Semester ONE workbook

IM RADThe Workbook Of Konrad Ziemlewski

CONTENTSWeek 01 - Typographic Animation Pg 1

Week 02 - Typographic Composition Pg 2

Week 03 - 3D Typography Pg 3 Week 04 - Kinetic Typography 4 - 5

Week 05 - Themed Animation Pg 6 Week 06 - Digital Illustration Pg 7

Week 07 - Analogue and Digital Pg 8

Week 08 - Protest Graphics 9

Week 09 - Structured Animation Pg 10

Pg

Pg

Week 10 - Book Making Pg 11

Week 11 - Reverse Advertising Pg 12

Week 12 - Digital Mural Pg 13

TYPOGRAPHIC ANIMATION1

The week 1 brief was one based on the foundations of stop motion. Choosing a movement word or phrase (free flowing) to produce a animation around the move-ment. Initially when the word came to mind I just thought about the freedom it would allow. So when starting I had a few movements in mind, which would represent a movement with no barriers. The movements I chose expressed my interpretation of the word by having movements which go up and down, left and right, split, rotate to show the idea of a free flowing movement.

TYPOGRAPHIC COMPOSITION

The colour palette“ ”

2

The first illustration I did was of the word ambient which described the luminosity in the scene i had chosen to do. The word is coloured using the palette I have devised from the scene using a complementary colour scheme. I chose to use a fairly light set of colours and a few effects which play with light to create the ambient effect. The dark blue and dark grey/light black were used to complement the bright luminent colours.

This weeks brief was constructed in a number of step. Initially having to collect vernecular and abstract type, which from then I could go on to develop illustrations based on a few factors. Once i found an urban environment which I believed would meet the requirements of a expansive colour palette, I started looking at developing illustrations.

For the last illustration I had to use subtractive colour and the rule of thirds. Initially I had positioned the word on the page to fit the rule, and then chose a few colours that would work. The overlaying created a subtracting effect and the change of colour gives a impression of blur and movement.

For the second illustration I had decided to make use of the golden ratio and a colour scheme that I had chosen. The reasons behind my decision to create a typomade man whose running was inspired by the tram in the, the speed of such a vehicle. Instead of blurring a piece of type, I had decided to use a well recognised image for speed, which is easy to relate with made from abstract typography, due to its abstract shape.

3D TYPOGRAPHY3

The brief given during week 3 was the first which involved 3DS Max, one where I had to find a landscape which was pleasing on the eye but could also fit a piece of text comfortably. The text I chose had to be inspired by the scenery itself and genuinly fit in with the background.

The words that came to mind with this scenery were all linked with depression and sadness, such as lonely, death, detatched, empty, ruin etc. The lettering was a mix of abstract and vernecular, and wrapped in the main colours of the scenery to blend in. When positioning the text I generally kept the text in the middle to grab attention easily, and then just change the angle occording to the text. I generally had an idea of where the sun could be in this shot, and had all the shadows coming from the same diretion but had moved around the lighting a bit each time to show the movement of the sun.

KINETIC TYPOGRAPHY4

Week 4 was a project I was highly looking forward to, since I had never used After Effects beforehand. The brief was generally based on finding a song, recording the lyrics yourself and then producing an animation based on this and then replacing the music with sound effects.The choice of song was fairly important, since I wanted one which would have words which are open to manipula-tion. The main thinking behind this animation was to animate the words occording to what they were, what the mood of the song was and how it fits within the verses.

KINETIC TYPOGRAPHY5

I had decided to make the animation one which was known as kinetic. I had decided to refrain from using the typical, huge text and swift camera movements you see typically in the sort of animations but rather look at the words avail-able and animate them occordingly. When words such as”jump” came up I had animated them to show off that sort of movement, and tended to use soft camera movements to transition between lines of the song. With the sound effects I tried to use ones that fit in with the words, for words such as “kick” i went for an 8bit sounding kick and “burning” the sound of a forest fire. I had decided against having one sound running through the length ofthe animation, but rather only use sound effects for the words which I believed would fit the brief well.

THEMED ANIMATION6

The outline for this brief was fairly simple, find a 16th/17th Century painting, and then create a stop motion. I had chosen a painting by Alonso Coell from the 16th Century of a man high up in society (portrait). Knowing that this had to be a stop motion I wanted to keep to smooth movements, and changes which took a bit of time.The painting initally gave me the impression the man was from eastern europe, although he was likely to be from Spain/Portu-gal. This is why I went for the “Russian” theme, I had added a set of Soviet and Russian flags for the background, the mansion and “desert” backgrounds were there to show the modern wealth of a Russian man. The jewish pendant linked in well with the Soviet flag, while the ushanka represented a hugely recognisable trait of a Russian. With all this I believe I had achieved the transformation from “high class iberian, to wealthy Russian” that I had wanted. This sort of change transcended over time (1700s-2000s) but also over a generations attitude to wealth.

DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION7

For this brief where I was asked to create a set of three wallpapers two for a mobile phone and one for a laptop, there were a lot of variables to stick to. After having found a set of patterns/textures I was happy to work with I then went along to see how I could make them match the criteria needed.

For the first wallpaper, after finding out the resolution of my phone (320x640), I went on to decide that this image would be two colour, with a flowing rhythm. I feel this wallpaper works well because, you cant really tell what the actual image is, creating intrest. The way the image is positioned fits in with the flowing rhythm, the textured lines in the wallpaper give a hint of movement.As for the second phone wallpaper I had decidedto use a regular rhythm, with my own colour palette and make it monochromic also. I feel this has worked well since, after taking the original photo, and duplicating it, dropping opacity, adding a few lighting effects, the wallpaper has a sense of continuity from the angle its taken, its driving towards the viewer. The colours are dark, but the soft highlights bring the image out and the repetition of the lines adds texture and detail to a fairly simple image.For the last wallpaper I had tried to find something that can occupy the larger space with a presence. This photo-graph of a radiator, turned to the side to show progression, getting somewhere higher , while the simple black and white colours definetly do the trick with the tonality of the image.

8

ANALOGUE AND DIGITAL

photograph --> burn paper --> line drawing --> leave outside overnight --> scan infilm grain effect --> hue/saturation --> add colour --> mix layer styles

The processing brief was one which I found very hard to complete beyond the finding of my starting images. The poems main images that come to mind are all to do with autumn, the browns and oranges, the lack of sunlight, the barrage of leaves, something that I wanted to put through my illustration. I went onto do this my photographing a classic autumn day scene, with a wooden bench in the centre of the frame. Then to continue with the wild weather seen in autumn I had decided to burn some paper, into a final shape which I had cleaned up. Then I had decided to do a line drawing over the top of the photograph, to have something which slightly disagrees with the principles of the poem, but in terms of imagery works. Leaving it outside overnight some raindrops stayed on it to add colour, but once on the computer I had played around with levels and colours to, have a final outcome I was pleased with. The final outcome does slightly resemble a 3D piece without the actuall effects, which is quite nice I feel to bring a modern touch to an old poem.

Cold wind of autumn, blowing loudAt dawn, a fortnight overdue,

Jostling the doors, and tearing throughMy bedroom to rejoin the cloud,I know—for I can hear the hiss

And scrape of leaves along the floor—How may boughs, lashed bare by this,Will rake the cluttered sky once more.

Tardy, and somewhat south of east,The sun will rise at length, made known

More by the meagre light increasedThan by a disk in splendour shown;When, having but to turn my head,

Through the stripped maple I shall see,Bleak and remembered, patched with red,

The hill all summer hid from me.

“

”

9

PROTEST GRAPHICS

The protest brief was one of the most expressive of the twelve, allowing you to get right behind something you believe in. I had decided to go against the general consensus and do a poster about the recent “student fees” con-troversy but rather have a look at the Iraq War. I had dabbled in a few ideas such as the nuclear arms race, and its problems, the wars in africa and a few others but this is the one which stood out for me, for one specific reason. For many people outside America, the Iraq War has a face to it, the face of George Bush, who seemed to initiate the war, which was pointless on so many levels, and even after what was meant to be done was done it continued. Once I had the image, then there was the need to find a colour which would stand out from the card, having gone for silver, I had then gone onto make the stencil. The style of text scene I had chosen to give the poster a more of a graffiti street feel, the simplicity of the text, the text of the people against the man behind the war.

STRUCTURED ANIMATION10

The brief for the structured animation was to have a song made by yourself made from sounds you have collected based on a slowed down version of a original song. The song/animation would also have to be structured to certain time constraints.

After looking at a number of examples of structured animations I wanted to steer from the norm, which included the use of standard imagery, or a range of shapes that reacted with the music. The idea I had in mind was some-thing like a equilizer, after learning a load of code, I went on to develop my own animation. Having each “sound-line” represent a different part of the music (bass/beat) etc, I had gone with that structure to represent my sound. The lines would interact with the bass/pitch of the music, and repeat everytime that certain part of sound would repeat. There backing track (yellow/light blue) lines run throughout the entire animation, with all the other sounds appearing and reappearing when necessary. Towards the end I had introduced a particle dispersion effect, to seper-ate and structure the animation that bit more, when another sound was added (set of bangs) for all the lines and sounds to go out in one big “BANG”.

BOOK MAKING

11

Being taught how to make Japanese bound and Single bound books, I then went on to make the decision to stick with the layout seen in the Japanese bound book. The reason for this is that, this sort of binding gives you the benefit of using a landscape layout and allows you to use A3 freely. I had wanted to have the images I would include in the workbook centrally in the page, to sort of use the “rule of thirds” because it would be the best way to grab a readers attention. From the I had the text top left, but after noticing that the binding would have to be on that side, for the final workbook the text would have to be moved to the right. There should also be an inclusion of some sort of page counter, so you know where you are within the workbook. As for the front cover I had started of with something fairly artistic as seen here, but I believe possibly something simpler using the “IM RAD” slogan could work that bit better, since it would be even easier to tell the owner of the book.

REVERSE ADVERTISING

12

The advert I have found by adidas was a perfect fit for this reverse engineering brief. The brief requiring you to choose an advert and the change its meaning, I had chosen an advert which I believe could have a range of meanings which leaves it open to a number of changes. The general feel of the advert is that of teenagers, in London, enjoying themselves wearing adidas clothing.For my first reverse engineered advert I had decided to make the advert stereotypical. To do this I had added some hiphop music to the video, and just simply added the “We Create Stereotypes” message. Adding this message at the end of the advert sways you’re view straight away, rather now looking at the advert showing mainly “black youths” wearing tracksuits etc, creating a stereotypical image.For the second edit, I kept the same hiphop music I had added, but also added “pointers” which point out things in the advert such as “vandalism” and “gang violence”. The reason I could make the the advert seem so violent, was due to the imagery within the advert such as a youth jumping over a massive bin, screaming fans etc.

DIGITAL MURAL

13

The last brief that was given was to design an animated mural which would link to the environment it is placed in. I had a number of areas in mind where murals could fit in, such as a; train station, airport, shopping center, billboard, housing estates, university etc. The first mural I went on to do was at the UCA building, where I based my mural on students and money. The mural is of a piggy bank getting filled up by dollar signs. The murals message is to show students who tend to just waste their money away to save their pennies, since they will always come in handy. The reason for dollar signs, was for the univer-sal know how that they represent money, rather than the pound sign.The second murals location was next to a public road, on the wall which divides the road from the garden. The message was to do with speeding because their have been 2/3 deaths on this road within recent memory. Therefore I had decided to use a fast, flash car, driving along the wall, untill a stop sign appears which provokes the message “slow down, save lives”.For the last mural, I had decided to locate it in a housing estate. The message I wanted to put through was house fires. I did this by having a cigarette slowly light itself, until at a certain point the message “it only takes one” comes up. The slogan also ironically fits in well with actual ciggarette adverts where it only takes one to get addicted.

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