Graphic Design & Animation

As an introduction to the Adobe Illustrator CC, this session will focus upon basic pen tool skills in relation to drawing/rendering and the manipulation of typographic letterforms. We looked at the history and context of visual games within creative practice, which particular emphasis on the ‘Morpholo’ tile game devised by Thieri Foulc in 1985. Foulc explored the creative potential of constraints in relation to painting and many other visual forms. In this workshop included a drawing and sketching phase, followed by a guided rendering of designs into finished vector illustrations. I needed to produce a collection of 12 morpholo tiles, in black and white measuring 100mm square, which needed to follow a certain algorithm to play this version of the game. To start, I chose 12 numbers from a list, giving us the tile sequence to follow, along with which sides of a square to fill in the area. My numbers were 2, 10, 11, 26, 42, 54, 86, 95, 112, 123, 175 and 191. To ...

Kubo and the Two Strings is a 2016 3D stop-motion fantasy action-adventure film produced by LAIKA. This film is about a young boy named Kubo who must locate a magical suit of armour worn by his late father in order to defeat a vengeful spirit from the past. I watched this film today and I really loved how this film was presented through the use of stop motion and the visual art style it had. After the film, I watched a video behind the scenes of the making of this film, here you can see the animators moving the characters, creatures and set pieces frame by frame. LAIKA creates these movies by shooting layers and characters separately, and then composite them together digitally. Kubo and The Two Strings Early Saito-inspired concept art by texture artist Dan Casey Later concepts by texture artist Dan Casey This film's visual influences delved into lots of Japanese art including origami and its paper-cutting variation kirigami, ink wash painting, Noh theatre...

Tomato is a group of artists, designers, musicians and writers who create and deliver cross platform, multi-media art and design projects: both commercial and research based, for national and international clients. One of my favourite pieces by Tomato is Shiseido in which they were commissioned to create an exhibition looking at the two capital cities: London and Tokyo. This exhibition was held at the Shiseido Gallery in Ginza, the show comprised an installation of video, text and sound in a comparison of the cultural similarities and differences between the cities and their people. Six topics were explored; love, food, faith, communication, money and transit. The results created some interesting juxtapositions seen between two cultures. I think this is a brilliant way to compare two main cities and how they may be similar or different when specifically looking at culture. I like how they used transparent displays so you could view the display through multiple layers and combine th...

Jazzberry Blue, a canadian, self-taught artist creates modern abstract art. He spent his formal years living in India as a painter. Since his return to Canada, digital illustration has become his main form of communication. Blue has created beautifully abstract maps of some of the most interesting cities in the world, including London, Los Angeles, Paris and Milan.  I personally love the way he portrays the maps, using a selection of colours to reveal street patterns, sizes/types of buildings and the general layout of the city itself. The maps also gives the impression of how much urban development there is. I will include his work in my sketchbook as it relates to travel and how different cities can be represented on maps through the use of abstract art.  Looking at other work Blue has created, he uses simple colours to create a skyline using popular landmarks and certain building designs to represent a city. This shows how the architecture is different be...

Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and Affect Effects For our 3rd workshop with After Effects, we explored animation properties using geometric shapes of our designed characters which were created in illustrator. Our character design needed to be 1920 x 1080 in RGB colour. Different assets were on separate layers, we used simple geometry, shapes and vectors. Properties that we covered in this workshop include: scale, position, set up, shape rigging, parenting,  timeline and keyframes.  With our characters, scenes and sets in our own style, we produce a 10 second animation piece. We looked at 'Catch me if you can title Sequence - 2002, Kuntzel and Deygas' in class as it is a great example of pre-composing. Along with 'The Complete Animade Lernz, by Animade' as another example. The Complete Animade Lernz from Animade on Vimeo . http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/catch-me-if-you-can/ I looked for more project references to help me with my ideas. Adobe...

Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation. We can explore how systems of signs work to make meaning, through the use of words and images and how we communicate both visually and verbally. Semiotics is about understanding the relationship between messages and meanings. Semiotics is fundamental to an understanding of how words and images are used to make sense of the world along with be manipulated to the benefit of the message. Also how visual communications work and how design choices affects/transform the message being communicated. Good ideas or aesthetics may fall down in the absence of effective communication of the idea through the aesthetic. This is where semiotics comes in, understanding this can ensure we're communicating messages effectively. Signs can be represented as spoken/written language, images, pictures, objects, gestures, codes, symbols and sounds. All which can have an emotional impact, or mean different things to diff...