only ever be an extension of knowledge, and extension of an ideal, of what we already know, and could not be a replacement for it.

That we shouldn't try and understand the media by thew words it uses, but why the words are used, which will in turn make it easier to construct future media, for the purpose of the audiences viewing it.

He postulated that the world and media isn't something that we don't understand, or at least the audience at large didn't. They didn't care about the people or the motives behind the media, and this made it easier for those people to get their messages across.

People like to have their preconceived ideas and beliefs confirmed, people seek out affirmation and validation in the things they buy, so it's probably best that we, as designers, try to stick to hegemony and certain expectations for people.

People also hate feeling like they're missing something, behind the curve or not experiencing something good. Creating a world of haves and have-nots greatly enhances the chances that more of your audience will want to buy what you are marketing.

People also want to find goals to fulfill, no matter how easy or trivial they might be, even in lieu of how fast the world moves around them, so it's nearly impossible to complete any of them; as though the you, the ball and the goal are all moving as you step up to score. 

Because of this, it's important to create advertisements that meet these certain needs, as well as last long enough for them to be 'completed'

An Introductions to Intros and Abstracting the Abstractions

In our Wednesday Seminar with James, we discussed two important concepts in writing; abstractions and clipped writing.

The later I am already demonstrating, using as few words to get my points across as I can (which, for someone who likes to add 'pith' or excess to my writing, is rather difficult). This is try and keep a consistent pace within the writing and getting as much content into the words as possible.

An abstract, on the other hand, is a device used as a 'hook'; a way to outline an argument or discussion, essentially telling people why they should care about what I'm writing about.

For example.

"My work in the studio shows the links drawn between their personalities, and the shoes they wear, and how both of these factors perhaps affect one another."

"To be an artist is to be a man": How we think about gender and sexual differences.

The 1960s were a time of great change in America. The civil rights movement was in full swing and the war in Vietnam was still taking the lives of countless soldiers every day. However, another liberal movement was taking place during this time; Feminists were campaigning for equality in all works of life, including in art.

During the 1960s (and still, even today) society's hegemony revolved around the strength of the Patriarchy and Heteronormativity of WASPs, with many people still trying to strike out and fight against the the established beliefs and gain equality, be in for women or for people of colour, with the only way for one's voice to be heard is by banding together under one banner.

The women artists created the 'Women Art Revolution' (WAR).

The issues in society at the time (and still, even today) was how little recognition female artists were receiving, or even just exposure in any form of official gallery, where there could be over 15 more men's work when compared to women, where men had complete dominance over both the art that could be seen, and where it would be shows.

The inequality between women and men was not only an acceptable standard in the industry, but many men used and exploited it to ensure their dominance and control over it was cememented.

As well as this, all forms of art, be it high or 'low', has begun to regress into a state of 'muted simplicity', that aimed to be pure and free of the politics surrounding it.
As it stands, the way minimalist art was constructed and displayed shows a general ignorance to the state of society around it, as though it was produced to be purposefully silent during this time.

At the turn of the decade, during the 1970s, there was a great rejection of the established regime of government off of the back of such incidents as Watergate, leading to the art of the time turning against society and almost boycott it. However, however ironic (and stupid it was), these 'anti-government institutions' would not allow women to display their art within their galleries.

This meant women began to create their own.

Feminist art began being taught in colleges, leading to a huge liberation in how women's issues and stigmas were perceived and then ultimately lifted, or just talked about.

Howardena Pindell

In the UK, however, the liberation of women in art took a much more academic approach, with the rejection of traditional art history teachings.

 Rather than Women simply 'accepting "what is" as "normal"', they began challenging society and education, claiming that 'the fault is not with the stars or their womb or anything else, but how they are taught their gender differences make them inherently 'worth less' than men' 

 

This Ideology is carried back throughout history, back into the furthest classical art, where men art shown as brave, strong and honourable heroes, where as women are shown as weak and onlookers to men's greatness. When this work carries on throughout history, it almost transcends culture and becomes a part of our nature, where women are almost born submissive, and men dominant, because of how long these roles have been assigned.

Influences and Behaviour: How to manipulate people and sell products.

As is becoming common, I have something of a foreword to add to these blog posts just to add a slightly less academic statement before we kick off with the intellectual studies.
This lecture makes us sound a great deal like terrible people, and I'm almost certain there are some graphic designers that aren't, I just figured that was worth mentioning.
Anyway, on with the writing.

This lecture was all about how we, as graphic designers, design around our audiences to influence their behaviours, so their reading to whatever it is we produced won't be opposed or negotiated, but rather preferred.

This is more commonly known as Manipulation: Changing someone else's actions and/or beliefs,       often without them knowing.

This concept was popularised after the second world war, when propaganda was no longer needed to stimulate the masses, men like Edward Bernays created Public Relations off the back of what was learnt, using the conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses to get results in marketing, and such.

One such campaign that focused heavily on this, produced by Bernays, was the 'Torches of Freedom' campaign, which ran tangential to the women's rights movement at the time, essentially using is as traction and associating the brand with it, meaning one would be synonymous with the other, at least in the public eye.

Another set of similar, public relation marketing campaigns were employed on during the run up to the 2012 London Olympics.

The first being the logo created to represent the London 2012 games. This logo was created by Wolff Olins specifically for the Olympics, and is constructed out of a series of natural earth lines. However, the reason it was designed as it was, and why it won the bid, was because the logo was extremely flexible, allowing for it to be modified in a wide variety of colours and animated in a series of ways, all the while remaining true to the brands using it, showing the importance of flexibility and modularity in designs and branding.

One of the brands that had won the London 2012 sponsorship was Adidas, essentially claiming the monopoly on all shoe based advertisement relating to the London Olympics... so Nike needed to find a way to tie in their shoes with the events, otherwise it'd be a huge wasted opportunity for marketing.

They way they did, was by finding sporting people, in other places called 'London', and filmed acts of 'greatness', in order to appeal to a much more broad identity of people. Runners, divers, fighters, women, men, races and creeds were all included and advertised to, leading to a near across the board capitalisation on their potential market during the games, all the while staying in line with their advertising restrictions placed on them by Adidas.

Finally, there are potential dangers when trying to manipulate an audience, specifically when you pass into the realms of 'Deception'

Red Bull fell into this trap when, after being taken to court, they stopped using the slogan 'It gives you wings', because no mental or physical benefit was found after consuming Red Bull, leading to a loss of money in legal fees.
Brands are designed to inform their products, which perpetually feeds back into the brand, creating exponential growth for both product and brand. However, exaggerating (or just flat out lying) about the truth, whilst can be initially affective, can create a dissonance between both your brand, product and the audience consuming it.


In conclusion, whilst manipulation and deception shouldn't be the intention for a campaign, they are still something worth considering when trying to market to a specific audience.
It is always easier to market towards (and be extension, manipulate) audiences when you understand their mind set. Why they think they way they do, feel the things they feel, make their choices, all of these things are important to consider when designing an advertising campaign.

Advanced Genealogies (Thinking about things, looking at things and understanding the things)

One very very important thing to note about this lecture; not only did it contain Futurama as one of its references to the theory, it also contained Batman. And if there was any way to make absolutely any subject more interesting or appealing, even more so than cartoons based 1000 years in the future; its by adding batman.

Now we have that cleared up, it's time we elaborated on Genealogies a little more (if for James' sake, if no one else's)

Last time we discussed Genealogies, it was a device for constructing out own ideas, and the benefits pulling and collating ideas has on the quality of a project. However, this time we were discussing how Genealogies can be used as a device for examining preconceived ideas; ideas who's histories we don't (and, as we will come to discuss, can never) know, trying to uncover the methodology, as well as the methods.

(This lecture and subject didn't come with much in the way of pictures,

so I've supplemented them with the genealogy of my favourite

Batman character: Jason Todd; The Robin who was made purely

to replace Dick Grayson, because people liked Dick Grayson, right?) 

(As if all these theory lectures feed into one another or something) The subject of subjectivity was brought up, along with Foucault's beliefs surrounding them, that concepts are something that we can create for, not only things that we ourselves create, things that have already been created. 
Subjectivity, in this way, is a tool. It's a way for us to form our own personal inquires that we have made on a subject, and for us to build and investigate upon when conducting our research.

Subjectivity comes with our own, personal, perspective. A singular, all encompassing perspective can not and never will exist; but our own perspective? That is always going to be unique, and is something that is worth exploring.

(Speaking of personal perspective, Jason Todd as Robin (Batman's sidekick) was

much more gritty and harsh that Dick Grayson. I, personally, am very fond of this

sort of character, as it creates a more realistic and abrassive dynamic between

Bruce, as an detached and distant adult, and Robin, a detached and distant teenager.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of people did no like this, so something needed to be donet.)

So, when it comes to writing about the Genealogies of other people, it's important we explain the angle and context of what it is we are talking about. Because absolute perspectives (or 'Universal Truths) do not exist, it is very important we define the area we intend to study, otherwise we will be left trying to define a subject from every angle, which is impossible.

This essentially means applying the relevant historical context to what it is you are talking about, the perspectives and events we didn't have access to, before we begin discussing our own subjective views. This context (or the contingencies) we use to define what it we discuss can only defined by us, through our own writings and methods.

(Much like, rather than discussing all of Batman, I chose to focus exclusively on a single facet;

The character of Jason Todd... speaking of which:

The audience of Batman at the time of publication pettitioned for Jason Todd's

character to be killed off. So DC held a phone in scheme, where people could pay to

decide his fate. The split was very close to 50/50, but the vocal minority were louder 

(voted more) and ultimately, rather than rework the character, DC simply killed him)

When we come to writing our responses, there is a very ineloquent way to go about it... at least, that's how I've chosen to record it and it makes sense to me;

If we thing of a thing, whilst we look at something, then whatever it is come to think and understand about that thing, is valid and relevant to our own, personal and subjective, view point.

In this vain of thinking, it's simply not the things that we choose to research that are important: It's how we think about the things we choose to research, and how we choose to explain and represent how and why we think this way, and ultimately what this may mean, if only on a personal level.

(Content to have its cake and eat it too: DC decided to bring Jason back from the dead

,breaking a long standing tradition that, along with Uncle Ben; Jason Todd stayed dead no matter what.

From here he became his own character, The Red Hood, The training and skill of Batman, but with no hang ups about killing people.

This, whilst frustrating from the view point of a character meeting a concluded end, reintroduces the gritty dynamic 

Jason and Bruce had, which I was very fond of, Only this time with the point of contention being 

Batman's biggest moral hang up, leading to a lot of intense (and often entertaining) confrontation)

The way we should be thinking, when writing our own, subjective, theories on topics who's histories are not ultimately or universally defined (I.E; all of them) is like we are paranoid. Believing like there is some overarching theory, and we only understand a fraction of it, when investigating a case study, is the way we'll end up producing the most interesting pieces of writing and analysis.

Finally, as a closing statement to cap this whole thing off:
The things that we think, when regarding our analysis into subjects, should simply be the foundations that we build our own subjective and personal theories that try and explain and account for everything going on within our case studies, both in terms of the study itself and whatever it is we think regarding that study.

(Don't worry, I'm nearly done talking about a comic book character on a graphics blog post.

  When discussing Jason Todd; I ultimately believe him to be incredibly flawed, both in terms as a character, who is abrasive and callous (not

to mention murderous), but in his inception and his real world analouge, that he was created a grittier replacement to the first Robin, simply to sell

more comics, and then brought back, literally, from the dead to try and make him popular with seemingly no regard to what the readership wanted.

However, this is also why I enjoy him so much. His character flaws only serve to make him more relateable and human (or as human as a zombie

batman character could be), and his rough conceptual history gives him something of a success story, when compared to his recent portrayals in

films such as 'Under The Red Hood' and games like 'Arkham Knight' (and maybe even Batman vs Superman, if the grapevine is to be believed), as well 
as his run as a solo hero in comics which has been ultimately praised for its story and art, makes him truly a character you can root for.

As such, Jason Todd is my favourite character, and I'm sorry I used this blog post as an excuse to talk about him.) 

The History of Graphic Design

Graphic Design, at least when compared to the other creative disciplines like Fine Art and Sculpting, is a very new subject and, as such, is somewhat easier to quantify in terms of its history (at least, somewhat.)


Graphic Design could be argued for being as old as humans have been sprawling art on walls, or since signs and banners have hung over market stalls and kingdom's armies; but if we were to argue that then we'd be here all day, so we're not going to.
Instead, we'll just mention that, with the invention of the printing press and the designing of typefaces to be used in these prints; the seeds for what we would come to know as 'Graphic Design' were sown, in the late 19th century.

From there, the 'Modernist' movement was born in the early 1900s, reflecting the form and strength of the established constructivism movement at the time, accepting and even embracing the truth in materials; that the tools you were using were all flat, and should be presented as such.

However, from this 'flatness' bore witness to several new distinct styles emerging from all over the world, reflecting the societal and political climate of the time.
Russian Constructivism was an attempt to reinvent the rules of visual communication, rejecting refined aesthetics in favour of dramatic and unconventional perspectives with vivid contrast with limited colour pallets. This was both a reflection of, as well as an effort to perpetuate, the rise of a worker's revolution at the time.

Constructivism helped play a major part in one of the most, if not thee most, visual styles of the modern day; The Bauhaus. Created from a school of thought in central Europe from 1919 to 1933, The Bauhaus characterises itself on its simplicity, abundance of white space, sans-serif typography, a move away from hand rendered illustration towards photography, and a distinct asymmetry in its layout.

This school of design was interrupted by the breakout of WW2 and, as such, the leading thought in graphic design was forced out of Europe into the United States, bringing the styles and teachings with them, creating the standard for the decades after the war.

This standard would later become known as Swiss design, known because of the advent of the world's favourite, and Swiss, font Helvetica, as well as the heavy reliance on grid systems for page layouts, reflecting the rise in corporate and capitalist thinking in the west during this time.

Permeating this entire timeline existed a slightly less mainstream and accepted approach to graphic design, known as dadasim, or simply 'often nonsensical experiments that tried to invoke emotions, rather than convey specific information', to give it its full name. These trends date back as far as the very late 1800s, and continued up until the 1970s until graphic designers began to tire of the rigid and simplistic nature of the designs they were creating, leading to the advent of Post-Modernism.

Post-Modernism sought to reject the imposed rules that Swiss and Bauhaus had imposed, choosing exuberance and exaggeration over form and informed design, a stylish mishmash of emotional response that cared less about what was being shown, but rather the way it was being shown.

 

And these two schools of though, the Modernist, Swiss and Bauhaus elegant design, and the more anarchic and emotional driven Post-Modernist design are what governs the world of Graphic Design today, with both still emerging in various places to varying degrees today.

However, due to the digital and information driven age we live in today, Modernist design's form and simplicity is resurging greatly, being implemented in interactive media, such as web-content as games, where the distorted and unclear nature of post-modernism would clutter and hinder the effectiveness of such content.

Week 1: Experimentation

After going out into the world and getting a few ideas here and there, I felt I had finally got some ideas on how to develop the sets of research I had created, as well as some artists I had researched.

One of the first, and simplest experiments I decided to develop was using the grid system as a construct for generating form; using a grid to create an image with shapes, essentially.

Overall it was a simple affair, but very visually interesting and unique in its own regard.

The next set of experiments I created were in regards to frames, or rather; turning objects into frames with hand rendered elements, namely shoes (could I make a more fragmented sentence?)

The first one was a very simple experiment, imitating the traditional and analogue 'double exposure' technique digitally, using masking and blending in Photoshop to give, essentially, the same output.
The idea behind it was I could create a great sense of depth and meaning by containing one image within another, creating an image with almost a narrative to it.
The experiment itself went very well, though it wasn't executed perfectly, and the technique itself, whilst interesting on its own, is very overdone and lacked originality.

The next illustration was inspired heavily by the pieces of work produced by Steve Simpson, framing simple illustrations and typography within a bigger construct, often one relating to the elements within it.
The initial idea with this was that I could introduce new elements of hand rendered illustration that weren't present previously, helping giving my experimentations a greater range of diversity to them and, overall, I was pleased with both the execution of tracing the shoes and then the building the illustration, as well as the end outcome.

(Steve Simpson Inspiration)

Finally, whilst I did create a variety of 'Scale demonstrations', little illustrations to help explain ideas behind scale, I didn't feel they were worth mentioning here, as they ultimately weren't going to contribute to the final output of my project (though they are still present in my sketchbook for when these concepts are going to be introduced).

One set of experimentations I did produce for this week, however, were to do with micro-macro and I felt had a much stronger baring to the project and how I wanted to develop it.
Using a wide range of 'buzz words' that relate to a specific place, I wanted to construct a much loarger element, in the form of my shoe. This was done with the aim to give the hand rendered illustration a sense of depth and personal feeling, as each word was unique and helped bring together the overall picture. This is also something I tried to bring forward with my method, using a fine-liner to painstakingly trace and add each element by hand (which took a long time) just added to those previously mentioned elements, culminating in a set of pieces I was, overall, very proud with.

A history of Subjectivity

Subjectivity is all about our responses. It's about how we respond and why respond, what causes us to respond to what we see.

It is dictated by as much our culture, as well as the things that happen to us. Subjectivity both relates not only to the subjects that we see, but also us, as subjects, and is mostly a product of the culture and society that created us.

The two main schools of though for how our subjectivity is thought about and perceived to work, comes from both the early 20th century Psychoanalysts, as well as the mid 20th century Social philosophers.

Sigmund Freud argued that, our ultimate understanding on subjectivity hinged on our understanding of out subconscious, that our subconscious dictates our needs and desires, and is only satisfied when it is relieved of these things.
In this way, it is perceived that anything that are subconscious deems as not meeting these requires is viewed unfavourably, whilst everything else, it.

With these revelations at the turn of the century, a new wave of futurist content swept across the western world, highlighting a possible link between cultural enrichment and scientific understanding.

The other school of thought, by people such as Michelle Foucault, believed that we become subjects of the institutions that we are subjected to, as well as the ones we subject ourselves to. These schools of belief saw knowledge and truths as more constructs that were built up to help strengthen the ideas already present in society.
He argued that, hysteria and other such 'illness' didn't exist, until psychoanalysts like Freud defined them.

Foucault thought that history was a much more organic and interpretive exercise, and that motivation and feelings are just as important, if not more so, than the facts themselves, believing that even failures and mistakes in history are a way to see as a result of a problem someone faced at the time.

These thoughts and practices are still carried on with modern day practitioners today, like Sarah Lucas, that believe a refusal to accept the lessons and histories of old prevents people who are negatively subjectified by them to resist conforming to their expectations, leading to much more enlightened and positive change in the world.

A Fantastic story about trying to get a placement.

The guest lecture with graphic designer and web developer Miles Thorp was, for better or for worse, the shortest guest lecture we've had. He made his points rather rapidly and with very little need for explanation, giving a lot of insight into his personal experience both trying to get onto a placement with an advertising agency, and becoming the one in charge of hiring future placementees.

Being a web developer at his core; Miles places a lot of emphasis on knowing how the digital advertising world worked, as the world we lived in didn't favour the traditional specialist any more, and that knowing as much as you can amongst as many disciplines as possible is the only sure-fire way to ensure you can remain employable in today's market.

Beyond this, a lot of the advice he gave was all practical.
You need to love what you do, you need to want to do it, otherwise there's no point
People buy people, especially in this industry. If you, as a person, aren't marketable? Then you have no chance in the industry as a designer.

Have a portfolio of your best work, structured to show the best of your best and nothing else, to really be the line in there.

And when you have that placement, you need to be the yes man. The one that can get things done and is there, as long as possible to get the job done.
You need to make sure you ask for that help, when you need it. You're part of a team, helping each other is what you are for

Cut up and Shut up

Wednesday's lectures never fail to impart some new, interesting information that will almost certainly benefit me somewhere down the line.... but this often pails in comparison in which the way that this information is imparted onto me.

The idea for this lecture was that, there were multiple ways to look at your work. That perspective is everything and maybe, taking a step back, reworking your work and being far less precious about what your produce can lead to much better work than you may have thought.

The way this was displayed was by going to town on a magazine with some scissors, and then putting them back together like some sort of Frankenstein's monster of art and design.

Here's what I made.

 

 The excise was all about the over arching theme of convergence, and how forcibly bringing ideas and techniques together can bring about amazing and unique results; and, in the case of the work about, it is very unique!

But, if I'm being honest, the biggest thing I learn was making a mess with paper was all fun and games until you need to clear it all up again.

Workshop Week: Cinema 4D

I know I could be pushing the formal to informal talk a little bit too close to the informal side, but I really enjoyed working on this, and I have plenty of personal stuff to talk about.

I've always wanted to work in 3D programmes: Video-game dev-kits, Modellers like blender or Animation programmes like Poser or Maya, they're just all a lot of fun.
It was just always a shame I never knew how to use any of them.

But, fortunately, I picked the Cinema 4D course and had an absolute blast learning the ins and outs of a piece of 3D software.

We were taught very simple tools and tips, how to make simple constructs and use tools to make elaborate displays and they all looked rather cool.

The first two things are things we were all taught how to do and everyone produced, the rest is all things I made as I continued to experiment.



Spinning Globe from Jack Coster on Vimeo.
 (This was done with the use of a cloner and a sphere, and the texture of an atlas used to exclude certain areas.)

 This was envisioned as something as a 'futuristic, holographic' crosshair that would all line up when they were aimed correctly. This was created with a combination of vectors from Adobe Illustrator and Cinema 4D, using a wireframe and extruded shape combination.

Workshop Week: Rotoscoping animation

During workshop week, I fancied exploring fields I wasn't amazingly versed in; namely, animation. So I signed up all the animation ones there were and went nuts.

Here's something they don't tell you about animation, at least to the uninitiated; animation, is soul destroying. It's like a leech of your happiness, a succubus on your will to live.... I just wanted to get that out of the way.

The actual process of creating the animation was very fun, though. The idea was to rotoscope a performance of a band member, who ran around the studio, singing to one of their songs. So I can't criticise it for being blasé.
Not to brag or anything, but I was the only one brave enough to record the singer with the camera. All the frames might not be mine, but everything that you see is ultimate because I did it!

That's right, I am taking complete responsibility of all of this work!
(i'm not.... completely)

Anyway. After the video was recorded, all the frames were broken up into singular pictures and printed for us to go wild on.... here are a couple of mine.

Essentially, everyone was given a select number of frames and we all illustrated over them, the individual designs lost amongst the frames but the constant of the person prancing around remaining consistent, creating a truly interesting and unique visual to go with the music.

(Also, the scanning in of over 500 frames... not everyone will know how painful that is.... but I can assure you, it is.)

And here is the final output.



Today, They Are Older Re-release Stinger from Sunbird Records on Vimeo.