Extended Techniques - Typography

We have been asked to look at some poetry and do something expressive with type with it. This site of Billy Collins poems made into movies fits the bill.

The treatment for Hunger is here & The best Cigaratte is here

PDP & Blogging

2006/07 College Year I did a total of 174 BLOG POSTS. Alan Summers said this was too much and more time should be spent on software, production and trying to enjoy it. He said not to just studiously following the course programme.

I agree entirely!

On entering my second year, I do feel that a bit too much time was spent in year one recording evidence of research, of ‘being seen to have looked at things’, showing the course leaders that you understand your chosen area of study. I recently got my grades back for the first year, and what revealed was this:

1 - I got far more marks than was necessary to pass my course. I could have passed and done less, meaning I might have been able to spend more time on what I now know to be more important.

2 – My results showed that I got the most marks for ‘Professional Studies’ and the more academic side. I had basically felt like I had too much emphasis on writing my blog, researching the industry and stressed out too much on things lie my critical studies essays. This area I was getting 70-75% area, where something like 45-50% would have been enough. I had personally felt like I didn’t make enough progress on the ‘doing’ or production side of things (by this I mean learning how to do the kind of things I saw in work I admired, getting knowledge with the tools used to make things happen). In other words, on a course which is called simply ‘Digital Media’, this means learning the software so that real creativity becomes viable. My marks for this kind of thing were more like 60%, which is also more then enough to pass, but by a lesser degree.

It has been good to learn about paperwork and stuff like that, and conceptual ideas are essential, but I feel on a course which is set up differently than a BA, where you simply pass or fail, I will spend the next 12 months really concentrating on the practical, production based stuff. I now have direction, and know which areas I wish to work in, so I will happily weigh my time in favour of learning the skills and packages I will need to know on the job. I will still actively research and enjoy looking at the design scene, but I won’t be spending all my time writing about it on my blog! There are only so many hours in the day and I have lots of other commitments such as work and a family to care for.

I plan to go onto one of the BA courses for year. I now know that what I want to do is design and be a ‘designer’. The base area to build on is simply graphic design, then this graphic design foundation is then applied to motion graphics, using Adobe After Effects. The other stuff on my course, such as Flash, CSS, coding/scripting I will not be doing. This means that in a perfect world I would probably be going onto the 3rd year graphic design course rather than a ‘Interactive Multimedia’ course, but the name probably isn’t too important, as I know what I want to learn and fully intend learning what I need to learn. I imagine that if there is an imbalance towards software and production (rather than critical studies and research), this may need to be balanced again better in the BA year (3) to help get a decent grade (I think a 2:1 or better is desirable). I still feel that isn’t as important as the portfolio, but I wouldn’t like to get a poor grade.

I hope in the next year I won’t get too swayed by academic stuff and college politics; this next year I want to simply get my head down and get good at design.

The Observer Brief - The Ident Approach

THE IDENT APPROACH:

There are some fantastic idents on some of the British TV channels such as Proud Creative and Universal Everything's collaborations for S4/C, BBC 1 and their newer idents, BBC 2, BBC 3, and the Channel 4 channels (including E4 and More 4) and even Channel 5 (or 'five' as it it is now known).

These type of idents are widely recognised as intelligent, progressive and inspiring in a world of slick but samey idents (which obviously are good for the broadcast design companies, real bread and butter work), and are already in the consciousness of the British psyche, as they are seen on the TV every day. I would have also thought that the kind of people who buy the Observer also watch these channels rather than ITV (which is in my opionion TV for common bogtrotters and idiots).

The Idents range from the cinematic, the high end 3d and many of them were highly likely to have been very expensive and time-consuming to produce. It looks like they go for some great ideas and simply see them through, which in the case of the BBC 1 idents can cost several million pounds to produce. My understanding of many of the smaller channels idents are that they are made more graphically as the production costs are greatly reduced; it is cheaper have a small handful of designers produce the work graphically and output them with Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects then it is to set up a big HD shoot.

I do think there is still scope to work some good ideas cheaply, and think for the Observer they would need a good graphic plot with enough flexibility to use either on it's own or in combination with footage. Without knowing much about budgets it would be a vcase of speculation and best guessing.

Observer Brief - Research

This post will be used to place links and research relating to the Observer brief.

Here are some relevant links:

NY Times Magazine Online and The New York Times Video Site.

The New York Times is widely recognised and revered by Art Directors and readers as being the best magazine supplement about (in the English speaking world). The Art Director Simon Esterson (renowned for editorial art direction) wrote a piece in the September issue of Creative Review.

Their site has lots of great content, links and videos such as this . These all utilise the trademark NY Times typographic logo (A heavy blackletter), animated as a lead in for many of the pieces. Many examples can be found here. The NY Times utilises a handful of simple animated idents made out of the Blackletter logo at the start of their videos on thier website. I am hoping to try something similar with the Observer logo, although from time spent on studying the OM print magazine, it might not be so straight forward if the correct typeface can't be located.

THE OBSERVER MAGAZINE:

The current format for the OM consists of a few typeface families from the ITC library: Lubalin Graph, Avant Garde and another decorative serif face which is very similar in character to Tiffany, but the one the Observer uses has a larger x-height, horizontal serifs and more contrast (a bit like Bodoni). This is used for the main logo on the front, and also throughout, so it would be nice to able to match it exactly, but as time is of the essence, I think the Tiffany face will do the job if it has to. (Failing that I could scan the logo and trace it in Illustrator)

The other faces (Lubalin Graph and Avant-garde) look like the versions I have, although they do utilise everything from light to heavy fonts, and both upper and lowercase for display and headers. There is also a serif font for much of the body copy, but this is never used for anything big, so I doubt very much that this will make any difference for any motion graphics, as they don't feature much copy.

The Magazine is primarily aimed at the liberal broadsheet reading market, a more educated reader most likely to be middle class and I would have though a 25 year old and above age range.

The content and format is a mixture of lifestyle, articles, commentary, adverts, interviews, reports and the arts. The format has interchangeable parts, but many features remain the same from week to week. This gives it a structure and regularity, but also flexibility.

Other Relevant links:

Newsdesigner Blog

Piece on the redesign here in The Gaurdian.

Designer Mario Garcia on the redesign

to be followed up

FINANCIAL TIMES ADVERT



The new TV work has been created by DDB London and uses a mixture of CG animation and live footage in a series of vignettes. The concept is to explore and highlight the ways that business influences different aspects of modern life in unexpected ways and to reinforce that the world now lives in Financial Times.

The television advertising is a further extension of the ‘We live in Financial Times’ campaign, which was launched on 23 April through a range of outdoor and digital channels, including poster sites, branded taxis, online advertising, point of sale activity and direct marketing. The campaign communicates the unrivalled print and online editorial content of the Financial Times.

MY VIEW ON THE FT ADVERT:
I have watched this advert several times, and find myself increasingly impressed. Inital viewings had me looking out for the look and feel, the graphics and production (a mixture of 2d, 2.5d and 3d animation - most likely designed on paper, then a mixture of Photoshop, Illustrator, before more developed production in After Effects and some kind of 3d package).
What really makes this piece work is its great narrative and a great link between the link between images (and dialogue). It engages the sight and sound senses, then links all the ideas and areas covered before resolving inside a copy of the Financial Times, coupled with the campaign's headline "We live in Financial Times". My description doesn't do this spot justice, so I strongly advise watching it a few times.

I have also seen plenty of virals/ads for magazines, which are generally based around a big idea. Examples are for Marvin, a cult-rock magazine from Mexico. There are alternatives here as well as similar viral/idea based ads for The Times here.

OLD GUARDIAN ADVERT:



This old Guardian advert uses ambiguity, by making you think one thing, then showing it from another angle to show a very different view, then shows another final angle on the scene to give you 'the whole picture', you fully understand what's really going on. This is a great idea, that would still work today.



This spot for the Guardian was made in 2006 by DDB London to relaunch their new Berliner format and redesign. The advert is very much motiongraphics and 3d based.

ANOTHER GUARDIAN AD



I have some related ideas for the Observer. I researched "observer" on the net and found some physics theories relating to the observer here (the word, not the paper):

My main thesis is that everything we observe and consider to be real is in fact related to our very particular local and personnal experience. Let's start with a simple thing like a rainbow. The rainbow is only perceived because we (or our eye) is only occupying a particular point in space. For us personally, the rainbow is there but not necessary to another person and in addition, no person can see the same rainbow (because we are at different locations). Can we say that the rainbow exist ? The only thing we can say is that it exists in the eye or mind of a particular person.

Similar things happen in relativity. Time dilatation and length contraction are only seen by a particular observer and not by another. Do electric fields really exist ? For a moving observer, they transform into magnetic fields. So, is there really an electric field ? The question is always the same. Yes, it has some kind of reality but only to a particular observer.

Now, let us look at the more complex situation of an accelerated observer in a vacuum (with virtual particles). According to quantum mechanics, he will find himself to be surrounded a warm gas of real particles (the Unruh effect). So, it seems that even the reality of particles is related to a particular point of view. In the end, one is led to the conclusion that really everything we observe and feel is a consequence of our particular place and state in the universe. Because we, as an observer, are always located at a limited point in space and time, the universe looks complicated to us. We see all kind of things, which we think are real, but which only exist because we exist.

The result of our local presence is that we have to come up with physical, complicated, laws to relate different events at different places and times. Suppose, one would be an "observer" which could observe everything simultaneously and at every different point in the universe (think of God), then the universe would probably look extremely simple since nothing would be distorted by a symmetry breaking local point of view. So, even if we humans, do our very best in understanding nature and explore it for many of thousands of years more, we will always be confined to theories and concepts which will not allow to see the global picture.

A Quote by Joseph Dispenza on manifestation, reality, observer, desire, awareness, physics, and identity

We have to formulate what we want, and be so concentrated on it, and so focused on it, and have so much of our awareness on it, that we lose track of ourselves. We lose track of time. We lose track of our identity. And the moment we become so involved in that experience, that we will lose track of ourselves, we lose track of time, that picture is the only picture that is real, and everybody's had that experience when they've made up their mind that they've wanted something. That's Quantum Physics. That's Manifesting Reality. That's The Observer To The Full Effect.

Bertrand Russel

“The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself.”

There are lots of quotes relating to the observer and Quantum Physics here

Some Observer ads here:











I HAVE A SOEM IDEAS THAT COULD FEED OFF THESE MONTY PYTHON TITLES

Extended Techniques - Typography

My extended technique area is typography. We have been looking at other ways of using type, creating our own.

The idea is to get some meaning into the words so that they don't simply look like 'cold/dead' type, an emotional attachment. This can later be used to make a piece, which can be animated or in print. We were given some poems suggested to us by Richard Brautigan, which are quite interesting. I want to use this one by the Modernist painter and poet ee cummings:

ygUDuh

ygUDuh

ydoan
yunnuhstan

ydoan o
yunnuhstand dem
yguduh ged

yunnuhstan dem doidee
yguduh ged riduh
ydoan o nudn

LISN bud LISN

dem
gud
am

lidl yelluh bas
tuds weer goin

duhSIVILEYEzum

ee cummings

The poem is the inarticulate stumbling of a New Yorker in a bar, trying to explain America's involvement in WW2 and having to restart his explanation over and over again until he finally puts it in terms he himself understands. It reads (de-New Yorked!) :

You've got to...

You don't understand...

You don't know...
You understand them...
You've got to get...

You understand them dirty...
You've got to get rid of...
You don't know nothing...

Listen, bud, listen...

Them goddam

little yellow bastards
We're going
To civilise them.

You can read it as the words of a good but uneducated man, struggling to tell someone why it is necessary to do something he knows in his heart is right. Or you can read it as the words of an arrogant fool who simply reveals the shallowness of his own understanding. Or you can read it as the words of a sincere but unsophisticated working man, caught up in the propaganda of war. I'm sure there are many other slants one can put on it. However you read it, the sobering effect of 'Weer goin duhSIVILEYEzum' eventually emerging as his understanding of the reason for going to war is profound.

Quite possibly one of the greatest poems of the 20th century.

The only problem is that I have been unable to locate an audio reading file. I found that there is one in existence, but it isn't easy to find. I could try getting my own recorded.

It is also noted that ee cummings often set out his poems in a certain way (see graphic above). The way the lines were written draw the sahpe of a soldier.

ALTERNATIVES:

I don't know how easy it would be to get a recording of a reading of ee cummings poem, so I have been thinking of other options. I am quite a fan of the Kings of Leon, and their track "Chamer" appeals. There isn't the same linguistic appeal as the ee cummings thing, but it has a fantastic delivery; screamed out at times, and the singer sounds unhinged and manic. He also times his delivery in an interesting way.

For the final thing I had in mind I think that it would possibly be too much work for me alone to finish the whole song (even though this song is only two minutes in length), but I can visualise the first half in my head.

These are the lyrics:

She's such a charmer oh no.
She's such a charmer oh no.
She's always looking at me.
She's always looking at me.
She's such a charmer oh no.

She's stole my karma oh no.
Sold it to the farmer oh no.
She's always looking at me.
She's always looking at me.
She's such a charmer oh no.

Born in west virginia oh no.
Married to the preacher oh no.
Shes always looking at me.
Shes always looking at me.
Shes such a charmer oh no.

Shes always looking at me.
Shes always looking at me.
Shes such a charmer oh no. oh no.

and the song is available on iTunes.

Balancing PDP stuff with practice

On entering my second year, I do feel that a bit too much time was spent in year one recording evidence of research, of ‘being seen to have looked at things’, showing the course leaders that you understand your chosen area of study. I recently got my grades back for the first year, and what revealed was this:

1 - I got far more marks than was necessary to pass my course. I could have passed and done less, meaning I might have been able to spend more time on what I now know to be more important.

2 – My results showed that I got the most marks for ‘Professional Studies’ and the more academic side. I had basically felt like I had too much emphasis on writing my blog, researching the industry and stressed out too much on things lie my critical studies essays. This area I was getting 70-75% area, where something like 45-50% would have been enough. I had personally felt like I didn’t make enough progress on the ‘doing’ or production side of things (by this I mean learning how to do the kind of things I saw in work I admired, getting knowledge with the tools used to make things happen). In other words, on a course which is called simply ‘Digital Media’, this means learning the software so that real creativity becomes viable. My marks for this kind of thing were more like 60%, which is also more then enough to pass, but by a lesser degree.

It has been good to learn about paperwork and stuff like that, and conceptual ideas are essential, but I feel on a course which is set up differently than a BA, where you simply pass or fail, I will spend the next 12 months really concentrating on the practical, production based stuff. I now have direction, and know which areas I wish to work in, so I will happily weigh my time in favour of learning the skills and packages I will need to know on the job. I will still actively research and enjoy looking at the design scene, but I won’t be spending all my time writing about it on my blog! There are only so many hours in the day and I have lots of other commitments such as work and a family to care for.

I plan to go onto one of the BA courses for year. I now know that what I want to do is design and be a ‘designer’. The base area to build on is simply graphic design, then this graphic design foundation is then applied to motion graphics, using Adobe After Effects. The other stuff on my course, such as Flash, CSS, coding/scripting I will not be doing. This means that in a perfect world I would probably be going onto the 3rd year graphic design course rather than a ‘Interactive Multimedia’ course, but the name probably isn’t too important, as I know what I want to learn and fully intend learning what I need to learn. I imagine that if there is an imbalance towards software and production (rather than critical studies and research), this may need to be balanced again better in the BA year (3) to help get a decent grade (I think a 2:1 or better is desirable). I still feel that isn’t as important as the portfolio, but I wouldn’t like to get a poor grade.

I hope in the next year I won’t get too swayed by academic stuff and college politics; this next year I want to simply get my head down and get good at design.

Curfew Records 006

I still pay the bills by making dance music (when i get chance), running a record label and DJ'ing. The music thing is a joint venture with Matt Thomas under the name "King Unique", and we release the records on our own label Curfew. Curfew and King Unique will act as a running work experience thing for me, that can be done alongside other work placements and college work. I hope that it will be a place where I can test out ideas and experiment a bit outside of the college system.

King Unique and the Curfew label is a joint-venture, and my partner in that business Matt is generally quite opinionated in what he likes, and isn't perticularly easy to deal with. This can be slightly frustrating at times, as I am still fairly new to this, however I'm hoping this is good experience for dealing with clients in future.

This is a graphic for our next release "Yohkoh" (Japanese for 'Sunbeam'). It's still not up to the the kind of standard I'd like to be able to get to, but it is very encouraging to have improved so much and learnt many new techniques since last year, when I couldn't even get this kind of thing together at all. I plan to use the Curfew jobs as a chance to experiment with styles I would use later, learn techniques and develop my Illustrator and Photoshop skills for storyboarding.

ARDF 214 - Career Development - Work Placement

I have set up my own work placement this summer at BDA Sydney (Formerly known as Bruce Dunlop Sydney). BDA are a broadcast design group with offices in London, Sydney, Dubai, Singapore and Munich. I wasn’t sure exactly what I would be doing, but decided that if I simply made cups of tea and hung out I’d still benefit.

BDA covers idents, interstitials, branding, identity (conceptual/creation/production), title sequences, general graphic work used in-between and with TV programming and post-production primarily for broadcast networks across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, India and Australia and New Zealand. The Sydney office is less than a quarter of the size of their London office, and the company consists of a Business Director Jill Munt, Creative Director Jens Hertzum (on vacation whilst I was there), several designers, a couple of compositors/editors, a couple of office/production manager and staff and an IT specialist. The staff were from all over the world, with only 2 Australians there, amongst 5 British, 2 German interns, a Bulgarian designer etc (Sydney is multicultural!).

Whilst I was there, the company were working on a number of projects, some of which had been underway for some time and of which I had limited knowledge of (a huge project for Indian TV which was taking place on the other side of the floor I was working on), as well as a new identity and graphics for Channel 7’s breakfast news program ‘Sunrise’ (similar to BBC Breakfast), and they were just starting on re-branding Sky TV’s main channels for New Zealand (amongst other jobs being juggled).

I was ‘apprenticed’ mainly to designers Jason French and Will Skinner (two British guys), and was brought in on the New Zealand Sky job. The main channel was going to be split into different demographics, so they would be doing a male orientated channel and a female one, for the age groups of 18-30. This job was unusual as there was no real brief, just a copy of an email between the creative director Jens and the Sky TV guy (these had worked together many times before). Another unusual aspect was that they hadn’t yet decided on a name; several were mooted both by Sky and Jens. Sky’s choices were a ‘bit naff’ (the box, XS, unleashed etc), and Jens’ names were better – Dog (man’s best friend etc) or Dog TV, and Chief.

My week at BDA from here was spent almost entirely on research and logo design to explore these concepts further. The name issue wasn’t easily rectified, so many option were tried, with all the designers spending a day or two having a go at a name each (this isn’t something that always happens as it is more work than is the norm, but this client puts a lot of work their way so they needed to show them some ‘love’). The entire team of designers worked on simple black and white shapes in Illustrator, as this is the process (these things need to work in black and white as a basis, then later worked into colour, 3d, put into motion etc). The idea was that by thinking visually and exploring the graphic possibilities of each name and presenting the best ones to Sky, it might help them decide on a the name and the project can move forward, and get made and paid for.

I learned that all the designers there had done graphic design degrees, and many had worked in print prior to learning After Effects. A motion graphics designer (or ‘broadcast designer’) generally needs to be a great graphic designer as a base skill, then also be able to work in After Effects from there. It is normal for these guys to start form nothing, maybe a simple 2 sheet brief and be able to work from concept, to initial design, make the logo, then design a load of other stuff from colours, type, formatting, screen layout to the array of motion pieces needed for a particular job (the ‘Sunrise’ job required about 50 separate movies to be created for the various backdrops, interstitials, idents etc). It is also common for the designers to be required to provide print versions of these things, which can be made onto huge posters or huge physical images to be used at presentations, installations, conferences, launch parties etc. It would be fair to say that by only being there for 5 days, I was only able to witness a few aspects of what they do, but much of the After Effects stuff is beyond my current understanding, so it was probably no bad thing.

To conclude here, I felt that this work placement was extremely valuable to me, and answered many of the questions and doubts I had over the past few months. I saw what goes on in the basic field I want to go in, and this has in turn helped me work out what’s important, and where I need to be in 12 months time. I plan to do another work placement next summer, for as long as possible, as I feel without this, my development will be too slow, and possibly misdirected.

The course I have been on (Digital Media), whilst good, covers (too) many aspects. Whilst it has been good that I have been able to get a small taste of all these, I don’t think it’s possible to do loads of separate specialities. I have many friends in the design business and these along with the designers I befriended at BDA Sydney, they all said whilst it is good to have more skills, it isn’t possible to do everything well: what I mean here is that for example, a broadcast designer will have to be a very good designer/illustrator/image maker, then also have to know something like After Effects (which is a huge and very ‘deep’ program). It would also be desirable to know 3d. Other areas of speciality could be 3d (BDA Sydney had a 3d guy who did solely 3d all day every day), editing (Final Cut or Avid). Other specialties (not related to this placement, but related to my college course) from this point could be web design and development, Flash Designer, film, illustration etc. Most of these would require more then one skill, and to be any good and worth something to a future employer, you would need to be good at your thing. A specialist.

My plan next year is this: to work as hard as I can on graphic design, and make a start on After Effects. The plan is to get my design skills up to scratch, get very good and very fast on Photoshop and Illustrator, work on concepts and storyboards (These were a big thing at BDA – a job might be worked up as roughs on paper, but the storyboards were often required to win pitches. The storyboards were then developed on Photoshop and Illustrator showing what are basically stills from the final job, keyframes, with the design, colour, everything that will be in the final piece all done to the highest standard. When these are given the green light, the production work is done from there. (in many ways 75% of the work is now done). Whilst I am working on this, I will be looking at as many tutorials and Lynda.com movies on After Effects, to try and get my head around the concepts and what can be done in this package. Many of the components of After Effects are in PS and AI, such as transparency, masking, effects and filters, so these need to be learned. I hope to get a working knowledge of AE by the end of the 2007/8 college year. Jason French at BDA recommended I take a 1 week intensive AE training course to really get to grips with the program. (These cost a few hundred pounds, and are only any good if you already know the basics. They are usually a group of 8-10 students of a similar standard, all spending intense 9 hour days going through everything – then Jason said in the evenings you have to make yourself practice all the things you learned that day to make sure you understood). The idea behind this is after this 1 week course, you should be able to basically do it, and you can start doing little jobs, working on little freelance things, and start building a motion portfolio.

If I can achieve this, plus do a work placement for longer next summer (at least 4 weeks is desirable) – this means that in my 3rd year, my BA year, I will know what I am doing a bit more, and can work towards getting a good grade and portfolio and be ready to get a real job in Summer 2009 (I will be 38 years old then, so it’s about time!). This for me has to happen, as I am currently juggling DJ work with studies, and I NEED to get a regular job and move forward. I need to be home at weekends, and be a proper Dad!

NB - I made a good impression with BDA, and was offered a return placement if I was ever around Sydney again, and I reckon I could get a placement sorted their London office in future.