Papercuts.

I have an essay project running at the moment, and i fancied creating a book as an extra to show what my chosen designers would look like if they were a book (well if there designing personality were a book). If you want to know more about this essay and what its about head over my Creative Context page. :)

So yes the book. I have enjured some nasty paper cuts and glue gun burns, had one book that has failed (but ive kept as a notebook) and have begun my "hopes" final one. I've decided to go for the tradtional hard back book style to represent Wim Crouwel and for Sagmiester i have chosen to opt for a concertina kind of fold. Hopefully all will come together well, i have some high expectations for this book so hopefully i can pull it out of the bag.

Pictures soon.

...

So this was my end outcome for the New Languages project. I liked it, the tutors seemed too so its all good.

PS.. No need for volume its just me talking & noises ha.. and apologies for the dodgy filming i did edit it but i seem to have lost the file.

Inspired.

£19.98

TING!!

After thinking up the book projection idea i have decided to stray away from it due to me wanting to project only one page from the book, whereas books aren't just one page long and it would be too difficult to program or just set up more than one stencil in the spine of the book. Therefore i have abandoned that idea for now. I have had plenty of ideas that i could do. For example i really enjoyed the idea of using acetate as the pages and using a UV pen to write or draw on the pages which can only be revealed using a UV light. HOWEVER... after deciding with the tutors on one specific process of Light and Shadow (kinda still projection but more narrowed down) I have come up with the idea to use a light bulb, or several (not sure yet) to create a light and shadow projector. I am not completely sure which will be the best way but im going to try etching, painting and negative painting. However I know that focal point is a big thing to make it work. I have researched into this idea a bit and have found it hard to find any images of this being done in the past so maybe it wont work...

until..... i found this image

This image shows basically what i aim to do, however this bulb has been sandblasted leaving a frosted back ground. With the light bulbs I aim to put some type on them which will only be revealed when the light is switched on. (Just like a projector) I hope to display the light onto either a life size cylinder/ Lampshade size (this all depends on the focal point and where its clearest. So the place where its going to be projected will change according to the accuracy of projection quality)

My aim now is to find some A-line CFL lights, which are light bulbs that don't get hot, and begin experimentation. If I can't find any of these lights locally I think I'll try out the normal light bulbs and see how it goes.

Rough.

So this is a kinda format that the book would work and look like. Its not great just to give an idea.

I now have this projector idea i now need to think of a way to make it interactive, and interactive in a way that the public will know how to use it. It could be for educational purposes? Exhibition purposes? Maybe think of other materials.

Testing

So after coming up with the projector book idea, i decided to run some quick tests and made my own little typography projector.

Equipment
Halogen light
Card
Pencil
Scalpel
Sticky Tape
(rubber & sharpener if needed)

So this test has helped me a lot because i've realised that its not as simple as it may seem. Having a powerful light is what i need, so that it can project to a fair distance to a wall, however a powerful light creates a halo in the centre of the text where the bulb is. SOO more research into bulbs needs to be done, aswell as finding the circuit board that is to go in the center of the spine.

Seeing as my explanation isn't amazingly great for what i'm trying to portray, i'm going to draw up what i want it to look like and ill upload it soon. Until then i'll be hard at work to figure a few things out.

Crazy thoughts.

So i've been sitting around researching some crazy things to try and think up something to show on Monday for an idea for this New Languages project. I'm getting quite involved with typography at the moment as you may have heard me mention a few times recently, and well i was thinking...

TYPOGRAPHY 
LIGHTS
BOOK
SMOKE
and
3-d
How can they be combined? MAYBE SOME KIND OF PROJECTION


Well...i have somehow come up with this idea of having a book with some kind of mechanism within it, that when opened instead of reading the words on the page, (maybe have blank pages so you don't know what the book says until its projected) and the words then get projected in a cool looking way maybe similar to the image below and you read it that way. I was thinking maybe the words are shown in a 3-d way by smoke (however smoke tying into the whole book projection doesn't fit to well) but my idea is that the when the words are projected through smoke it reveals the path in which the words are projected through the smoke and it leaves you a visual of 3-d?

THIS MAY SOUND CRAZY WHEN YOU READ THIS but in my head well it seems to work, i suppose i'll see what the judge panel think on Monday :)

Heres the visuals:

Confusing

So, we was handed over our new brief which will last us til the end of term, and although I understood everything about it i am soo confused.
So what I can work out is we have to look at designs/ ways of technology & process' and either create a new way or enhance it. (I may end up posting again in a few days and begin talking about something completely different but til then thats what I i think its all about)

So i don't really know why but after watching the presentation David Barnet gave us i seem to keep thinking about CMYK and glowing/shiny colours. Seeing as thats all i can seem to think about at the moment I'm going to just get on with some random research and look at literally anything and everything.

Signwriting

A student who graduated last year came in to host a workshop on her practice of signwriting. The process is very similar to calligraphy, but you use different materials and equipment.

What you need:
Mahl stick
Long haired brush
Paint
White Spirit
2x small pot (1 for ink & 1 for white spirit)
And maybe a sheet with simple strokes for beginning :)


This was the best video on Youtube which i could find which shows you the technique which we learnt, however the man is using his arm as his Mahl Stick. The Mahl stick is a stick with a rubber ball end which you hold to steady your hand while creating your hand rendered type.





On Friday, we were to practice the technique and then once we mastered it we were set a brief. Our brief for the day was to then sign write a word which meant 'beautiful' when said. I chose the word J'adore and got to work. I really enjoyed the workshop and i'm finding myself becoming much more attracted to typography and the different ways that it can be created.

2 days worth..

So i began my video on after effects the other day, and I'm quite happy with my few second outcome HOWEVER. I tired to generate the effect of how the camera zooms out and rotates which you will understand from my storyboard and my video which i will post up shortly. I generated my rotating effect by simply pin pointing the place i wanted it to move, rotate and shrink but i have since then been told how to master the camera mode which i shall now try and create the same effect but using the camera.

Here is my first attempt and outcome on After effects (hopefully you will understand what i am trying to achieve with the camera)

The audio runs for 20 seconds however my work ends in like a few seconds so just stop the video :) bit of a rendering error i made.

Many Thanks Nigel.

After todays briefing on our new project 'New Languages' Nigel had some spare L.p's (if thats correct), and after decided to throw one on the floor and smashing it to show us how fragile they were he then offered the remainder of the collection to the class and i picked up one which features songs from Jimmy Shand and his band, which is quite weird because i thought no one would know who the band was if Nigel was just thowing them out, HOWEVER my dad knows them :) Someday i hope to play this fine disk.

PERIOD.

Helvetica wins the race.  I have been working on a storyboard for my piece, trying to incorporate some of the things i've seen and liked from other videos however seeing as After Effects is very new to me I have already begun my 'Teach yourself' part a little earlier than usual. I have figured out a few techniques and i have now become quite used to the timeline panel and setting the timer, hopefully it will all go well.

Here are some of the storyboard frames from my book which i will soon convert into photoshop/ illustrator to make it more realistic.

Selected audio

So I did alot of research on Youtube, and I found it hard to pin point a specific person or way to find something inspiring. So instead of trying to remember things which i found interesting in the past, i decided to listen to a few of the TED talks and I came across a few potential audio clips but none of them really grabbed my attention too much. So i decided to head back to Youtube and search single words and see what i came up with and here are my chosen clips. One of the clips i have chosen i remembered of chance while searching and thats from a Documentary which i then researched on Youtube to find.

1. John.F Kennedy 0:00 - 0:08                                                               2. Wim Crouwel 0:00 - 0:18

3. Helvetica Documentary ( Micheal Beirut) 2:31 - 2:54

Motion Graphics

INSPIRED

We have been asked to select 3 audio clips and narrow them down to 10-20second clip, which we will then break down the audio to then create a storyboard of kinetic type, motion graphics sequence where typography is the main "performer."

The audio clip can be sourced from any where ranging from the internet interviews, TED talks, documentaries or even your own personal source. The piece should be something that you find inspiring.

Here are some examples of type in motion that I found very interesting...







With this video i like how the text budges the other text out of the way.

I think if my audio clips has spaces of silence or a pause I would like to add in the effect of the line continuing on from a letter and maybe form a shape or even if it just leads on to another piece of text.

How to sneakily get drunk with limited money.

So the deadline for the 'How to' project was yesterday and below was the sheet I handed in.

From what i could work out they really liked my sheet, many people commented on how they could see me within the work, and Pete (a tutor) commented on how far I had come on with my illustrations which i agree with i'm very happy with how much they have improved. Nigel pointed out some areas which i should alter and i totally agree with everything he said. Align frame text to the left. NEVER CENTER! ha. maybe enlarge the frames slightly to loose some white space, and make sure all the gaps are same. Last but not least re-phrase the Vodka frame, (which i did find hard at the time to word) so yes i understand that aswell.

So now i can happily and confidently say I like illustrator. (mainly just the tools I've used though ha)

Illustrator is now my pal!

Progress on my illustration layout and illustrations I'm very happy with how its coming together

Layout testing

Illustrator horror!

So we've recently been given a new brief to work on using to Adobe program Illustrator where we have to design a How to manual for austere times (when your short of cash). At the beginning of the project we were put into groups where we were given an everyday life subject, mine was entertainment. From this starting point we were to make up a How to title based around this theme.

At the beginning I drifted away from the manual side of things and headed towards a narative, which at the time i thought was right, but since then i have met with my tutor's and they have now pointed me in the right direction.

Having never used illustrator before I wasn't too sure how to approach my illustrations for this project but I began with some drawings which i scanned in and live traced and painted

However although at the time I was really happy with my illustration style, I was told to try out different styles before settling on and after testing out drawing, scanning, and photos i have now settled on a much neater drawing approach but using the pen tool on illustrator. But still being new to this whole style it took some time to develop but here are the results so far..

Photoshopped

More to follow once i receive file from Rachel.