Thursday, March 29, 2012

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 26, 2012

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!

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

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 19, 2012

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.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

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 15, 2012

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 1, 2012

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.