Guest Lecture: Only Studio

Daniel and Matthew came in from Only studio and exhibited their work in an online portfolio format. I noticed how simple their designs where, with the use of san serif fonts and basic colour schemes.

In the lecture, they showed us the branding that they had produced for the festival the "lost village". I absolutely loved this as i am interested in festivals anyway, and this festival had a twist. The way Matthew and Daniel branded this new up and coming festival was very clever, and they defiantly thought of how the brand would be used socially. They created a very simple logo for the festival that would be easy for the general public to recreate. This will do a world of good in advertising the brand.

I like the logo for "lost village" as it is very simple and easy to replicate. It takes both the L and the V and used the typeface to create a logo with the letterforms crossing.

Matthew and Daniel also talked about how the they spent a lot of time creating the storyline behind the festival, which was to add character to the event and create a better experience for festival goers. The concept behind the back story is to give the feeling of the "woods coming alive". By adding this to the festival it may appeal to more people, or could be classed as a niche brand, as it has a very indie feeling about it.

The design of the website works well with the rest of the brand, as it embraces the handmade typeface that gives the festival an edge, with the crisp clean simplistic design that makes the website easy to navigate, and has a very nice aesthetic about it. The website acts as a hub for the brand, bringing all of the different elements, such as merchandise, tickets, and the story behind the festival together in one place. I like how they have made each characters backstory so accessible, and people can learn about their story, and then might see them when they go to the event itself. The whole brand as a whole works very well, and I am impressed with what Only studios have produced.

Animated Stig

For this session of process and production, we had to create a character in Adobe Illustrator, and used Adobe After Effects to animate the character. I also created the background in Adobe Illustrator. 


Animated Stig from Jack Pomfret on Vimeo.

I decided to add shadows to the illustration for the background, as I believe that this created more depth, and made the illustration more aesthetically pleasing. However, because of this, I had to add a shadow to the moving character that I have created.

This caused a problem, as I was not sure how to create a shadow in the shape of the character, which would also move to the movement. After struggling with this, i finally duplicated the character, and changed the colours to the same colour of the shadows. I then used effects in order to flatten the shadow to the floor. I believe that this worked very well, and I am pleased with the result of the animation.

Style

We started the seminar looking at the question "What is style?" The group came up with the definition; style is a group of things that are similar by sharing a common theme.

We watched a video, Moving on, Cornal West question and answer, focusing more on the style of clothes. However he says that clothes are not just clothes in their style, however it reflects a way of life. The way people dress reflects them, and what life they live. He dresses in an old style, dressing like an old jazz musician.

Henry miller gives a grounded explanation of his own style; "I invent, distort , lie, inflate, exaggerate, confound and confuse as the mood seizes me. I obey only my own instincts and intuitions."

Truman Capote claimed in an interview that a style is the "mirror of an artist's sensibility - more so than the content of his work"

Style vs Content: Can their be a content without a style? Can one act outside style?

Breuer believed in the "purposeful construction of logical designed objects" He believed that he was making logical decisions when designing the chairs, however he was designing them out of style in the time period.

Styles create an argument. There are style, style and more styles, and people may agree with some and not with others. Styles can be a form of opinion. What people like, and dislike. This can create an argument between two peoples opinions i.e two styles for example.


Structuring style; a style is a class which is made up of a set of attributes.

Drawing Objects

In the process and production session with John Kelly, we did inside drawing with objects. The first thing that we had to do was focus on perspective drawing with line. This was what i ended up with. It could do with some work, however it is in perspective to the objects that we were drawing therefore i believe that it was successful in that respect. 

We then had to focus on tone. For this exercise i was sat at the table with physical type. For the first experiment with this, i used a pencil and used different pressures on the paper in order to create the different shades. This was to create the 3d effect, with the shadows and light. 

I also had a go with coloured markers for this specific exercise. I found this difficult and it can defiantly do with some work. 

However the next task was to experiment with what we wanted, therefore in order to develop my marker skills i decided i would practice with that. I think that when using the grey markers i managed to produce a better result than with the coloured. 

Recap

In the seminar we had a recap of all of the things that we have gone through with James so far. This was very helpful as we went back over the key words and some of the areas that i had partially forgotten about. We went through these in a chronological order.

Firstly looking at ways to approach research. In this particular seminar we looked at the idea of 20 questions. This was so we are open to change with a call and response approach which would result in different aspects of research being looked into. This may help to develop a project further or help with experimentation.

We then recapped the convergence lecture. This was about different techniques and even practices, coming together in order to create something unique. This lecture was an exciting one, as it was more practical based. It included putting together different newspaper cuttings in order to produce a piece. However the main thing that i found exciting about convergence is the multi practice, with different create arts coming together in order to produce something unique.

Abstract and Intros was the next thing we recapped. This was about opening an essay in a concise and interesting manner. The main aspects of a good abstract is opening strong. These first lines are the ones that you want to draw in the reader with. An abstract should be concise and exact, with the use of clipped writing to do this. You should always remember your pace and ask the questions your reader needs.

Finally, we recapped the most recent seminar session. This was all about style. This asked the question; is there content without style? My answer to this is no. Style is a part of everything, it can be an opinion, a way of dressing, and a way of life. Even when someone says that it is styleless, that is a style within itself. Styles are made up of different attributes. It can be seen as an imaginary box and different attributes are added to that box in order to create a certain style.

We did not look at future genealogy again as this was covered in great detail at the start of the seminar sessions. Overall, the seminar was very useful and i believe that i understand the things we looked at a lot better than i did before the session.

Summary Seminar

We looked over the topics that we have already covered as a quick recap before finishing the first term. This helped me jog my memory of the things that we have looked at.

Style is one of the topics that really interested me when we looked at it the first time, and re visiting the subject made me think about the concept again and how style is such a huge thing in our lives, and people do not really notice it as much as we could do. The fact that everything could be classed as a style is interesting, and even styleless-ness could be classed as a style in its own right.

Narrative Design

In this lecture with Stephen, he explained how important it is to fit a narrative to design, as this is a way in which helps you as a designer to communicate an idea to the audience in a visual way successfully.

We were shown a diagram that is used to explain the different stages of a narrative. This was created by a man called Arther Quiller-Couch.

The diagram starts with Exposition and then moves onto rising action. There is then the climax which is the main part of the narrative that people remember. After this, there is falling action and then denouement.

I took AS Media at college and i remember looking at a diagram that resembled the one exhibited. I never really thought about applying this knowledge into design.

We briefly looked at a video on TOMS shoes. The video explained the story behind the shoes, and i was surprised by what i saw. The reason for toms being created was to help the children in Argentina who didn't have shoes. For every pair sold, one pair was given away to those in need.  Even the name "TOMS" is derived from "Tomorrow shoes" as this is what they were named, because they would be the shoes for the children in the future.

I think that this video is a brilliant example of how a narrative can help when designing, as it can tie a person into the product or service emotionally. The video exhibited below has been beautifully made and follows the narrative structure. I am defiantly going to look more into narrative when designing, as i think that this is something that could really help me to improve my design outputs and help me to reach a new level of quality that i have not managed to reach thus far in my design career.

Unlocking Innovation

The seminar started off looking at Albert Einstein as he is known to be an amazing thinker.  He once said that it is important how the question is framed. 5 + 5 = 10 however if you ask the question 'What two numbers add up to 10?" then this created a wider range of answers.

The task for the seminar was to create something that could be flipped in a visual way. We were asked to make a transformation from one word to the other in 9 stages. This could include using pattern, colour, type or imagery to merge the stages into a visual narrative.

This was the example used to show the stages from one animal to another. It was created by an artist called Ecsher. 

Guest Lecture: Territory Studio

Territory studios came to talk to us in a guest lecture, and I can honestly say that the work that was shown was absolutely incredible. The studio works on massive motion pictures with marvel for example. They created the graphic computer interfaces for The avengers Age of Ultron. Some of the UI's that they created for this film are absolute masterpieces, as can be seen below.


AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON [UI Reel] from Ernex on Vimeo.

They explained how illustrator, cinema 4D and after effects all work together in order to create this graphic and i was blown away by the amount of detail put into the designs. It is only a small studio, and one person would create an entire UI in one day. Starting on illustrator and cinema 4D in the morning to set up a framework, and moving to after effects for it to be animated later.

After looking at some of the things that Territory studios have produced, I think that i will take more of an interest in Cinema 4d, as i believe that this is a very powerful tool to learn hoe to use.

Abstract writing task

In order to create a new brand identity for Blackburn, which can be easily recognised, a number of elements need to be addressed which will come together to create the new image of the town. These will include; the colour scheme, typography and the logos for the different areas of focus; education, entertainment, council based documentation and advertising and religion. The different outputs will be exhibited, focusing on the different ways the new brand will be incorporated into the town.

I intend to create a booklet that maps out the brand guidelines, looking at what the brand should look like, how it should be used and where it should be used. This will include mock ups, showing the re-branding in the actual streets of blackburn. The desired outcome of the re-brand is to create a contemporary brand identity for the town, which can be easily recognised and will reflect the movement towards the future of Blackburn opposed to living in the past.