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Welcome To My Graphics Blog
Year One
Theory As Practice
Process and Production
Foundation Studio Practice
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Sunday, 7 May 2017
Sketchbook Lecture
In this lecture, we had guest lecturer Jay Payne talk about using sketchbooks in our practice. Here is the notes from the lectures:
Sketchbooks as research
A Bridge between Theory & Practice
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Exercise
Use your sketchbooks to make visual notes during the lecture.
Relax & do not censor this process.
This is not a drawing exercise but a doodling one.
My Practice
Graphic Designer,Technical illustrator & Motionographer
Many areas of work - difficult to define
Constantly evolving - Layers of paint – show Website - contextual portfolio
A Polymath - 'A man can do all things if he will' - (Leon battista alberti 1400's)
My Research
About - Visualising the Invisible
Starting point - Show Video
Now - Autoethnographic investigation of my sketchbooks
Moving towards - Meta Reality - Drawing things that dont exist
Theoretical Context
Confrontations with the Unconscious
Jung - 'Taking inner life seriously' - reinforcing the sketchbook
Mandala / Tarot as a device for mapping the inner world
Deleuze & Rhizomic learning
Discoveries
The difficulty of Research for Creative practicioners
Breaking the rules - A natural resistance to established dogma
Exploring the Nowhere (boundary) - the edges of the real - show Video
Solidity & Fluidity in my practice & thinking
Bergson - Metaphysics - stillness & movement
Eisenstien on Disney - Fluidity in animation. our fascination with the flame.
Zigmunt Bauman - liquid modernity - DIssolving established modernity
Relevance
How is this useful?
The importance of sketchbooks
The importance of Exploration & continued learning
Removal of solid thinking - the 'Am I allowed?'
So how do I get an A?
To sum up this lecture, we learnt that sketchbook is a very powerful way of working because you can jot down any ideas straight away. The process of is it wrong doesn't matter because it's all about developing the ideas. He showed us his website and went over all the pieces of work he has created/ Most of these are based on drawings in sketchbooks and a lot was just self taught. This was pretty interesting because the only technique was to use a sketchbook to begin with.
Sketchbooks as research
A Bridge between Theory & Practice
—————————————
Exercise
Use your sketchbooks to make visual notes during the lecture.
Relax & do not censor this process.
This is not a drawing exercise but a doodling one.
My Practice
Graphic Designer,Technical illustrator & Motionographer
Many areas of work - difficult to define
Constantly evolving - Layers of paint – show Website - contextual portfolio
A Polymath - 'A man can do all things if he will' - (Leon battista alberti 1400's)
My Research
About - Visualising the Invisible
Starting point - Show Video
Now - Autoethnographic investigation of my sketchbooks
Moving towards - Meta Reality - Drawing things that dont exist
Theoretical Context
Confrontations with the Unconscious
Jung - 'Taking inner life seriously' - reinforcing the sketchbook
Mandala / Tarot as a device for mapping the inner world
Deleuze & Rhizomic learning
Discoveries
The difficulty of Research for Creative practicioners
Breaking the rules - A natural resistance to established dogma
Exploring the Nowhere (boundary) - the edges of the real - show Video
Solidity & Fluidity in my practice & thinking
Bergson - Metaphysics - stillness & movement
Eisenstien on Disney - Fluidity in animation. our fascination with the flame.
Zigmunt Bauman - liquid modernity - DIssolving established modernity
Relevance
How is this useful?
The importance of sketchbooks
The importance of Exploration & continued learning
Removal of solid thinking - the 'Am I allowed?'
So how do I get an A?
To sum up this lecture, we learnt that sketchbook is a very powerful way of working because you can jot down any ideas straight away. The process of is it wrong doesn't matter because it's all about developing the ideas. He showed us his website and went over all the pieces of work he has created/ Most of these are based on drawings in sketchbooks and a lot was just self taught. This was pretty interesting because the only technique was to use a sketchbook to begin with.
This is an example of a mixed media sketchbook. It's just a visual example of what a sketchbook could look like. There isn't a rule where it has to be neat and professional, it can even be scribbles. It's a way of just letting you draw with no control over how perfectionist it has to look. I quite like the look of a sketchbook that is all rough because it shows that there's so much ideas, thoughts and considerations going on. It's a way of collecting those and just putting it down on paper.
Animation Heroes
In this lecture, we were looking at animation in depth. We began doing a quiz on Disney films. tv and games. Then looked into different types of animations and how it effects us and the theories behind each one.
There is a lot of controversy in some of these animations that we just never notice. For example, Yogi Bear lives in a safari park but steals picnics. We also looked at sofa satires such as Family Guy and The Simpsons which both are very popular and recognised. These shows tackles a lot of press in the news in their own satire way.
Then there was girl culture where there's franchises of cartoon characters such as Dora the Explorer which is an example that created merchandise and it's mainly about making money.
South Park is the uncut version of a satire, they deal with serious and bold subjects to pass on a message to the audience. It's very much always up to date with the news and they embed that in their show.
It was interesting looking at all these various examples of animations and how much we look into it as we're grown up. There is a lot of adult humor embedded within these cartoons which we never used to understand. There's also a level of animation of how realistic the characters can look. For example, Tomb Raider is an animation that looks very uncanny and realistic compared to Spongebob Squarepants which is just animated shapes.
There is a lot of controversy in some of these animations that we just never notice. For example, Yogi Bear lives in a safari park but steals picnics. We also looked at sofa satires such as Family Guy and The Simpsons which both are very popular and recognised. These shows tackles a lot of press in the news in their own satire way.
Then there was girl culture where there's franchises of cartoon characters such as Dora the Explorer which is an example that created merchandise and it's mainly about making money.
South Park is the uncut version of a satire, they deal with serious and bold subjects to pass on a message to the audience. It's very much always up to date with the news and they embed that in their show.
It was interesting looking at all these various examples of animations and how much we look into it as we're grown up. There is a lot of adult humor embedded within these cartoons which we never used to understand. There's also a level of animation of how realistic the characters can look. For example, Tomb Raider is an animation that looks very uncanny and realistic compared to Spongebob Squarepants which is just animated shapes.
Post Modernism
This is another catch up post on Post Modernism. This is a departure from modernism. This includes skeptical interpretations on a lot of subject matters. It's from the late 20th century and it's often associated with deconstruction.
Here is an example of Post Modernism. It is a very skeptical styled poster that is usually political. It's captioned with almost inappropriate terms and it's using different portraits as a mockery.
Here is an example of Post Modernism. It is a very skeptical styled poster that is usually political. It's captioned with almost inappropriate terms and it's using different portraits as a mockery.
Design & Emotion
This lecture was during my operation so here's a quick overview of what I've missed. It was about emotional and meaningful communication within design. There was a load of image illusions in the lecture that effect people differently. These are created with different colours, angles and patters that an eye cannot understand. We filter these and make sense of what's happening differently. Our eyes can deceive us. Here are some examples of illusion:
This is an example where we get tricked with the angle. Our eyes are deceived because the outline is a face on both sides. It looks like it's the center then from the left. There are many illusions out there and it's just a quirky way of understanding different perspective within graphic design.
Here is another eye tricking image where some people can read this. It's the right letters all jumbled up but our eyes process all this information enabling us to still be able to read this. As it says, if the first and last letters are in the right position then we are still able to read it all. That is how fast our eyes and brains react when we read something.
This is an example where we get tricked with the angle. Our eyes are deceived because the outline is a face on both sides. It looks like it's the center then from the left. There are many illusions out there and it's just a quirky way of understanding different perspective within graphic design.
Here is another eye tricking image where some people can read this. It's the right letters all jumbled up but our eyes process all this information enabling us to still be able to read this. As it says, if the first and last letters are in the right position then we are still able to read it all. That is how fast our eyes and brains react when we read something.
Type
Typeface or font? So similar yet so different. Typeface is referring to the design of the collection. Whereas font is referring to the collection of letters, numbers and symbols. In other words, fonts put together make up the typeface. In the lecture, we looked at Jan Tschichold's The New Typography which had some principles about utilising white space and having the element balance of symmetric for the font.
‘The physical embodiment of a collection of letters, numbers, symbols, etc. (whether it’s a case of metal pieces or a computer file) is a font. When referring to the design of the collection (the way it looks) you call it a typeface.’ – Mark Simonson, designer
I found the next bit interesting when we looked at Herbert Bayer's Universal Alphabet (1925). This font had no capital letters and looked very modern till this day. Bayer was a student at the Bauhaus school and created this in 1925. For some strange reason, the letters G and K was highlighted which we can't explain. The typeface was easy to read and it focuses on the geometrical shapes on the font. This featured the bauhaus elements of perfect circles and lines which was known through the Bauhaus research in the previous post.
29 WAYS TO STAY CREATIVE from TO-FU on Vimeo.
It is clear to say that movies and tv shows also use a lot of kinetic type for the opening and ending credits which we've seen examples of. Here are some independent examples of kinetic type I've been looking at:
Scream | Kinetic Typography from Nicolás Funes on Vimeo.
This kinetic typography was created based on the Scream franchise. They've selected the traditional phone call dialogues and created this kinetic video that interacts with the dialogue. I like the composition of this video with the colours of black, red and white which represents Scream. I selected this video because I grew up watching this franchise and it's great how you can tie interest with designs. This will keep my head open minded when it comes to doing work, relating it to me as much as I can.
In the seminar, we cut up these 10 shapes and created our own fonts. Here are some of the letters we created below during the seminar:
‘The physical embodiment of a collection of letters, numbers, symbols, etc. (whether it’s a case of metal pieces or a computer file) is a font. When referring to the design of the collection (the way it looks) you call it a typeface.’ – Mark Simonson, designer
I found the next bit interesting when we looked at Herbert Bayer's Universal Alphabet (1925). This font had no capital letters and looked very modern till this day. Bayer was a student at the Bauhaus school and created this in 1925. For some strange reason, the letters G and K was highlighted which we can't explain. The typeface was easy to read and it focuses on the geometrical shapes on the font. This featured the bauhaus elements of perfect circles and lines which was known through the Bauhaus research in the previous post.
Along the lecture, we started looking at kinetic type which I found interesting, seeing type visually pleasing with some animation and movement. This video below is one of the examples from the lecture that I liked the flow of. I thought this video was a good example to demonstrate how kinetic type works. This also ties in with our post and production workshops we do, experimenting on kinetic typography.
It is clear to say that movies and tv shows also use a lot of kinetic type for the opening and ending credits which we've seen examples of. Here are some independent examples of kinetic type I've been looking at:
This kinetic typography was created based on the Scream franchise. They've selected the traditional phone call dialogues and created this kinetic video that interacts with the dialogue. I like the composition of this video with the colours of black, red and white which represents Scream. I selected this video because I grew up watching this franchise and it's great how you can tie interest with designs. This will keep my head open minded when it comes to doing work, relating it to me as much as I can.
In the seminar, we cut up these 10 shapes and created our own fonts. Here are some of the letters we created below during the seminar:
Thursday, 4 May 2017
Typography Transcription - Final
We have here the last physical studio session with John today, and it's all about creating and finalising our font. I enjoyed the previous two sessions because I got to explore and experiment with different fonts and now I will create a full alphabet on just a singular font. So far I liked the simplistic, clean and symmetric look for my font so I will be using this theory and putting it into practice on my font. Here are the images for my final font:
The creation of this font went well. I used an ruler and grid paper to create lines that would form into each letter in the alphabet. I kept it symmetric and clean just how I wanted and I quite like the simplistic effect with the font. The grid paper helped drawing up this font because I was able to reference each point so I knew where to draw. It also helped me space it out equally so the aesthetics look pleasing. The rounded shapes like the O and Q were probably the toughest to do but I managed to do it nicely by taking my time and completing it in my own free time. This enabled me to get the best results with my font.
Monday, 1 May 2017
Cinema 4D
In today's last CC suite, we had Stephen introducing Cinema 4D. We started watching an introduction video that demonstrates how Cinema 4D is used in reality, and there was some amazing examples. It's used a lot in the design industry and it has a lot of different purposes you can use it towards. This is a show reel demonstrating how well Cinema 4D is used in the industry.
So in this workshop, we were going through different tasks and exploring the interface of this new software. Here are some screenshots below of some of the tasks:
This is a packaging task where we experimented with the interface, You can zoom in and out of the shot. The packages are made up with textures.
This is a little animation that was created of a cloner spinning. We changed some of the properties, added a light and made it our own. The animation I made will be down below.
This is the independent bit where we create our own text and make a short animation. I decided to use the word 'HYPE' perhaps because of the mood during this session. After all, we were just going with the flow and it was all fun and chilled. I liked the look of the 3D text so I will be turning this into some sort of animation.
Just before I decided to render my video, I added a texture and a gradient background which gives it a nice clean look. Using the texture and pattern just made the render extremely low. So I changed the settings to low resolution and rendered it eventually. Here are the two videos from the workshop:
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