Typography animation

For this project i have to create a animation made up from completely from text and audio.

The idea of this project is to try and portray what the character / speech is about without using pictures.

I've decided to use the opening scene form the film "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" (1998)
the scene where the character "Bacon" is trying to sell some stolen goods on a market street and uses cockney slang in order to bend the truth.

Here is a youtube link to the video of the scene I'm going to use
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSodvRnD3Qc&feature=related

Typography

Typography is essentially art through text, lots of different styles of typography have been made for example font style/ type faces all have to be designed by a graphics artist.

There are many kinds of typography art, for example artist have made pictures purely through nothing but white space and black text...

One of the best types of typography art that i know has to be the moving animation text, these usually have an audio track behind the animation talking through the word that are being shown on the screen, as they're appearing which gives a very professional effects and allows the viewer to understand the text a little better.

Here are some examples of Typography art:

And here is a link to a animated piece of typography: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mnvvVi4HaI&feature=related 

Also there are poems that use typography art to add emphasis to certain words within the poem... these are called Haiku poems and they usually consist of about 3 lines of text that have been digitally altered to form a more visually interesting picture, for example this is a poem made by myself:

Interactive media

This post is for research I have conducted on the subject of Interactive media which explains certain aspects of it's growth throughout the last twenty years and possibly where i see it going in the next five to ten years.

One of the first aspects of interactive media was in-fact games... in the late 80's to the 1990's Nintendo released the Mega-drive and the Super Famicom 16-bit console which gave birth to a new ages of gaming. When it all started computers and consoles could only display 2D games with very little resolution which to us today is out of date but to the people of it's time it was revolutionary.

Here are some examples of the machines and the games they were running at that time:

 

The next major step taken was the production of Windows which had more hardware and software capabilities which displayed that these consoles/computers were going to be part of our culture from then on. Also recognition of these companies was becoming more and more possible, therefor more companies were springing up.


Then in 93 Microsoft released another windows program to surpass the previous one thus opening up new possibilities in both the software and hardware side of this development. This also gave birth to different game platforms due to the new processors of the time, for example the birth of both first person shooters and head on head fighting games.

The biggest thing to come next was probably the production of the Sony Playstation, this revolutionized the idea of people being able to have a console in their home which can play a wide selection of game through a CD Rom

After these games were released the market for games and the hardware to go with it took off like a storm... in 95 Microsoft developed "Direct-X" which is operating program designed specifically for media and games to boost the capabilities of a system that would play these games. Also in 95 the first ever E3 show was held which in a nutshell is a big gaming convention where the public can go to find out from the gaming companies about their new or upcoming products of the time, so this proves that the making of computer games was a hit world wide.


The first main companies formed specifically for the production and distribution of computer games on a large scale were "Activision, Electronic Arts, Blizzard and ID Software.

Interactive media is not just about video games... in today's world we have touch screens we have information kiosks, phone applications even self service checkout systems, it seems that we keep trying to get more in touch with our technology. Usability is one of the main factors in making something today... the simpler it is to use something, the more chance you have of people looking further around your site as apposed to getting confused on the first page.

When the Web was made there was web 1.0 which allowed people to post pages of information on the internet but that was pretty much it, where as now we have web 2.0 where people can upload music, movie and software files onto the net for others to see without having to stream it from a machine.

In today's age video games have taken over the market by storm, companies relentlessly try to come up with the next big thing that will steal the game market from their opponents. Today's platforms go from strategy birds eye game where you command armies against armies or first person shooter to massive multi-player online role playing games (mmorpg) even flight simulators of a beoin 747 has been made into a game for either pc or a console.

These games are also getting more and more realistic as that's what is the customers seem to want... which means the software has to get better, which leaves hardware needing to advance too. Now we have full scale 3D worlds being made as apposed to the old 2D games from the 90's.

Probably the most used form of interactive media on the web is the search engine "Google" which has become the worlds number 1 search engine. Everything about this had to be designed by teams of interactive artists, from the layout (Making sure that it's easy to navigate around) and getting it known in the first place. The name has nothing to do with the purpose that has so the website is it's self a little abstract however today everybody that owns a computer or uses one knows what Google means therefore the face of Google has turned into a part of everyday life.

I feel that we are now ringing in a new age of technology where more and more great innovative idea are going to be coming onto our screens, the latest I've been able to learn of in this case is the ingenious "Sixth-Sense" compact computer system. Lots of applications / programs are going to be made for this device which in a few years could also itself be obsolete so the latest piece of technology at the time. I believe in a few years humans would have progressed enough to achieve unthinkable things to me and you here in 2011, possibly even virtual reality.

Optical illusions

In this study i'm going to talk about optical illusions... which are described as a scientific image.

 Optical illusions are designed to trick the eye and display pictures that are not obvious to the eye from looking straight at it. On most pictures you either have to look at a specific spot and then look away or try to "Look through to picture" to see the image.

The image can be displayed in either your peripherals or a 3d image depending on the type of illusion, also there are animated illusions which will alter your perception if you stare at it for too long.

Here are some examples of optical illusions:

This concludes my research on optical illusions

Advertising task

In this research task I'm going to looking at the properties of modern advertising and propaganda.

First I'm going to look at modern advertising compared to the older styles.

Advertising has come along way in the last say 50 years... we've gone from simply trying to sell the product as it is without trying to spice it up at all to having adverts that have no literal link the the item trying to be sold.

All advertisement is used to try and sell something or get a product/event across so people are informed of it's existence but today that is getting more and more complex, here are some examples of older adverts next to some newer ones and see if you can spot the difference.

It seems advertising has got boring now so for the makers to get their product to stick they have to come up with something funny or smart just to keep the product in your mind for example that advert for the knives; an advert like this would never have been dreamed of in previous society but it seems people are a lot more open and are harder to shock where as the main picture is about a man being killed on his bed... but it is in fact an advert for you to buy these knives.

Older forms of advertising have been drawn out so newer more unorthodox are taking to screens just to get the message across which shows a lot more tolerance in today's media. Here are some examples

Propaganda: The original use of propaganda was to get people to enlist to the wars that their governments would start... where as today there are still a few that have the same objective but however there's a new sort of anti propaganda where people have taken something and used it against the government, almost as if they were recruiting for a rebellion

This concludes my research on advertising and propaganda.

Semiotics, signs, symbols and the semiotic web

There are three main types of symbols that we use throughout the world and the web and I'm going to be conducting some research oh the differances between them.

The first type of symbol I'm going to look at is called an: Icon

An Icon is a symbol or small picture that resembles what you or the person is trying to get across there are lots of examples of these all over the place for example:

Weather signs and no smoking signs are icons:

The Second type of symbol i'm going to look into are called: Index's

Index's are alot like Icon's but instead of resembling something there is a direct link between the image/sign and what it means... for example road and street signs:

The last type of symbol I'm going to look at is actually called: Symbols

Symbols have no logical meaning to what it stands for but we all know what it means regardless there are lots of examples for this and most of them are featured online or on web-pages... for example

Favourites/bookmarks have a star sign next to it.
And the safari logo simply has a compass.

And this concludes my research on symbols.

C.R.A.P principle

C.R.A.P Principles

Contrast/ differance:
Contrast is how something looks when it is put against a certain background or object, the most basic way of explaining this is that if you had a white background the object would not also be white as there would be no contrast and black would be the best shade to use for example this writing would be harder to read if the shade changed because there is no contrast

Repetition/ rhythm:
Repetition is important in art because it adds some structure to a picture and can stop an image from looking too cluttered or abstract, repetition can also be used in some cases to create an optical illusion. For example in this picture of these red chairs it would look odd and out of place if there were a few random coloured chairs in amongst the others:

Alignment:
Alignment is simply how something is set out on a page; the idea is that if everything is made with alignments in mind then you wont get lots of cluttered mess and overlapping. Alignment is very important when using text because for example if I suddenly started changing the alignment people would get confused and not know how to follow page.

Proximity/ space:
Proximity is all about how close an object is to another and is important in making things clear on screen. Proximity is in everything from pages to roads… things cannot be too close to each other simply because it would look messy or not work.
For example everything on this blog has proximity; space between pictures and words.

Visual communication

Visual communication

The history of picture grams go back as far as human history it’s self from cave paintings to colossal images drawn into mountainsides or plains.

Here are some pictures of cave painting over half a million years old:

These paintings are the first ever form of visual communication as the person whom made these paintings clearly tried portraying some form of story or scene for others to see. Even though these painting were very un-developed and new, you can still easily make out what most of the images are.

Further down the line humanity started using pictures for communication for example the next Civilization to use picture grams were the Egyptians who used pictures of things to make up an alphabet of “Hieroglyphics” which is very similar to our alphabet today. However these sorts of images are known as Abstract images as if you didn’t know the hidden meanings of the hieroglyphs you would not be able to fit together the story trying to be told. These are also historical images as they define a culture.

Here are some pictures of some Egyptian Hieroglyphs: 

Humanity still use these methods to exchange information between other people who study what the meanings are because today every language is made up from symbols or pictures which each have a specific meaning or sound.

For example the Chinese are still using calligraphy for their language: 

These are also historical images as they define culture and society.

The only difference between modern calligraphy like this and the cave paintings is that when you see a cave painting no matter who you are you can make it out as it portrays events or objects, this is called a linear image which is when you look at the image it tells you something straight away without any hidden meanings where as today if someone wrote on a wall in a modern language it would be an Implicit or Abstract image as you cant tell what the meaning of the image is without having studied the language so there for it would have a hidden meaning to someone who wasn’t familiar with the culture.

All together this has been the most effective way of carrying a story or event through the ages however I feel that today we have moved away from the simplicity of explicit pictures and have become to engrossed in different cultures and have produced harder to understand abstract languages. One of the best points to this is that the image can be as big or small as the creator wants, depending on he/she wants it in a book or on the side of a mountain; e.g.

 

These are called “Geoglyphs” they are images of something that has used the earth as a canvas, these images are usually on a colossal scale compared to the cave paintings and can be seen by looking down miles in the air. These are often explicit images as just by looking at it you can tell what it is.

The last type of image I’m going to research is scientific imagery where things don’t necessarily at first resemble an image but after a while of looking they do in-fact display an image, these images are known as optical illusions  

This concludes my research on the different forms of visual recording and methods used throughout ages even though there are still many more such as digital imagery and propaganda but I believe I have done what I’ve needed to, in order to understand the differences between explicit/literal, implicit/abstract, emotional, scientific and historical imagery.

Colour wheel

This is a colour wheel that i had to make in college to show understanding about colours

This was a drawing i did in 2010 for a friend (Eeyor)

This was a drawing i did for a friend 2010 (Ironman)

This is the 2nd concept idea for the first boss (Gravemind) in my game

 2011; i'll use this in my poster

This was a medium size armor concept for my game 2011

This is another drawing for the main char in my game (This pic goes with the 2nd tank gravemind pic) for my game poster

This is the scenery idea for my game poster 2011

This is the concept idea for the Sidekick to the main char 2010

Both of these were pics i did for a friend (2010)

This is the 2nd logo idea for my game and poster 2011

This was the first idea for the first boss (Gravemind) in my game 2010