same, same but different

Today's lecture was an introduction to structure, chance and algorithms in a selection of visual and graphic arts. We first looked at 'nature' with a focus on the Fibonacci Sequence and Golden Spiral. The Fibonacci Sequence is a series of numbers where a number is found by adding up the two numbers before it e.g.

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 and so forth. 

The Golden Spiral is understood as 1: 1.618 and is derived from the Fibonacci Sequence in which each number is the sum of the two numbers before it. The difference between any two numbers in the sequence isn't always exactly equal to 1: 1.618 but close. 

Kenneth Martin

Joe Gilmore / Tom Betts

A collaboration to create 'rand ()%' is a departure from many of the other works presented as Dots & Lines. While most of the pieces in the exhibition use imagery to challenge our conception of what a score can be, rand ()% offers a powerful yet invisible notion of a score. Rand()% is also an automated net.radio station streaming generative music.

Kenneth Martin

Chance & Order - They typify Martin's commitment to simple sequences 'like the notes on a piano; and a few simple rules producing results which 'could be like a fugue.' He creates his pieces of work through the chance of picking numbers from a hat that help him decide where he would strike different coloured lines on the page.

Darrell Viner

Darrell Viner 

Viner was a pioneering sculptor that worked with movement, he was also a pioneer in the field of computer art. He originally turned to computers to pursue his interest in movement and animation and applied technology to kinetic sculptures. 

Joshua Davis

Davis is an American designer, technologist and author/artist in new media. He is best known as the creator of praystation.com and uses Macromedia Flash and Processing as tools to create art. I liked Davis' work the best out of all the artists, working with plenty of colour and different patterns to create exciting visual compositions. 

Joshua Davis

Seminar - Describing Images

Today's seminar was about the progression of our essays, by using peer marking to get a different insight into what other people thought about what we had written so far. It was a closed reading task to help us with ideas on how we could write differently and learn from each other.

We also looked at images that were brought in relating to the essay and had to describe them in three sentences, keeping them concise - just how the essay should be. The class were asked to match our descriptions to the images, by doing this task it meant that we learnt about writing good descriptions, thinking about detail and look at the image differently to see how others view it and give their opinions on what they see.

Typography 1

Today's workshop was focused on Typography in Graphic Design / Animation & Motion Graphics. I really enjoyed today's workshop working with typography is something I am fond of. Taking inspiration from other artists work to create our own typeface.

Part one of the task was to use the references provided to transcribe shapes to make letter forms and typographic characters, using the letters anesg. I took inspiration from Milton Glaser, Wyndham Lewis and Herbert Bayer - I also explored my own typography style just for practice and exploration of what else I could create using a pencil.

Transformation

Today was about generating a central idea and developing it to create new ones. I was taught a new technique that I will definitely use in the future, I found it very helpful for creating completely new ideas. The technique is as follows:

• Generate a central idea - visualise the idea and create thumbnail sketches, surround the sketches with key words that also tell you about the unique points about the idea
• Transformations - explore the unexpected and invert one element from the image to explore different outcomes - continue this transformation technique to help generate a whole range of other ideas 

Motion Graphics Theory

Sara Nesteruk

Todays lecture was about motion graphics theory looking at how motion graphic designers communicate to the audience and what they have created.

Oskar Fischinger was a German-American abstract animator and painter who was most famous for creating animations for music. We looked at 'Kreise (excerpt)' meaning 'Circles' in German. A creative innovative piece that explores colours, shape and form it shows how he breaks colour down into different parts.

The next video we looked at was 'Spherikal' by Ion Lucin which I found quite mesmerising and interesting to watch. Stylistically and technically refined the video is enigmatic creating a mood and different sense of feeling for the audience to watch it. It shows that you can start with something very simple, in this case a circle and execute it in different ways to create a complex design and vice versa.

Spherikal from Ion on Vimeo.

We were also showed more animations focussed on music: Alexander Chen, Strings: J.S Bach - Cello Suite No. 1 - Prelude. This animation looks at classical music with a deconstruction of every note to create a visual representation, as you see the notes the appear to get slower and distort what the audience are actually watching - it is also quite mesmerising like Spherikal. The animation is very delicate and simple, disorientating the viewer.

I also really liked the video, 'Understand Music' telling viewers that they don't have to understand music to enjoy it. Theory about deconstructing music theory by including elements of music, layout and typography to create a delicate, articulated beautiful piece of work. The video is designed to resonate with the viewer. The video links to a quote by Jean-Paul Sartre: "Imagining consciousness" to create work and present it and then let your audience interoperate it for themselves and how they view things, it allows the artist to connect with their work which then creates a connection for viewers. Sartre is suggesting that representing something that allows you to connect with your own imagination is the nature of the image.

Understand Music from finally. on Vimeo.

Interactive PDF

Todays workshop was about creating an Interactive PDF document using Adobe InDesign, we looked at placing media files, creating buttons and sound onto a file that would then be presented using the PDF format. It involved learning about basic techniques that could help us present our work in the future.

Play Button

Thumbnails

The first stage involved setting up and placing the media file into the document, I made sure that the screen size was appropriate/standard at 1920 x 1080 pixels. In the workshop we used a video that had already been put together and set the video to 'Play on Page Load' and 'Show Controller on Rollover' this meant that the video is easy to play, pause and skip for viewers. We then added buttons using Photoshop, I made one to play (blue), rollover (green) and another to click (red.) I chose to use the LemonMilk font (as it's one of my favourites) and placed them into the InDesign document and activated them as buttons.

Adding sound

As well as buttons we also created thumbnails that allows viewers to click and it takes them to that second in the video. These were activated as buttons and then linked to the video. The next step was to add sound to the page, I tested how it would work if the sound played when the page launched but didn't like this idea so created another play button for sound that can be used whenever. I made sure to export the PDF to 'Interactive PDF' so that it can be opened and used correctly. My skills in Adobe InDesign are very limited at this moment in time but by continuing to use it and create documents like this will help me to understand it better. I hope to use these techniques for portfolios and other documents in the future as it worked out quite well.

Final look at the Interactive PDF

Welcome back...

Seminar

The seminar was a brief catchup on what we learnt during term one at University, looking at how we can use the writing techniques that we have been taught and put them into practice to continue to write our essays. I have decided to stick with this question:

'Discuss the effect of women in the 'gaming world' as a subculture on graphic designers' 

I am going to make sure to gather lots of research about this to ensure that my essay is concise and proves that my question is true. 

Industry Brief

Today we were introduced to the new brief, Industry. Linked with the Penguin Student Design Awards 2017, the outcome will be a book cover for one of the following:

• To Kill A Mocking Bird
• In Cold Blood
• The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4

I like the idea of creating a cover for all of these books but will be focusing on one by gathering plenty of research and planning to design an individual cover that stands out. 

Branding - The Meaning of Life

Today we looked at branding within art, design and consumer culture, with a short focus on Brian Eno a British musician and music producer said:

'Culture is everything we don't have to do. We have to eat but we don't have to have cuisines like Big Macs or Sushi. We have to cover ourselves against the weather but we don't have to be concerned whether we put on Levi's or Yves Saint Laurent. They 'have to' activities are functional and the 'don't have to' stylistic - The main basis on which we make choices is in terms of stylistic differences.'

Consumer Culture is focused on the selling of consumer goods and then spending of consumer money. It means that a large part of what we do, value and how we are defined revolves around the things that you consume. We are consistently shown advertisement and brands every day that force us to consume the things we like e.g. an advertisement for Starbucks makes US the consumers want to buy the product. Consumer Culture is considered oppressive and manipulative as companies use their branding to attract the consumers to buy the products they offer, therefore creating profit and money for the company.

Its what the brand means to the consumer that matters most, we as consumers recognise logo's that could have meaning e.g. Coca Cola usually reminds people of Christmas and encourages them to purchase the product as a time to enjoy with friends and family.
A brand is a visual, emotional, rational image that you associate with a company or product, it has an extremely powerful impact on our beliefs, behaviour and emotion.