Guest lecture: Designers Republic

Ian from designers Republic

First project for design company was a band album cover design called age of chance. They produce a lot of work for architecture called 3D-2D, they were interested in the difference between 2D and 3D and how architecture can be influential and inspiring.  Then they did aim low and miss, it's a project to show that failure isn't a bad thing, it could be turned into something great. Au techre was a music company the design Republic have worked with and created these pieces to celebrate that and the way it's done it's to show the future of music and design so it's suppose to infer a techno style of music with the typography and the colours.

The people's bureau, the bands they worked for they did a lot of merchandise for and one of the things that inspires them is consumerism and so they decided to make there own merchandise and set up an online shop and they just did it to see what the response would be like.  And it became successful and then they decided to open up a shop in Tokyo.

Coca cola, they called the design Republic to do a job for them and work on a project which would help coca cola revisit the past of like the 60's and 70's, in 80's it became more about marketing and making as much money as they could and they had no equity with the brand anymore and to build that back they wanted to do this project.

They produced a pice of work called echo city, which was part of a competition. It was information about Sheffield and why the deign Republic love Sheffield city. So it's about how in the war architects echoed the city with light in moorlands so German bombers would get confused.

They produced sissy for a cover of an emigre magazine which used lots of layers and things from the city, sissy was a character which was a little girl with a baseball bat.

They produced a an exhibit in Japan which looks awesome and on every wall there was a piece of work. And it was blown up rearlly big to fill each wall and it looks awesome.

Typographic: I Am ...

Here I decided to try some different styles of typography I could think of and I decided that I'm going to make my type by filling the space around it to make the shapes of the letter.

Illustrator: Cereal box

Cereal box character layout

Cereal box front page Layout design, below is the size and net for producing my own cereal box.

Below is some screenshots of important things I needed to do in my process to making the cereal box.  Here it shows how to get rulers on so the page can be measured and can help with aligning things.

This is my scanned in sketch of my cereal layout.

Here I used the levels tool to adjust my scanned in image 

Rob Session: Manifesto

A Design Manifesto

We, graphic designers, art directors and visual communicators who have been taught old methods of art and design to produce work to pay the bills not to change the world of art and design. Commercial work has always paid the bills and this belief is taught by teachers. Graphic designers have now let it become, in large a measure, what graphic designers do. This is turn is how the world perceives design. This must be challenged by other perspectives expressed, in par, thought the visual languages and resources of design. This will promote new inventions, new methods, a new world of graphic design. Consumerism is taking over the world, we need to challenge this as designers and then keep a balance.

After Effects: street handstand

Street Handstand from louise fielding on Vimeo.

Recap on rotoscoping:

It is a tracing effect process that is used to create an animation, it's when a foreground figure is taken out of its original background and imposed onto another one. The process involves tracing around the figure frame by frame until you have enough frames to create a smooth looking animation.

Some reasons to use this technique:

- It is more of a technical process which may appeal to some people as it's another way to animate and experiment with footage. 

- On the other hand some may hate the time taken to create the end result, but they may like the aesthetic that is produced which may influence them in deciding to use this process. 

I had to chose a second worth of moving image and then to get it to loop i had tp use the stretch tool which is shown below. 

 I had to check theat on the preferences the 4th or 5th one down was ticked off. 

 I made keyframes at the start and end of the footage i selected, on the time remap setting.


  

 



 The picture beow shows that i used the pen to go round the person i videoed and i had to do this at a certain keyframe, and then adjust the lines to fit around the body at each key frame i made










 


I pressed on the little play button next to the time remap expression thing and then clicked property and clicked the loopout duration this was to make the 1 second worth of footage to loop for the whole video.




If we wnted to we could make the thing we cut out with the pen tool into a certain colour and to do this all you had to do was create a new layer as a solid. Then change the the setting of the sold layer to alph matte roto. This is shown below.

Then i imported my illustrator file i created for the background.

After Effects Workshop: loops and living holds

Loops and Living Holds Workshop from louise fielding on Vimeo.

First of all i created an illustrator file and i made sure that every addition to my character was on seperate layer. This allows the animation of those seperate layers.

I also chose some textures to be put in my video at the end for the background. I got these textures off free texture websites.

In after effects, I created a new composition, imported my illustrator file, then animated each layer to my preference with the key frames and stop watch and using the rotation tool. I learned how to use the wiggler tool on the glasses which makes the key frame process as it does the rotation of the key frames automatically in time you want it to move. Then i imported my textures dragged them down in the composition window and messed around with them until i got the textured background i wanted.

I enjoyed making this video because it is kind of comical, and it could be useful for the future and adds to my growing knowledge of animation, i need to use thses skills ive learnt and improve the way apply these techniques to my work to improve the outcome.

Robs session: Personal Interpretation

We got into groups of 4 and Rob gave us a task of looking at 2 different set of games one was called the beach and the other was the perfect circle. the perfect circle we had to create a circle we thought that was perfect by taking turns but it didnt say when to stop. The beach game we had to create a crowded space with placing dots on the paper and decide when to stop. Following these instructions to create the pieces below. This linked in with the other book i read about a piece of work being open. with the instructions we all interpreted the instructions in our own way and maybe added some more rules to follow by, and even though we all had the same task our outcomes looked completely different. Therefore this task was open but also closed as a set of instructions was already given the interpretation was the openess aspect of the mini project.

The Beach

A Perfect Circle

Client Communication

Communication issues

Sender
Message
Encode
Transmit
Decode
Receive  don't understand or understand

If they understand you can agree accept and store or you can disagree reject and bin it.This links in with buyer information.

When you transmit it sometimes there's noise and interference,

External environment has to be considered for the sender encode decode and receive platforms.
Sender; consider co./ org ethos reason for comma marketing PR advertising.
Encode; consider message package the style tenor or weighting. There's the channels wether product is more then one thing a magazine cinema ambient etc and vehicle
Decode; mood immediate, attitude specific, cultural general affect culture.
Receive; accept behaviour models, no action and action, retain

Go on to BRAD and DCM for talking to people within the industry and magazines books and journals for advertising world and for cinema/ film world.

You need to make sure that we separate people into age groups as there mental behaviour changes, and take into account of the different types of lighting, because when our approach a client the product your producing will be placed in a certain light so you have to be able to pick the right colours for the audience to be able to see the advert or product properly.

Brand Republic it gives you information of what's happening now in branding, advertising, film and media industry.

Crafts arts visual and geometric are what creative people genuinely have in education and our thinking style is holistic lateral synthesis and solution led. We are innovative, diverse and experimental. In client meeting you need to be defiant and confident about why you've created the things you have.

Can art and design be taught?

The early classical mode of teaching was to produce geometric and beautiful-modernists pieces of work, later on there came a contemporary art schools, they love the investigation of meaning and being independent artists from the state, and the students have there own unique style.

Bauhaus 1919-1933, there was emphasis on perceptual experimentation coupled with commitment to universal principle, they wanted there students to increase sensitivity to phenomena, and belief in formal and universal rudiments of practice and the resistance to theory. Sometimes there's a cross over between Bauhaus and black mountain college because they were interested in the same concepts mainly material problems.

James Elkins

He was an early speaker of the academics research in the arts.

In 1991 the higher education act, it amalgamated colleges and uni's, which generated a lot of noise and had a narrower conception of knowledge. Then Elkins comes along with his two books called "artists with PhDs" and "why art can't be taught" where he says that art is an irrational activity and he celebrates this idea as it operates as a cultural critique. However he says what does art have to do with university anyway. There is an emphasis on the issue of irrationally and rationally drive his approach and opinion. He says the crit situation is a form of psychodrama and this can be really emotionally charged, one thing you can do is be quiet and let the tutor babble on, or you can be really confrontational which makes the tutors job hard and maybe sometimes can go badly of you can have the positive mediation, for example explore concept of "lightness" from kitsch, so trying not to take the critique so hard as it's not important as you think it is. Kitsch work doesn't have a serious agenda so the concept of the kitsch its used as an insult but can be good for post modernism. Lions tries to use this idea of the psychodrama and starts to try and apply it to art school teaching and its still applicable today in a studio situation of work. He thinks that painting and alchemy is an irrational way of  working but it's really beautiful and its the only way to really have something different as its unstructured.

He's making the case of art cannot be taught but if the practice of art can't be structural taught them what can, so art can be taught but nobody knows quite how, maybe art can be taught but few students become outstanding artists great artists have dropped out of institutions. What does get taught that can be fit into a curriculum is mainly the theory of history of art, criticism and philosophy, visual acuity, how to get along in the artworld (professional practice. Elkins thinks that teaching is actually directed towards the reasons that we we value art not art itself things like expression, control, self-knowledge and meaning. These are vague concepts that depend on silent learning as opposed to learning a set of rules.

Emigre and Octavia

Emigre magazine (1984-2004)

It was a typography magazine, we want to complicate the question of modernism and post modernism. Octavia and emigre had different astetics. Emigre was a landmark publication on the graphic design scene because it was trying to do something completely different with type, the founders was rude vanderlanda, Dutch and Susan's licks, Czech. They named it emigre because they came from different countries and this showed the clas of cultures.  There original intention was to focus upon liminality. At the time of emigre came around at the same time as the technology boost, when the Apple Macintosh was "born" . Emigre exploited the quirks and possibilities of software to produce a new innovative design language.

Emigre was a digital type foundry. They sold typefaces developed for the magazine. The critics of emigre includes massive viginelli, Stephen heller and David Carson. Viginelli said its a national calamity and an aberration of culture. Heller said it is a blip in the continuum and cult of ugly. Carson said it was too readily identifiable and therefor unusable. Beach culture magazine published an issue with a cover line that boasted no emigre fonts although the logo itself was set in licks senator. Ironically it was designers like Carson who had popularised its style.

Emigre worked a lot with other designers to collaborate with other designers such as ray gun, joint venture, designers Republic and others.

Emigre is distinctive by playing out political debate but by focusing upon formal design issues e.g.type and composition. Technological effects on page design reflected political and social shifts in art culture and mass communication. They'd established a post war design ethic of righteous form that was built on rationalism, minimalism and modernism. They were particularly distinctive for the monotony of international style, they challenged a modernist status quo and pushed against it.

They published things in cd format and other digital ways and even went into emigre music publishing.

Car book is famous  for its design, it was famous for drawing attention to the text function and it was suppose to be hard to read and that reading is a conditioned experience. You start to think the text as a graphic visual composition.they want to avoid the separation of form and content. The cranbook academy of arts did collaborations with the students at the academy and others too such as Jeffrey Keedy, ed fella, Lorraine wild they formed the calarts, Andrew blauvelt is the designer and curator of walker art gallery.

Octavia magazine was runnin do currently with emigre. First design journal wanting to describe the need for change in design, octavo had similar agenda as emigre but with a stronger modernist influence.  The designs and layouts for octavo were resolved as full scale mock ups using dummy typesetting acetate paint and so on, trying to get as close as possible to appearance of the final work printed. They also had an influence on the record industry they were associated with factory records  and produced work for the artists.

Buyer behaviour

 1) Need recognition: triggered by lots of different things and depending on market you know what that is, need can mean want but want does not mean need.

2) Then search

3) Then Pte evaluation: does the product work your own and other people's view and evaluation could take seconds or a lot longer.

4) Then we purchase it

5) Then you consume it: the speed of consumption depends on product you bought.

6) Post purchase evaluation: would you buy it again, was it good or bad.

Photo shows flowchart:

Maslows hierarchy of needs;

1) Physiological: food and water
2) safety: shelter and defence
3) belongingness: relationships, family, home and sex
4) esteem and status: power, respect and worth
5) self-actualise: personal values

If you lose one of those platforms then you drop to the platforms below and sometimes to platform number 1 and for example the client you need to know financial background and what's important to them.

Which product -----> memory then consider good bad, indifferent, long or short term, may have to change people's memory of the product------> aesthetics, does it look right?------> emotion does product have to evoke an emotion? -------> genetics-men vs women-------> logic and ------> range of choice-----> attitude to risk, people prepared to try new things------> nature of the problem routine simple vs complex, low and high involvement simple is low and complicated it high------> religion or belief structures can affect you or others how you talk or work-----> legal issues-----> other views, peers, friends, family------> financial issues.

Gives you a sketch of the person/ client you are talking to and give you a direction to go in.

Image based Some clever ads,
don't just stay with the format your given, don't be scared of changing things, think about 3D objects, think outside the box make it memorable, using something that's clever and dramatic for press and social media to promote it for you.

Chosen product

A women's watch, DKNY dress watch waterproof
Or beats headphones solo wireless and with wire

P yes acceptable
E yes feasible
S yes acceptable
T yes cos it works for it functions

O you can focus more on look then functionality because people pay for dress watches, waterproof watch, designs on all sorts of mediums and materials.
T other designer brands,

Context and history of art and design education

Transformation of how we visualise culture is seems controversial but as we look through the history of art and design it contradicts this and suggests that the problem re-occurs, of art and design being noisy and crowded, the multiplicity.

Artists tend to go towards the raw data and focus on trying to quantify something complicated into a simplified way to digest the information quickly. The aim isn't to simplify but to generate a new kind of complexity, foreground a problem rather then a solution.

Modernism is massive complex terrain, artistic and literacy modernism are both fixated on the idea of this multiplicity. Gertrude stein starts to produce work focused on the idea that the fragmentation of experience, but does not like the narrative seen as the framework for a piece of work.

Experimental modernist techniques include that time is subjective, the intensity of sensation and how you can tame the experience or do the co,plate opposite. For example a stream of consciousness a pragmatism published by William James in 1997, consciousness then does not appear to itself as chopped up in bits, it is nothing joined; it flows a river or a stream are the metaphors by which the most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let's call it the stream of thought, consciousness, or subjective life.

Along side this interest of multiplicity in the arts there is also the same thought in science.

Dewey art takes place in a material environment, he influences the Bauhaus as his thinking of art and design is so unique. He stresses the idea of intelligence over reason, so we're thinking about a logical form of the word and Dewey thinks intelligent is considering the materials of the problem and making intervention that works for now, the making of them is important. There is an emphasis on constructivism,  from a pragmatist perspective there is a craft and theory to making something here is a sense of constructivism. Because there is a craft there is a process to the construction of your work.

James Wilkins and his book why art can't be taught he traces this debate thought the book. His argument is that they tried to teach maths and other classical forms of knowledge there are massive problems with instituting that into arts education we want something new not something timeless it induces decorum and it doesn't have the drama of post modernism or modernism. Art wants something to be happening not a timeless way of doing the craft otherwise it is bland work that doesn't have the vibrancy that we want. Artists should be independent by the state and for briefs to have a loose investigation.

With the inception of the Bauhaus the agenda of the institution it was about experimentation in experience even thought the work was quite angled, the students were drilled in the thinking of colour shape and lines. To increase the sensitivity that it's often the idea that the students would learn how to "see". As new people come in the institution you get a shift in its agenda. They get more interested into design becoming a universal language as human psychology as a single experience.

Multiplicity and Business pointers

Multiplicity: means lots of things coming together to make one overall thing.

When discussing with a client a product that you are going to be designing or advertising you should use this to make sure the product will be successful, and count this over now to 5 and then 10 years into the future and analyse the product for the future.

PEST:
political
Economic
Social
Technological

You need to make sure that the product is socially and politically acceptable and the economic and technological aspects are feasible.
You need to make sure you ask the client the nature of what the design will be doing and the location of the design because this may have a huge effect on the outcome of the design.

Swot:

Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats

For my line of work I will only have to really focus on the opportunities and threats as its external and the strengths and weaknesses is internal.

I need to make sure that you have right talents, involve all parties, right team structure, encourage collaboration, ensure management of information, resolve problems quickly and ensure effective communication.

Market data and Research

Primary data: it can be quantitative and qualitive, the quantitative primary data there is the social economic, pros, cons, geographic, psychographic.

History of Animation

The first lecture of year 2 of the graphic design course, it was about the history of animation.

The history of animation started out in 1915 with max fliescher with the rotoscope, this device creates movement by looking through holes and seeing lots of drawn images on paper that are spinning round which creates an illusion to the brain that there is one image and it is moving. There also came cell animation 1915 for example Gertie  the dinosaur and Koko the clown, Windsor taming animation McKay as cell animation was faster, less expensive and streamlining.

The wolfman 1999 by Tim hope was a simple cartoon drawing mapped in 3D studio this was even quicker and developed as new technology allowed rifinement, this was the start of the take off for animation.

There are companies that have created new contemporary 3D rotoscope called zoatropes which are sculptures, spinning and then a light switches on and off while it is spinning so  it looks like the sculptures are moving.

The poetics of open works

I read bishop Claire participation 2006 the poetics of open works, and summarised what I learnt into a few points.

1) A piece of work can be open and closed, closed because it's complete and got a certain origin but open in the sense that it's open for interpretation from the audience with infinite outcomes.

2) openness is where a piece of work is not defined by a fact and infinite in its direction. 

3) closed, is where it's a command or instruction only one definition or interpretation, it's factual based.

4) open and closed contradict each other but also is considered as complimentary.

5) contempary work is open, older work like avant garden is normally closed. 

Claims to Expanded practice

Claims to expanded practice:

Cinema spills out into the world, Johnny hardstaff website he is a designer/ director/ animator, he also has a massive range of activities going on and also engages in every aspect of work such as talks, lectures, producing work. He sees himself as a TV film maker but is funded by TV advertising, this funds all of his other work. Advertising is seen as realism and professionalism which is a great start for a designer. 

He is really interested in cgi work in an animated context which gives you the aim to make the most realistic results you can find in the high end quality advertising Industry. He said its the style of advertising that's focused on the small every day moments and its a move towards a calmer and quieter start of advertising. What advertising had become interested is almost creating a child like experience with photo realism and cgi. For example the Sony brava and the Orange advert shows this concept. 

An important point made by Johnny hardstaff wants people to know that Through cgi you can take people's experiences from them, and that the advertising is too busy and loud. 

On some work the advertising company has said to take out certain shots because they were too beautiful because it cimtradicted the realism wanting to be shown as some things were created so perfectly that people would not be possible to experience. 

Tom gunning, Norman Klein and lev Manovich: key animation theorists

They are in agree,met with hardstaff, Manovich inverts the hierarchy and today you have to start thinking of film as a subset of animation, the thinge draws attention to is that the early devices are all hand painted and a short loop of animation so before cinema there was animation and later there's an opposition of animation and cinema. Animation is an illusion and film is a complete accurate representation. Cinema claims to realism but cgi changes this idea. Norman Klein has a book the Vatican to Vegas and he thinks special effects links to the idea of a scripted space, a scripted space is a designed environment. Tom gunning wrote a book called the cinema of attractions and it informs of the other positions already mentioned, he does a history of optical devices and see it as technology as a controlling behaviour. 

What is graphic design for?  Alice temlow 

It's a type of language, design is for selling for political agendas and it's about critiquing this and helping people to comprehend data. It can be about atmospher of a film, or a simple instruction like a road sign. Graphic design is pervasive, it is everything. 

Local tendencies: A free lancer is a post modernistic way of working, and how each work can be so specific. Designer has multiple roles and these roles can merge and this is how design spirals out. Design can function as a protest, can voice in political terms often in comedic ways. For example banksy.  

After effects: loops and living holds

Loops and Living Holds Workshop from louise fielding on Vimeo.

I created this video in after effects, it was to learn how to do loop and living holes to animate a character.

1) we designe our character in illustrator, and did each thing we wanted to move on a seperate layer. 

2) we imported this illustrator file into after effects and then we statred to animate

 3) we used the tools at the side of each layer in the bottom left corner to animate. We put a stopwatch thing at the start and one at the end so the position of something moving would return to its original position and then we plotted different times of when we wanted the layer selected to move within thos two stop watches.

4) we learned how to use the wriggler tool too which is on the menu on right hand corner and we set it to a certain pace and angle of movement.

5) we then added a few textures in the background and bobs your uncle a qick animation demnstrating basic skills.