Week 8 Day 2: Layering my Design

As I attempted to bring my design into After Effects, I realized I would need to put all the circuits in separate layers if I want to mask them for growth.  I went back to Illustrator & spent a large portion of class moving the individual circuits into their own layers. 

I also began to think about sound I want in the background.  I'm not too sure what I want at the moment, but I've been looking into free sci fi-esque & mechanical sounds.

Week 8 Day 1: Exploring Depth

I felt all class that my design looked a little flat, so I decided to explore a little.  I looked for tutorials on how to create an effect much like in the one version of the Inception promo poster.  It has such a subtle but powerful use of depth.  I couldn't find anything that specific, so I decided to play around with gradients, glows, & shadows before moving on to any heavier (& probably time-consuming) stuff.

Due to time constraints I may just settle with this.  I started looking ahead into tutorials on how to animate objects in After Effects to make it look as if they are growing.  I want to attempt to do that, having the circuitry grow or carve in & the frame follow it around the W before it fades in.

Week 7.5 Outside of Class: Completed Storyboard

Above is my pretty much completed circuit board-esque W for my WIRED kinetic logo project.  I still want to look into how to add more depth & make it more dimensional, much like the Inception logo from my last post.

Above is my completed storyboard.  It's a rather simple progression: having the circuitry grow in while the frame pans out, when it's completed have the W fade in & then continue to pan out as the circuitry fades, finally revealing the remaining letters one by one.

Jessica Hische Lecture

Thursday I had the distinct pleasure to attend Jessica Hische's Society of Design lecture at the Whitaker Center in Harrisburg.  I have been a fan of her work for the past year or so, so this was an especially exciting lecture.

While a portion of her lecture was focused on type design (& of course an obligatory portfolio showcase), she had some great things to say about life & career as well.  One of the biggest points she brought up (& something she is somewhat well known for) is procrastiworking.  Procrastiworking, she says, is a guide to your calling; not to be confused with procrastinating, procrastiworking is the work you do while putting your other work off.

Some other great points she brought up included...

• Diversify your projects to avoid burn out
• Diversify the things that satisfy you; don't put all your eggs in the same basket
• Find what you like about your job now (whether that be your actual paying job or what you do as a student) & find a way to do that more

Week 7 Day 2: A New Direction

I finally finished my robot on my storyboard!  Two whole frames down.

After talking with my professor more today on my ideas, he urged me back to the growing wires idea. I searched for images of circuit boards to get a better idea of their ornate design.  My idea would be to have these crowded pathways grow around the outline of the line, & then as it pans out, the wires will slowly fade & the letter (rather the black box) fade in.

Looking at circuit boards for a while, it started to remind me of the one Inception title design.  I hope to use this as inspiration as to how to make the wired pathways grow around where the letter should be.

Here are two sketches I worked on during class.  I prefer the second one; it uses less sharp angles.  For my actual rendition, I want the pathways tighter & maybe less of the beginning/end buttons (greater pathway to button ratio).  But maybe motion & panning out will make it look less odd.

Week 7.0 Outside of Class: Animating Storyboard

Between classes I took sometime to brainstorm any other alternatives for my WIRED logo.  Below I attempted some conceptualizing for a literally "wired" theme, in which I'd have wires or networks grows across the logo, forming the letters, & than the actual letters would fade in.  I eventually scrapped this, feeling I wouldn't have to time or skill set to make this look real good.

So last night I returned to storyboarding for my kind of "flip book" of images I feel encompass WIRED's content.  Illustrating is taking a lot longer than I expected, so it's just going to take time to churn out.

Week 7 Day 1: Sketch Critique & Further Ideation

Today we critiqued our storyboards with our rows.   I didn't get as much feedback as I would've liked, but my classmates & professor did suggest changing my idea to show the whole logo for the entire end tag, & I worked with them towards the idea of maybe portraying the history of technology as told through WIRED.  Unfortunately, WIRED has only been around since 1993, so that sort of flew out the window.

Throughout class I worked with my classmates' critiques to further my concept for my WIRED end tag, though I still feel pretty stuck.  I haven't changed the idea too drastically, still using the "flashing" images but showing the whole logo with the images flashing within the W, R, & D boxes.  The W box contains culture-related imagery; the R, computer/communications imagery; & the D, futuristic ideas.

After meeting one on one with my professor, I'm just really questioning.  I thought I knew what WIRED stood for, but now I'm not sure if I'm conveying that effectively.  To me, WIRED is about being "wired in" to what's going on--tech-wise, culture-wise, even future-wise.  It's about being tech-savvy, cutting-edge.  Again, I just feel stuck or as if I can't effectively communicate all the meaning I wish to.

I'm going to try a couple more ideations (my professor suggested a conglomeration of images making up the box around each letter), but if it doesn't yield any major improvements, I may create some ideations for the companies I originally considered.

Week 6.5 Outside of Class: Wired End Tag Sketches

After many rejected company ideas, I finally decided to create my end tag project for WIRED magazine.  I was & still am rather weary of creating for a company with an already well-established series of end tags for any of their web shows or other videos on their video page.  

I chose to focus my design on WIRED's key focuses: technology, science, politics, & geek culture.

Week 6 Day 2: Opener/End Tag Exploration

Today we began research for our next project.  As a class, we watched a few TV network bumpers, a montage of bumpers by Trollback+Company, & the projects of students from past classes.

On my own I continued to look at bumpers from more TV networks, as well as music festivals, publications, non-profits, & research & development firms.  I considered doing my project on AK72, my fictional cafe I did branding for last year, the Long's Park summer concert series, or the Bowery Mission.  

Week 6 Day 1: Kinetic Quote Final Critique

Overall my critique went very well.  I got many good comments on how I was able to bring meaning to all my motions.  Someone did suggest that at the end my reflected "REALITY" should be slightly lighter to allude to a reflection, which I thought was a great idea.  My professor also suggested repeating some of my specialized elements, such as the underline that leads from "PROGRESSION" to "ILLUSION."  If I add back in the clause about each choice leading to a new path ["to go to work, to stay home..."], I could most definitely use that there as well.

If I could do anything else different, given more time, I would apply that former comments of course, but I'd also want to make that reflected "REALITY" swing down, rather than fade in, & "ILLUSION" vanish in a puff of smoke, rather than zoom & fade.  Additionally, I think I'd want to give my "general" transitions more meaning; right now they just kind of enter stage right & exit stage left (or vice versa...it's been a few years since my theatre days).  Perhaps I could allude more to the technique of the actual opening, with the words coming in from the foreground & disappearing into the background.  I think that really deepens the atmosphere.  The only problem would be some of my effects work best on a "flat" atmosphere, but if I could learn to translate them into the 3D it would work wonders.

Week 5.5 Outside of Class: After Effects Kinetic Quote Final

After a long weekend of countless hours spent in the lab, I finally have the final product for my quote in motion project.  Overall, I'm very pleased with how it turned out & how much I was able to do with only 4 weeks' knowledge of After Effects.