Final Day of Class, Critique

Final Projects!

So day was the last day of class, the day everyone was to critique and present their final projects. My partner had to already go home for the summer, so he skyped in to help present! It was pretty funny, and Dorian took this awesome photo of us I snagged off of facebook! VVV

So our final project idea was to take something digital, something organic, and combine it to show a new perspective of the place we chose to study and the place we chose to present. The place I went, the farmers market, was very organic with a lot of hand typography as well as a lot of textures that was mostly of fruit and vegetables. To best translate the farmers market and the experience I had, we took what we had learned throughout the progress of our in class work, and our out of class work, combine it all together to show this concept, the concept of:

A digitalized world through presenting in class, combined with the organic nature of the farmers market, we decided to project digitalized typography layered in an composition mixed in with the original, textures, made digitalized by the combination in photoshop, and then add another layer of complexititly by digitalization in Cinema 4D by the animation of that composition, and finally bringing it back into the texture of a truly organic orange, from the farmers market itself. Layers and layers of manulipation of this object, as in a metaphorical process that fruits and vegetables go through today to be sold in the grocery stores...

...It was an undeniable concept that came from the must haves of projection of image onto a screen in our major and a unique way of twisting that deliverable into one that better represented our environment. Taking a organic place and representing that digitally, without loosing the true texture that was the true characteristic of the environment, along with the texture of the rich background audio you would of heard if you were there. 

Animated Projection:

test_forprojection from Alexis Copeland on Vimeo.

In presentation, we went in with the idea of setting up a studio environment, placing the orange in the scene, and projecting this animation onto the orange in hopes that you would see this orange transform before your eyes in accordance to the rich audio. With no time to test this projection out, we were left with a projection that was not contrasted enough because of the type of projection we used, or any at that. Hopefully our concept will be significant enough to prove this as a project that is worthy of a great grade, especially when this final project is more about the concept, rather than the final project.

Learning from this, I really hope to take this approach in the future of motion design. This is the type of concepts and ideas worthy of museums and galleries, and that's what i'm more interested in rather than commercial work. I love the idea of multiple layers of manulipation that is finally unraveled and thrown out just to give back and represent in it's true form, only with my interpretation of it. It's almost art for arts sake, and I love that.

Monday 23rd/ Thursday 26th

The next couple of days we concepted and tried to think of cool ideas to experiment with that will make something visually appealing that displayed our environment, or just simply of what we wanted to do. We dropped the idea of a vertical composition to work with, and instead started thinking in terms of a circle. While I was riding down the street in my car I got this great idea of doing this, in that we could use the canvas of an actual texture rather than an projected one from the screen. The textures of all the food I shot at the farmers market really displayed the truths of the environment and the true organic quality of it. It would be awesome to juxtapose that organic with the helvetica, but with the typography being projections  of the organic from the photographs from the the farmers hand writing composed with the helvetica. It would be cool to show this on something as small as an orange, and then add the audio of the farmers market into the environment that we're presenting, so that the people experiencing this can really get the idea of the artistic expression.

So Corey and I started working in class together to come up with some experiments using this. We eventually took the studies from our work previously, mapped them onto a sphere in c4d, and see what it looked like. Turned out it looked awesome! Super excited to animate and project it onto this texture of an orange. We'll also see what else we can come up with over the weekend for Monday. Cory's leaving but I think I got presenting by myself.

Thursday April 19th,

So we came to class with our Helvetica and texture studies to hang up and discuss. Some of us had a ton and some of us had a few. I took the previous studies of mine and took Dorians suggestion of distorting it by hand, scanning it in, and then I composed it with the other studies I hand and worked with the textures of it. I was fairly happy with them. I really tried to reflect the look and feel of the environment I chose.

In discussion we each chose a study we enjoyed, and explained why we liked it. It was very useful for the person who made it to get feedback on the expression they were conveying, or if they conveyed it in a way the person who liked it, liked it for. Or, if they understood it in general. It was interesting because it just so happened that people picked studies that directly correlated with the other person who chose theirs! Really funny but didn't work out for the discussion's order sake.

After getting a feel for everyones study and an idea/direction to go with our animation, we were given the option to pick partners to work on this with, or to work by ourselves. Super excited that we could also take this assignment and use any kind of techniques, I teamed up with Cory because he wanted to do the same thing. His studies were very interesting as well so I bet whatever we come up with will be a lot of fun to make, hopefully something cool will come from it too!

Monday, April 16th

Over the weekend, there was a ton of stuff going on! Friday was the opening for Best of Ringling, after that was a MD party and a mixer downstairs, Saturday was accepted students day, Saturday we had a visiting artist, David Lewandowski, and he was also here Sunday for a Cinema 4D workshop. With everything going on, Dorian was kind enough to tell us to no do our homework! Awesome!

So, we do our studies in class.

In class we combined our studies together by juxtaposing different textures and type from around the area.  We also started to incorporate Helvetica in the pieces to take the context of the typography out of the environment. From there we took the type, and then reintroduced it back into our textures and elements. After a good time was spent in making things, we took those things and laid them all across the floor for critique. After all it is just a point to make as much as possible, and then to just see what works and what doesn't work.

Some Critique notes:

Some where a little too much, or rather wayy to much
And likewise others were way simple!
There needs to be an in between
Take two different things and fine a dominate structure, but them next to each other and you got it! This was explained by paper folding different studies together and making them that in between we were looking for.

By next class we are to take this approach, or not, but make it work. Also, we are to add back in our elements and textures. Let's see what happens!

Thursday, April 12th

Today we brought in a collection of images from our photoshoot over the weekend. Everyone had a lot of interesting stuff, so much so that people even laid their images on the ground! Well, from this collection brought the discussion on why we keep these sort of things. Such an interesting conversation that about an hour was spent with not one moment left for silence, and not one moment you could even get a word in. It was a very interesting discussion on the future compared to what we believed our generation was involved within thinking of our future. Kind of an confusing concept to get involved in, but one worth it to ponder about and question. Will it be consumed by technology? Or will our generation teach the next to keep it respected as a tool, rather than the overall attitute and infatuation with life inside of technology and social media be the main forms of life. Its kind of a far stretch to say this, but with the rapid development of ideas goals, before you can even think of something its aready here. Basically, in order to really have an original idea in an reachable way you have to think of it way beforehand, where people think its a crazy idea and one where its too crazy to have followers for revolution or change, if it is even necessary. Its hard to get the crowd to follow along, especially when they are so infatuated and wrapped up in the social media of trash, especially living in Florida where it seems to have no history at all compared to the north where there has been establishments from the beginning of colonization.
ANYWAYS, the main point of the conversation for the discussion in class to day was to ask ourselves why we do things. That moves into the past assignment of why we chose to take the photographs we chose, and through discussion we decided that the grunge look of textures and the decaying matter of them are what we are drawn to. More so because it has history.

Monday, April 9th

Today and class we met in the critique room, and rather than pinning our work to the walls we had our binded books so we layed them across the table side by side to go through them. We evaluated things such as type, the type of paper, and the layout of type compared to image. It seemed that if one of these things were off, it pretty much threw off the visual meaning of the total of the work. If someone had a nicely designed book, and it was printed on cheap tabloid paper from the printers then the whole work just seemed cheap and not cared for. This is something I already knew from experience with other classes, but it was definitely evident now. The context you give your work is extremely important. Anyways, it turned out the people in class that treated type the simplest and treated their layout the simplest, they were the ones most successful. Luckily I was one of those people. I used a black bleed across my book, with small system of type that was set flush to the right for easy reading for the viewer, with a large dominate photo that gave the text structure, as well as my grid. James was also very successful, he was a tad different by using even cleaner type and was set in a way where the text was completely separate from the images. This could of been because his book was small, or it could of been a way for easy reading. I believe it was a little of both. You really need that balance and simplicity for your work to shine through between the amount of junk design out there. Its so much clutter sometimes that the eye is really refreshed to see something so clean. Just like when you clean your room you suddenly feel as if your world is organized and you can actually breathe. You feel a whole lot better too.

Well, besides this critique we won't be making tweaks to this and reprinting. I'm pretty grateful for this because with the black bled across my book, it got expensive fast! I had to make friends with the Kinkos people to get a discount! I plan to go to a printing shop in the end though for my final presentation with both concepts for WEDU.

Streamers of Light: Concept 1 WEDU Network Refresh:
Book Semifinal


For homework we will be turning in a collection of our location images and videos for our final experimentation project with type. I'm very excited to take the chance to explore what I can do with the images and videos I have. I plan to take the things I learn by this project and fine tuning them for a show opening animation for ART Network. We just got finished producing "Off the meal plan" A show where student cooks explore the possibilities in recreating a dish from a local restaurant, as well interviewing the cook where the viewers can get a feeling of what the restaurant is like in case they ever miss meal times here at Ringling. Well, it should be interesting! I already have ideas for both.

Thursday, April 5th

So were in the process of designing our process books for WEDU, starting off with our first concept. Over the weekend we were to come up with a grid and with a folio system.

Heading to critique, as usual, we hung our studies on the board and discussed our grid techniques. I had some problems with the way I was setting my header/name/page number. After the critique I took some things away that could help me with redesigning my system: making sure it is an element that won't take away from my book, one where my page number is not the main emphasis, and one that goes along with my grid. Now, these were the general critiques, but after talking with dorian later on, he mentioned to me that I was still in the mindset of designing in a spread format like a magazine. It's cool to do that, but in some cases it may be a one that is distracting, and this is one of those cases since we are designing a book that's primary emphasis is to show off our work. I also placed my system at the top of the page, bad idea apparently and I was told that I needed to use some short of color system for variation rather than black and white. Also after our conversation, we were thinking of was to make a template maybe the future of motion design could use, or where a template was available for anyone to use without much difficulty. I thought of maybe making a motion design logo, especially if other well known majors have their own variation of the Ringling logo then we definitely should!

I have a lot to do this weekend but I know what I want to do for my book: completely redesign it into a simple format that is mated neutral and professional against my work, and one where hopefully there is a newly designed motion design logo. I also plan to head to the farmers market this logo with the 7D I checked out from digital checkout to capture some footage to add into my library.

Monday, 26th/ Thursaday, March 29th

Over the past couple of days I reworked by type + copy studies from the past class, spent a little of extra time to print, and then started my new explorations based off my critique from the last class. I learned from last class what I was doing wasn't wrong, and in fact right, so going into these studies I wanted to take it a step further.

I kinda wanted to experiment. I'm tired of seeing text set in a "Graphic Designer" way. It seems too boring to me. And now that i've learned and seen how they do it with a grid, it seems to easy and cheap almost. I began to look at type in a way that's not looking at type. Type isn't meant to be boring. So I looked at type through compositions.  Doing whatever I wanted to the text and then seeing and playing with it. Surprisingly, it didn't take me as long to do. Because I wasn't thinking, I was breezing through my studies and enjoying myself. Before I would do something, look at it, critique it, and just be so careful in designing and try to be precise and exact like what I thought a graphic designer would do. NOPE, I kinda took the route that I would take painting. And i'm so glad that I finally got back to that way of thinking. In  a way I feel that I was stuck in this zone of carefulness since i've came to Ringling. But I think it was a zone necessary. Everything was foreign to me. I'm a fine artist, a painter. The way of thinking and doing things on the computer was just something I wasn't use to. And in making something commercialized rather than for me or a small elite group of people with all common knowledge of what I was concepting for. Anyways, I took and designed based on composition and relativity. Also with inspiration from my history class and the modernist designs stemming from the Bauhaus. The school was meant for people to basically be the inventors of a new tradition. Not even that but more of an radical perspective of a Post Modernist. Something so awesome to be apart of, something kinda of what is happening with the Motion Design department right now.
Well, after designing I went to printing. Even explored with printing, as usual lately, and found out a way to make "happy accidents" within these studies. I printed on top of prints, a way of incorporating a way of  juxtaposing different structures without even realizing what I was doing. I stuck my last piece of cardstock  into the printer with the the instructions on how to use the paper on the back, ran it through the printer, and realized I did this backwards. It looked awesome though so I decided to hang that up for critique to just see what was said about it. I'm kinda taken to that approach of design lately. Do something to see what happens. Does it make someone really uncomfortable, uneasy, mad? Or does it inspire someone? Taping into either emotion like that is kinda interesting, a way of juxtaposing totally different emotions that give you mixed feelings. That kinda twists up the syntax and makes it interesting at least, and seemed to be something of great meaning. The meaning really of the person viewing anyways. Its not that I don't care about my work, but I don't care if I mess it up anymore. But what I do care about is the communication between the two.


Critique:
INTERESTING. Everyone hung their studies up as usual, but this time there was a twist. It was normal for Cory and I to hang our studies next to each other, not so much normal but just not thought about, but Dorian looked around the studies and the room and asked us to carry on the critique. WHY WERE WE BEING PICKED ON?!?! Haha it was fun though. We organized the the room into 3 categories.
1/ yes. yes. yes. at least something to look at and be interested in. I found that not even half of the classes studies were in this pile. Just under 10! I'm pretty sure we were'nt judging that harshly just that all the designs sucked to us.
2/ almost there, getting it. Together between group one and this group made half the class but..
3/ AWEFUL. I feel these studies just needed to be reworked in general. or done some changes that didn't bother us. some of them got under our skin. some not quite as bad

Throughout the critique we justified and gave examples of what worked, what to do, what not to do. It was a lot of fun to critique, but not very fun knowing whose work was who. I didn't wanna hurt anyones feelings because practically the whole class is my friend. I had to realize that they knew I wasn't going to critique them, but their study. We are all very mature, but you always have concerns.
Points made:
-Not trimming!
-Folio problems
-overlaying text on top of images that are suppose to be used for your portfolio, why?! crazy
- contrast issues
- auto setting text. NO
- horsy/clunky text

Not only did we give feedback, but so did the class. If they didn't understand what we were saying they replayed and asked questions. It was awesome. People cared. It was good to give people feedback. And maybe now that they hear it from people like them then maybe we connected on a different level, or so that I hope.

Next Dorian critiqued our studies.
Again my grid was weird aligning with my folio. Which I forgot again until the last second. I think now I finally get it, after struggling for so long. I'm kinda mad at it, and when you feel that emotion with something it's strong, it's like missing the answer to the test when you knew it all along and get mad. So next time when you see it it's inevitable that you're going to get it right. You have a memory associated and a gut istant. Hope to get it right next time.
The actual design he was happy with, along with myself. I'm very happy for this class right now.

After another critique followed by this one, we went over last minute details over the things we missed from the last review. For the most part last class Corey and I's critique helped people out, but now Dorian just went over a few more things. Some people completely missed the mark, so some of us were chosen to help others out.

I was to help out a friend of mine, within the time span of an hour to completely show her everything that she was doing wrong or right. For me this was really hard, especially because of the fact she was so far behind. Not only did she do everything we are not suppose to do, she did not understand why she did it or why we weren't suppose to do it that way. Instead of going directly and pointing out everything from critique again, I just decided to help her understand the way of thinking when designing. Like, she kept having feelings that she couldn't do things like that, like it wasn't allowed, or the computer wouldn't let her do that. NO NO. Don't think that way. I also explained to her what makes a good composition, and pointed out to her the basic rules of composition, and looking by squinting, to see what she was really focusing on without thinking about it. I also gave her a few suggestions. I feel that she gained a little bit of understanding, but to fully grasp it she needed longer than a hour and a lot of help. I think she'll get it though, when it comes to things hands on she's great at it. She just needs to incorporate the two. It's hard to explain things to someone on that level of teaching, something I give big props for people that do that.


For next class:
The only thing we are to do is to refine these by the end of class now, and then to also start working on a grid for our final WEDU booklets. I plan to keep it traditional with this one, I don't wanna do anything crazy to take away from my actual concpeting work.

Monday, March 26th

In creating my studies over the weekend I was really inspired by the relation of information and thoughts that occurred...

My History of Graphic Design was one of those. The whole thought process of Modernist era and creating out of anything. EXPLORATION. Being a Rebel. Doing anything to provoke  thought process from others, or on the other hand not even caring and creating just to see what is possible. It's about knowing the rules, but taking that chance to break them in the right way. I'm very excited to go into my next type study. I feel like design makes sense, and it's weird it came to me out of the blue. I guess I stopped listening and became to participate in the ideas of thinking and listening rather than sitting there and being a bystandar. A lot of interesting things are taking place lately, a lot of interesting ideas and  aspects of life that are all coming together and relating...

So in the actual designing of these 4 studies I had fun with it. I started to think about other things rather than the screen. How it would feel, how it would look on different colors and textures of paper. I also designed around the image, or finding images that could work seamless with my design. Also worked with finding images that fit the meaning of copy. Rather than keeping it all in InDesign I took some of the studies and brought them into Photoshop for more editing. When working with the type I made sure I touched everything, I didn't want anything to be auto fixed.

CRITIQUE:
This one was hilarious. Some people did better than others but Dorian's metaphors for critique really kept us intrigued! I was also very happy that my studies were respected. People commented on them and I was really happy.
other notes included basic grid layout. I'm still struggling a little bit with following my grid, but i'm sure i'll get the swing of things. I also forgot to place my darn folio on the page! It might be a little hard to go back in and fix up my studies with my grid and add a folio, when everything is already so set up. And I learned adding a folio is something you're suppose to do in the beginning. We have till next class to turn in revised studies so I have time for the tweaks.

a photo Dorian sent me but shows all the great work from our class!

Monday, March 21st

Today we brought in our studies for homework, pinned them on the board, and got ready for critique.

Likely expected, I believe Dorian was disappointed. Not so much disappointed but I believe he kinda knew that this was new to all of us, and that he had a lot of discussion to have with us and well, after class I had a new perspective of this.

Anyways, a lot of points were made. People were designing to get by, resulting in BORING. Some were kinda neat but I can't say anyone was interested in one thing that came out of that class. Not even boring but people were creating their guides and then completely ignoring them! I was a big participant in this one. After designing intuitively for so long with the tons and tons of studies before spring break it was just something I was not use to. I found that many times I was fighting against my grid, resulting in designing in circles trying to get everything to be perfect. I feel like after doing that in my homework assignment I just wanted to never design with grids again and just design it, then through a grid on. YES! After critique I learned that's exactly a great approach, even though I thought it was awful. Design what you want, then take and make it make sense and structured by applying a grid to help follow that was strong, one that supported the design and showed it off. I'm very inspired by critique today and ready to design something work designing. Try to create this boring copy and placement through in interesting way.

We're to do the same thing for next class, now through the integration of imagery. Let's see...

Monday, March 19th

Today we jumped right into InDesign and exploring the program throughout class. We were given a couple of different bodys of text to place within a document and design what you thought was appropriate for what we were placing. Some copy that we were placing included recipes, a paragraph, a play script, and a short essay.

After about thirty minutes of creating what we could within the time frame we had a short discussion/critique about our experience and outcomes. Some points we made:
- appropriate usage of the type. Some designs felt more poster like (including mine) rather than something to be read within your hand at a appropriate distance from your face.
-many aspects to the design helped with syntax or helped with the readability.
-the use of grids help develop a systematically way of designing and reading
-setting text on a page is not easy

other things to explore for our later homework:
-the length of a line of text, the spacing/leading of the lines.
-different levels of variation for hierarchy
-creating a grid and following your grid
-what is an appropiate folio?

I feel like all the points made during our discussion was very valid, but I couldn't help but think how boring it is to set text. It seems like i'm designing for a text book, or at least that might be what we are going to be doing for the next couple of weeks. I hate to say but I don't look forward to this. :/ We'll see when we design for homework for Thursday. We are to come to class with our studies based off critique today and bring our grid as well.

Thursday, March 18th

NOOOOOOOOOOO I OVERSLEPT!

Yeah, so I missed class because I pulled an all nighter finishing these motion studies. I felt aweful for doing this, and even having to explain to Dorian when I saw him later that day. I'm glad though that around 6 that morning I'd put my study in the webshare before I took my "nap".

I wish I'd made it to class so that I would have a critique but I didn't. I plan to talk to Dorian next class to try to squeeze a critique out of him haha so that maybe I can fix them for a better grade.

Doing these studies were so time consuming and tedious, and for some reason I kept misplacing my files which I never do. I felt cursed but I fought to complete the assignment. Some changes I made included the last motion study of texture and video. I trashed all of my old ones, and started fresh from my new type and image studies. I found stock video off of Vimeo, only for the lack of time. The others I just animated on top of a still image. I just felt that the type couldn't just be placed over stock video. It was too unique to the image so I had to keep the image. The ones that I did take my type study and put over video I did so in a way that made it go with the video a little more. Either my the motion or by using blending modes to integrate the type and image more.


Reel:

I will most likely go and rework this one last time...

Monday, March 12th

Our first day back in class from Spring Break! It was a nice break but when by entirely too fast. Like I mentioned in my previous post I didn't work on my studies over break, kinda bad considering that I now have to animate 32 compositions before next class. I'm pretty sure it will be okay though, considering I spent the break working on my animation due on friday, mostly so that I could spend the week doing exactly that.
   We spent the day working on our motion studies, after receiving our type book back. I'm glad I decided to wait to do my motion studies over, so that I could incorporate changes dorian suggested in my type book, to make for a better designed animation. I did pretty well on my type book. I made some mistakes, but very few. He gave us a chance to redo our books, AGAIN. I'm deciding to pass up this opportunity so that I can focus on my motion studies. Besides, I am fine with the grade I received and have already worked so hard on them I'm tired of looking at it, ha.

...........

By the end of class I had finished reworking one set of studies and asked Dorian to review them with me. For one he said they were too fast so that was something I needed to go back and fix. He also gave me some suggestions that would help with the both the composition and movement of it, tracking. I didn't think about this and a friend helped show me around the presets in aftereffects to animate the tracking of text. I had never used presets for text before so that was a first. Also the coolest thing happened. Our school's guest speaker Jon Krasner coming to talk and judge the Best of Motion Design show later that week. He was already here visiting and he stopped in our type class, where Dorian made me show my motion study to show what our class was doing. Definately not prepared for that, nor were my studies but I showed them anyways.


For Thursday we are to have a completed reel.

Thursday, March 15th

We are now back from spring break and we have mostly continued the same work we left off with from before spring break (our type reels and our print studies).  I wasn't so happy about this however, I feel as if i've already accepted my grade for what we did, not even accepting my grade but accepting what I learned, what I could change in my work, and what was already working for me. Going back into things was not only a drag for me but something that I did not want to do. Because I was happy with my grade and my studies that I had worked so hard of the last week before spring break, I had the chance of opting out and deciding to not continue working on my print studies. I was very happy about his so that's exactly what I did! I spent the rest of my time working on my reel and putting the finishing touches. 

As far as moving along to a new project, we were to watch a couple of InDesign tutorials over the weekend to refresh our memories on the programs interface for our next session of Type 2. I looked through the list of tutorials but decided that they were over exactly what I already knew, plus they were long and boring. We'll see how  class is monday!

Thursday, March 1st

YES! This is the last class before spring break. All of my studies are corrected, just updating my blog and relaxing the rest of the class period.

I really should start my motion studies due the next week of class but I think my brain is not in that mood right now.

Monday, Feb 27th

We found out that we are not turning in our motion studies for thursday!! This makes me so happy, especially because somehow I seemed to misplace my after effects file for all of my animations. This week would of been hell to reanimate everything, especially when initially it took me about six hours per study to animate in the past. I would of had to pull all nighters all week and probably would of either turned in mediocre work or either not completed all of them. Such a relief, and so happy that I can now pay attention to the rest of my classes for midterms. 

Besides the great news, we were also given the change to make refinements in class from the notes he gave us. I definitely took advantage of this and reworked my type and image studies. 

Doing these I felt very comfortable than I did previously. It was a mix of already doing something like this, so that I was familiar, and a little of finally having a decent amount of time to invest into it. Instead of going straight to the internet I brought out some photos I'd taken over Christmas break in Georgia. It was kinda perfect to use these because they were just sitting in a photo albumn, untouched. I kinda got personal using images of my family, aka my nephew and my cousin, but I feel as if that made me more confortable to work with the images too. It was also really fun to shove type on their faces, up their noses, and sticking off like a mustache. Haha what ever to make work more enjoyable. All around, this was a good run. My own photos, my own family, I didn't finish but at least I finally had something decent for him to critique. 

Other refinements to make by Thursday...

Going into the last rounds of the studies. After all of the feedback I feel like this is more of a refinement stage. In saying that I am glad I am in that position rather than still producing these studies and hoping they are correct. 

Thursday, Feb. 23rd

  For class today we were to hand in all of our studies from the semester for our "rough draft" book due for midterms. This consisted of about 96 pages working with line and placement, type block and compositions, face variation, display faces, rules, blocks, bars, and image and texture. Between the short time of monday and thursday I didn't really go back into my studies to rework, mostly because I felt pretty comfortable from going back into them in the past after critique for my motion studies.

  

During class Dorian collected our studies for review as we worked to refining what we already had. I wanted to wait and see what he had to say about my studies before I began reworking them though.

We also were emailed our group critiques from our image and texture studies. I did horrible. I definitely plan on reworking and reanimating these for the weekend as well fixing my studies once I get them back. 

Monday, Feb. 20th

These motion studies have been a lot of fun to make over the weekend. I wouldn't say this time I was fun in after effects and making the compositions, but actually running into things while I was out and bout and taking videos! There was a lot of surprises that happened this weekend and at each of those times I had my camera ready. For example, late friday I was headed into the labs to find the academic center hosting the annual ligature show. I was so caught up in the previous week I completely forgot about this! I was really excited to stumble upon the show, and while I was there I caught some video footage that resembled one of my still studies from thursday. People kinda got freaked out once they figured out I was recording them but I thought even that reaction was kinda funny. Another surprise was a visit from my mawmaw! That was the best. Overall, great weekend.

Studies

For critique we did it a little bit different. We all emailed Dorian individual comments on each person's study, and apparently we are suppose to receive all of the comments back from the whole class. From the discussion we had in class I was slightly disappointed. I had so much fun making the videos buy the time I worked in the type it was an after thought and I guess it was shown. I didn't realize this until the critique though. I also learned about "continue rasterize" for type in after effects. That made me realize why my illustrator files were bluring my text when I moved it. Really happy to go back into my studies to fix this problem. And it will definitely make them more readable. Without even receiving back everyones comments I already feel like I took something away from this critique. Usually I feel really sleepy and can't wait for coffee., ha. 

Thursday, Feb 16th

Last night was very very long as I was trying to finish up all of my work for my classes. Typography took the most time, like always, especially getting lost in all of the images that I could find on the internet.  I wish I would of had time to take my own photos, but the assignment didn't call for that and I had absolutely no time! I plan to actually make my own videos for my motion studies over the weekend though. Videos are difficult to find. Interesting ones defiantly are.

Arriving to school a little early, I chose to print on a different paper this time. Since we are working with color and images, printing on school paper with the lazer printer would take away from my work. I worked so hard I defiantly didn't wanna make the printing something last minute and not thought about.  

CRITIQUE:

We pinned our studies on the board as usual and started. All of us were to go and mark each one, "Fundamentally wrong, Just no, and YES (something is going right here)" Dorian later separated each out into these categories and explained why each one was in the pile, or had us explain because ultimately we were the ones who made the decisions. 

overall class critique:
FUNDAMENTAL/ JUST NO
- will you fight for it?

- title safe/action safe
- contrast
- no frame
- structure
- relation between type and image
YES
- even "yes's" have fundamental problems
- make clear of what you want it to function
- what would you sacrifice if you had this man studies as an art director?
- imagine studies working much better in motion
- let the image be spectacular, get type out of way. OR be more spectacular in the type and make it apart of gorgeous imagery


are you interested in the art or the image?
be more spectacular

Monday, Feb 13th

Over the weekend we were to create motion studies using the past studies when we used elements along with text. We were to also explore effects and expressions. I came up with this!

I found that making my own effects through the movement, rather then the presets, I was able to understand what I was doing more. It also helped me to make sure I wasn't using an effect because it was cool, but more use it because it worked more with the composition. Towards the end though I started slipping into the presets, hope in critique they actually work and don't take away.


Critique:
-MAKE TYPE LARGER
-pixilation issues
-blur issues
-very cool movement and interesting
-nice work

Thursday, Feb 9th

This is fun! Okay, so we're getting to a point where we get to incorporate elements other than funky display faces and copy in our work. We get to use elements such as shapes, blocks and bars to make our compostions more complex. I feel that in using these my studies will feel more put together, in a way that gives us context on how they are used.


In making my studies, I felt very comfortable from the experience from the studies I have done in the past. However, I do feel somewhat questionable on making certain moves. Rotating text, using circles, and the incorporation of size, but i'm up for the challenge. I decide to try by best to use the circle, and see what critique has to say about it. I feel that if it is in fact wrong, at least i'll understand once I try it. If it's right, Awesome! I overcame my challenge.

The reading was also very interesting this week. It was our first reading, but a great introduction to reading handouts. This handout was very tricky in it's wording. It played word games with us to help us figure the meaning out in our way, using our own interpretation and background knowledge. It helped me understand graphic design, even in the actual design in the book. It was interesting visually and was thought provoking. Reading: http://beachaus.com/ringling/2012SP/Type2/Parts/JointVenture.pdf


Morning of Thursday:

Coming into class we hang up our studies as usual, and wait for Dorian to come by and mark them. This time, if he marked our paper, we had to state why. This is kinda funny especially because I knew I was already trying to figure out a certain problem with circles and rotation. Hmmm, I have two papers with marks. One is the circle composition and another one isn't. It was kinda tough trying to figure out why Dorian marked it they way he did for others, but I knew why. BUT, turns out I was wrong. Dorian had other problems with it I did not notice. Other people were struggling with their own problems as well but I had some in common with the others:
-size of type in compositions: my case too small, others small and large
-rules, make the ruling similar to other elements on the composition
-rotation
-using circles

Monday Feb 6th

Over the weekend we were to create another set of motion studies, but this time we examine the relationship when using the z axis and rotation. Personally, I am not a fan of rotation. I feel that rotation gives an unavoidable "cheezineness" that is very difficult to avoid. AH so avoiding to experiment. 

Study:

So! I didn't have too much difficulty. Didn't take as much time as the last studies, and were pretty simple. I really forced myself to not use rotation as much, or at least use it in a suttle way that was not distracting. 

Critique:

-cinematic (like last studies)

-famous drop of the period lol

-work on relationship between size on screen and readability 

-be careful when fading elements too close together: bleed into one another

Now we are off into exploring more type studies...

Thursday, Feb 2nd

Today was a usual critique of our studies. We hung our studies on the wall and started to take a look, scan the room and mark what we thought worked as a display face with the rest of the composition, and what we thought didn't work.

Notes:
Only a few actually worked
Reason- each type face has a different consignation. Be mindful what type you use and for what reason
Relationships and Proportions
Almost there, but not quite
Some display faces were for reading, and not for a display face.
Some copy/text faces were for display and not reading

After we collected the good ones and the bad ones we took the inbetweenies in the middle, or the ones people thought did not deserve to be in that pile. Picked one other than our own, and headed off to the work room to try and fix what was wrong about it to make it right. I personally did not try to fight for mine, even though I had two studdies in the pile. I only had one mark on it that made it in the pile and that wasn't enough to make a difference.

I ended up touching up Javier's study, and didnt' do too much though. I felt it was done really well already and the only reason it was in the pile because he was one to want to fight for his study in there. Fixed some alignment problems and went back to critique. This critique was the most interesting however, Dorian set it up so that it was like an internship, and we had to chose one to continue for production. Really cool that Javier and I were chosen for our study to continue. We learned a pretty cool lesson on how it is tough to fight for art, and how to defend on why we do things. 

Monday, Jan 30th

Starting off the morning looking at our motion studies!

Critique:
-be mindful of the time it takes to read the phrase. Is it too long? Too short? It is very controversial
-Make sure there is no gaps in your composition. Still problems before animating.
-optical judging
-plain makes us uninterested and BORED. I looked away from others multiple times...oops
-dont expect motions diagonally. it's not in our understanding. it demonstrates an action, as in sizzors, a clap board, or if we had an image that will make it make sense.
-contrasts direct your eye
-problems with word spacing, letter spacing
-MAKE YOUR TYPE GRAPHICAL
-try to align tops rather than bottoms. your eye catches the top first

My critique:
-fun and interesting
-"meal that thought it was going to be bad:wasn't. that didn't expect" haha
-maybe resolution problems one one.
- maybe bring the size up so it can be readable
-good

note: take a look at Neville Brody
-graduated 79, designer

Next assignment: research display faces and use it as a graphic. use it in it's context.

Thursday, 26th

Rushing to get to class on time I hurried to print my studies and go over to critique. It was a normal critique session for Dorian and again the same comments were used, this time with a twist of mixing fonts. I found throughout making my studies that combining fonts in the short phrase we had was not an approciate solution for design. The serifs get in the way, they have a chance of disappearing when moving them on the screen, and it is very difficult to combine. Anyways, our next assignment was to make it move by simple fading and simple position changing. After speaking with Dorian one on one after class I had a better understanding on what he was looking for, but better yet the endless possibilities I was all ready blocking out in my head for no apparent reason. I was inspired to rework all of my compositions for our motion studies. After spending a long time to rework my studies, I started bringing them into after effects.

I took a lot of time making these short moving kinetic type compositions. Struggling with how much time it should stay up for reading and how simple "simple compositions" were to be. I decided to do what I wanted to, and let the design of my compositions lead me where to lead the eye through movement. Some of my type was weighted lightly, where that type could remain on the screen where as a think contrasting type was more easily read. I tried to force my viewer to read what I wanted them to at the time I wanted them to. Sometimes more difficult, sometimes not. Some of my studies I wanted to have it simple, basically because the composition let me to that. Others are pretty complex, animating with each individual element, opacity changes, mask movements, and position changes. So, here's my first shot at kinetic type!


Kinetic Type Studies from Alexis Copeland on Vimeo.

January 23rd Class + Critique

Its been a week since we met and we were looking at type again. We pinned our compositions and blocks against the wall and we all individually critiqued what we though was right and wrong by making on the page ourself. In doing so, I felt like it was easier to pick out the bad ones than the ones that were good. Or, if someone took a risk I didn't know whether to mark out their mistakes or command them on their ability to take risks. However, those that took risks were the ones to get picked on the most. Mostly because they invited the whole class to come out and look at it. In reviewing the bad works and the better ones (because I feel no type treatment can be risky and perfect at the same time) there was consistency in the same notes from last week:

STAIR STEPS
DEAD ENDS
RELATIONSHIPS to each
MARGINS still? I thought this was obvious
and my problems:

NEGATIVE SPACE.
I should of known this already though from the multiple times I was preached to in highschool... "people see the object, the artist sees the space around the object."
Yep, looking for that one now on..

Also, looking at others was easy to point out rights and wrongs but looking at mine was tough, I knew why I made each decision. But I can also tell why others made theirs too, weird.
Type is just funny.
Best is to go unnoticeable.
I figure thats what type should do anyways, even though im not one to make my art unnoticeable, but for now I guess I will.

HMA1 Critique

Dorian and his usual analogies that relate to type...

"Everything I say, you should take with a grain of salt"


RULES:

1. letter space: uppercase
2. do not letter space lowercase
3. never use auto leading/ never let the computer make a decision for you
    leading 20% over the face size. (10pt type=12 pt leading)
4. whenever creating structures ask yourself what's the dominate vertical and
    what's the dominate horizon
5. flush right is not sophisticated
6. one level of inconsistency looks like a mistake: try to make at least two
   Makes your decisions look decisive
7. look at negative space
8. "dead end allys and stair steps"
9. "YOU WANT TYPOGRAPHIC BODY OIL ON THE SCREEN"
10. If you design the negative space, everything else works
11. every time you make a study, your god, you're making a creature. Make a baby.
     Make a beautiful piece of art, make something simple, beautiful.
12. type will be a composition, structure, alignment, or its going to be a block
13. you don't want elements to kiss: becomes clumsy and ambiguous
13. try to make statements, do not be timid abou typography
14. diagonal type: make a composition that works and then rotate it.
      when you put something on a diagonal by itself, that person is being wacky
15. diagonals can be dynamic if you use it the right way
16. look at creating structures as negative space

Monday, January 9th

FIRST DAY OF CLASS!
There is a discussion over the syllabus and we setup our accounts for the semester.

Also, we were told our first assignment: placement of text on a 16:9 layout. The class assignment lead to a homework assignment based on the same principle but with a slight variation. We'll see how we do with the critique at the beginning of class Thursday.

Links to Remember:
http://beachaus.com/ringling/2012SP/Type2/
https://jupitergrades.com/login/private.php?2526332%2C3444424170