Process and Production 2 (5th October)

In this session we moved from creating characters to animating them, and getting a much greater feel for movement and weight, and expressing character in that weight and movement.

First animating a ball, then a walk cycle, we were given a chance to really animate something and express movement.

We first looked at some fundimentals regarding animation; stretching and squeezing, timing, antipation and so on, as well as some still frames from some walk cycles, in order to get into the mindset to start animating.

Personally, I had never even considered photoshop as something to produce animations with, and whilst I am typically more familiar with flash it wasn't nearly as combersome as I had believed it would be.


However, I feel that my prior experience did allow me to create more natural and 'exciting' animation, rather than it being too static or disjointed.



This style of character animation I was less familiar with, and can recognise inconsisencies with scale in essentially every frame, but I feel that the movement and character make up for these short comings.

Personally, I really enjoy animation, and will probably continue to get better at it in my free time to try and get better.

Studio Feedback (4th October)

After settling on the idea I had come up with the week before, and having thought and discussed the various ways in which to execute it, and which would be the best, I have come up with a plan.

The initial idea for the idea was to have illustrated pictures of people, and then the paint over the top, however even a brief few experiments lead me to understand that the drawings would get too cluttered too quickly, and it would just be a mess that wouldn't be understood.

However, using photographs as the base image, which are then editied on in photoshop look much cleaner, better looking and I think also fits more thematically with my project.

This alteration in methodology also adressed the other big dilema I was facing with my project; whether to use real people as a case study or simply make up people and use them instead. However, now that I am going to be using photography in this project, the shift to using real people has to be made.
I feel this is a good choice, however, as it provides the project with slightly more legitimacy and authenticity, as rather than just making up personas and interactions they will be more turthful.

We are Social Media. (4th October)

The Internet is simply a way for people to connect and data to be shared, there are no borders and very few restrictions. It is a network of networks and is a culture of cultures, but it is still a technology and beneath any piece of technology is humanity.

We are all reflected onto the internet as people and personalities when we interact with the internet, the technology becoming an extension of ourselves. However, the freedoms the internet provides allows for that mirror to become a lense that we use to focus specific ideals and aspects of ourselves more strongly.

However, the internet also reflects just as strongly back, becoming a part of who we are more and more in our day to day lives.

It is impossible to understand The Internet without understanding that all technology mimics and aspect of humanity, and is there to help seve a purpose.
Cybernetics, when stripped back down to its simplest meaning, is just the act of steering towards a goal. To act, see, sense then steer towards what we, as humans, want.

The worlds we live in; The Physical, Social and Digital, are all there to work and the cybernetics within them manifest as ways to measure and correct failures to meet tasks. Our conversations are moderated by the cybernetics of what is and isn't socially acceptable. Our bodies are regulated by the cybernetics that keep our hearts beating and our body temperatures constant. The internet follows endless cybernetics to keep it afloat.

Simply put, The Internet is simply another human construct that is there to help humans be more human.

Theory as Practice, Errors and Questions (3rd October)

When a product that comes to market goes wrong, there are two possible causes.
Human Error, and Design Error; and as designers, it's important that it is always the former.

The world of design has many opportunities for misteps and to fail, which is why it's critical that we are always covering our own backs in regards to the outcomes we produce and the methods we take to come to them.

Having an engaging relation with the client not only keeps the project focused on what the client actually wants, but giving the client a personal stake in the design aspect of a project will lessen the chance a client outright rejects a design.

An open dialogue with your Client will also ensure that any questions that aren't answered by the brief can be asked, and there will be many.

Where a product sits in the market, it's audience and use as a product and how highly it ranks amongst it's competetors, as well the product's immediate competition are both vital questions to ask when developing for a brief. The outcomes for a Bently Promotional Campaign are going to be radically different from an Alfa Romeo Campaign.

Research, such as how feasible a product is to create, or any negative impact a product may have by entering a market are also vital to consider, otherwise you a product may spend too long in development due to cost or restrictions, or backlash in the media for being insensitive.

Ultimately, these questions will prevent a product or design from failing, and it's important to raise any issues that may arise during production as highlighting potential problems early in development could save massive amounts of time and, more importantly, money down the line.

Theory as Practice, Histories of Animation. (30th September)

The main point to consider, when considering the history our medium, is that the History of Design and Animation is a living thing that exists in the present, and exists within culture, and is constenty reflected from the point of views of the society of the time.

The Wolfman, for example (created in 1999) is a simplistic and rather crudely created 2D animation that exemplifies this notion as a wild and abstract animation created with real materials, when the aims of the industry at large were to push ever closer to photorealistic with 3D Technology.

Animation, is always determined by the animator. Their influences, styles and beliefs will always be a huge part of any animation, no matter the medium or for it's purpose.

Even two of the very first 'Traditional Animators' show this in their work, with the abstractist Emile Cohl producing work that is nonsensical and has a rebelious feel to it in both its production and its content; and Staurt Blackton creating an animation with very rigid methodologies and ideals, but also containing more coherient naratives.

These two 'approaches' to animation can be seen even today, with cartoons such as dipdap using subversions of the audiences' expectations by altering established scenery and its own rules to keep the movement and visuals within the animation fresh and flowing, rather than providing any consistent story telling .

Most contemporary, and especially 3D, animation, however, uses the alternate school of thought, where the main goal is the acurately represent motion and life of a figure, often times to portray a narative or ideal.

Theory As Practice (30th September)

Theory as Practice, above all else, represents our ability to research, to ask meaningful questions and come to a conclusion regarding them.

Research is  process, of asking questions, and then answering them.

When taking on a research project, it is important to consider 3 key elements, to be able to answer a fourth.
What? The theme of your research, the subject that you want to focus on what it is that you create and what you want to create it on.
Why? The context of your project. Why you want to persue this subject and investigation, and how it relates to you.
How? The approach you'll take, How you will be creating your project, what methods you will need and the tools that will help you acomplish it.

Ultimately, this will help you answer What it is you acomplished with the project, what the outcomes were and how this has both impacted you and the medium you were working in.

This method of research and creating project also works when applied in reverse, and helps with disecting projects that have already been created and understand the goals behind a project, as well as the motivations to create it in the first place.

I aim to use this process to disect the medium of, and advertising surrounding, comics and graphic novels, and how their audiences and messages have altered throughout the years and how, ulimately, this has had a huge impact on the content within comics itself.

Animation, Process and Production 1 (28th September)

During our first Process and Production session we went right into designing and creating poses for our own caricatures, based upon our own selves.

The idea was to become less concerned with 'perfection' (or anything even closely resembling perfection) and focus more and getting the general impression of movement and form, so that our illustrations became more and more abstract with motion, yet still retaining their humanity and could still be recognised as ourselves.

It got to the point where, when making the smaller illustrations, it would take only upwards of 10-15 seconds to create a form with real life and movement, something I was personally shocked by when I realised how when you stripped away everything but the core character and an action you could make an image that conveyed so much more life and energy than a sketch that could take minutes or even hours.

This eventually lead into a Model Sheet drawing, which was as different from drawing quick poses as could be.

Here every proportion had to be carefully placed in a totally front facing shot, then emulated in a sister drawing that would be a totally side facing shot. Rather than being used to capture the mannerisms and nature of a character, like the previous exercise, but are rather there to show every detail a character has so that they may be replicated later, or turned into a 3D model.

The whole session was difficult at first, as letting go of perfection was a slow process, but the more I let the simplicity take over and just allowed the forms and movement to take shape on their own the more I saw the essences of movement appear on the page.

I still need to work more on Model Sheets, as trying to get proportions correct and have all the same character remain in the more more formal and refined image is difficult, but I know where I need to improve.

Studio Feedback (27th September)

With this being the first day working on our new brief, there were many ideas going on in the initial development of the project.

Many different responses initially came up, from animated caricatures roaming around the real world getting in touch with people (providing a positive social aspect to technology) to flat posters with literal illustrated walls of technology separating people (obviously highlighting a negative)

I eventually distanced myself from these ideas, as they felt massively simple, not only in terms of their concept but also their execution, and wanted to try some new techniques and present the work in a radically new way, which the tutors (Both Jay and Johnny) agreed with and supported whole heartedly.

This lead onto ways to hide an image within another image, first just overlaying an image over the top in Photoshop, then by literally hiding with it with UV or Glow in the Dark inks.
After having the concept a little fleshed out, Johnny suggested, rather than buying £70 UV ink cartridges, having a stencil cut and using paints over a printed image, as well as discussing in greater detail the types of people that could be used as 'case studies' for the projects, such as intense gamblers and cyberbullies, and bringing light to the very serious issue of internet addictions.

Jay reflected a lot of what Johnny said, but also suggested that instead of using made up people to highlight extreme cases of divergent personalities on the internet, using people on campus and asking them questions on their online habits, and using them instead. This would add a whole lot more legitimacy and authenticity to my work, but could make the separate pieces less interesting as I doubt I'd get as wildly interesting answers.

 

Self Presence and Expression as "We're Surfing on the Internet!" (27th Spetmeber)

Cybernetic Self, as the brief is titled, is a project in which we are to represent the concept of self representation on the internet, and how we interact and ultimately change ourselves as more and more of our social lives depends increasingly on the internet.

The project can be broken up into three distinct angles;
Network Self, Autopoiesis and Sociomaterial.

Our Network Self relates to how we present ourselves on the internet, be this how we choose to behave to others, or just the websites we choose to interact with. This has huge impacts in both how we, as humans, socialise with people and spend our time, as well call into question how private our social lives are if we are constantly sharing it with the world, and how ultimately all these things alter us as people.

Sociomaterialism is the concept used to describe how technology and social interaction are both intrinsically linked in the workplace and our day to day lives, and whilst technology cannot be reduced to the social, and vice versa, they are almost inseparable in the way we approach both.

Finally, Autopiesis is the theory and practice of people defining themselves in a social environment, that without social interaction we are no one. People build themselves as autonomous and as though they are completely in control of their own self, but their own self is built purely for interaction with others, and therefore can never be truly autonomous.
So what happens when the human element is taken away and replaced with a computer?

 

This project personally appeals to me greatly, as it allows for a lot of interesting ways to express different sides of people, and the interactions people can have. 

The idea I'm currently investigating, after spending time in the studio, will be a multi-layered print out, using clear UV paint over a printed document, which, when exposed to UV light, will reveal the self that comes out when exposed to a computer.

The current decisions I need to make whilst developing this idea are what styles do I use, using real photos of people or illustrations for the base layer, beneath the UV paint, and if the subjects be fictional and highlight more extreme cases of differing behaviours on the internet, or use real life people and have the internet selves be comparatively more normal.

 

Business and Theory: Working in the Industry. (26th September)

The Business world of the industry is one whole half of Graphic Design (and now Animation) that I had always been vaguely aware off but hadn't ever acknowledged.

But with this lecture there's been an obviously stark awakening.

As designers, we possess skills that businesses and executives lack, our skills and even our ways of thinking and problem solving can differ wildly from people that will end up commissioning our work, which is why independence and confidence are so vital for working as a designer.

There are many nuances within the economics that govern the business of graphic design, but the broad strokes of the concepts are relatively simple to understand and apply.
  The basic principle is that the economy is always shifting and bulging as factors in the world change with it, and this will always effect the scope and outcomes of your work, with local companies and markets eventually feeding into the national and global economy as a whole.

The biggest effect the economy will have on designers is on the markets we will be creating for, and when a market changes so will the marketing surrounding it.

The basic concepts of Marketing are split into "4 P's"; Price, Product, Promotion and Place.

Price are all the monetary values associated with a marketing campaign. The costs to create and sell a product, including transportation and administration, as well as the actual designing, as well as all the profits associated with a product.
  The practice of "Loss Leading" is also enveloped within this concept, of making less profit on a product to become a "market leader" on it, rather than make an immediate profit.

Product is a description on the actual service or item being delivered to consumers. What the product's main function is and what makes it better and distinct from similar products on the market are both key things to consider when designing for a product.

Promotion will be the element we as designers will be most involved with, which is how the market you are designing for will be made aware of the product. Promotion, whilst being important as it's own concept, is largely defined by the three other "P's".

Finally, the Place in which a product is sold is a very important thing to consider when bringing a product to market, as a product sold purely on the internet will not appeal to an older audience who enjoy a tactile and physical contact with a product, where as teenagers and younger people enjoy that convenience.

Whilst these concepts are all fall under economic and business field, it's important to understand, as a designer, the tangential information of the fields we're working in, beyond the simple design process that we are accustomed to, and knowing more ultimately means that our designs will better fit the world we are making them for.