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