Week 8 - Album covers

When we consider album covers there are a select few albums we think of. The first ones that come to my mind are Sgt. Peppers, Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here. However album covers did not always exist. Alex Stenweiss invented them in 1938 and they immediately became popular. Now album Art is highly important and is still influenced by Alex's work.
This is an example of one of Alex's Album covers. It features simple lines and colours.This is an Album cover for Feist's album The Reminder. There are some distinct similarities between the two albums. To start there is a prominent dark figure in the center. It also features coloured lines originating from the dark figure. Finally it has all the text in the upper area of the cover.
Sources: http://alexsteinweiss.com/as_index.html
http://www.canadiandesignresource.ca/officialgallery/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/feist.jpg

Week 7 - Animation examples

I am now in the process of drawing the guitar in Fireworks that will be featured in my Flash animation.
I really enjoyed all the examples of animation that were show in class during week five. The different examples showed how animation has evolved and how it is currently used in the media.
My favorite example from class was the A-ha video for their song Take on Me. I went home that evening and went to youtube to show some friends. However I thought i selected the correct video but instead I got a parody that used the same animation but recorded different lyrics. I really enjoyed this adaptation and thought it was very creative. Here is the video.
Another example of animation that I really like is the stop animation music video by The White Stripes for their song Fell in Love with a Girl. The video features Lego which is shot frame by frame in order to create the appearance of motion. I enjoyed this video because it is creative and original (and I loved Lego when i was younger). We also see design principles at work in this video with the colour selection that is typical of the bands style. Here is the video.
The final animation that I really like is the higher budget computer animated Pixar short Presto. This animation exhibits much higher production value than the other examples and has a larger production staff. This video uses Pixar's classic animation style that has become possible with the use of computer graphics. Here is the video.
These are three examples of animations that are all of good quality despite the differing levels of staff and budget size. What this demonstrates is that money doesn't always give you a better product (although I;m sure most animators wouldn't mind a little more).

Week 6 - Flash Ideas

The Idea for my flash assignment spawned during a digital media class. During one of our classes i finished one of the tutorials a few minutes early and was looking through the iTunes library for sound effects when I came across some guitar sound effects and the idea was born to have a guitar in my assignment. One of the sound effects was a guitar being tuned so I decided to attempt to incorporate that into my animation. The next part I wanted to include in my animation was a psychedelic inspired "trip" since i enjoy listening to that type of music.
Examples that influenced the appearance I hope to achieve are my own electric guitar which i will try and replicate in fireworks. For the hands playing the guitar I want to use floating "Mickey Mouse" like hands that have that cartoon feel. As for the psychedelic trip section I did a google search with the parameters "psychedelic flowers" and got inspiration from the shapes and colours that came up. For interactivity I intend to use simple buttons to guide users through the experience similar to the examples viewed in class.
In order to accomplish this i will need to acquire a better understanding of flash. There will be lots of tweening in my animation so a good understanding of that concept will be integral to the success of my assignment. Music will play a large role in my project since the focus is on the guitar, therefore i will need to search for an appropriate song that is in line with my theme. I will need to acquire better technical skills in flash in the coming weeks in order to achieve my goal.

Week 5 - Poster Assignment

Artists Statement:

The concept for my poster is to showcase the University of Toronto Ultimate team more commonly known as Torontula in their quest at the Canadian University Ultimate Championships in Edmonton, Alberta. I was striving to keep it simplistic and clean so as to be read and understood quickly. The goal was to communicate the sport of ultimate and Torontula’s trip to Edmonton. The target audience for this piece is university students who are interested in sports but have a limited knowledge of ultimate.

To achieve this goal I edited the poster together using the fireworks software by Adobe. First I needed to ensure that the use of the logo was alright. The captains of the team granted me permission to use the logo for the project. Having acquired the permission to use the logo I scanned the logo off my shorts to use for the background. I also used the lasso tool to cut out the two players.

One of the challenges that was anticipated was attempting to use the magic wand to cut out the players which is difficult due to the background of grass, which contains large numbers of colours creating difficulties for the wand tool. In order to deal with this problem I used the lasso tool to cut them out. However this then lead to another problem, because some of the outlying pixels at the border of the images had green areas which stood out against the background. To alleviate this problem I used the smudge tool and the samples the background colour and manually changed some of the pixels so it would blend better. One problem that was not anticipated was during the scanning process, it was difficult to manage the fabric and during the scan it would come out wavy. While this problem is quite trivial it took time to resolve, which I finally did by placing a notepad behind the shorts and stretching them slightly to get the flat surface that was needed.

Throughout this process I learned how the magic wand tool can be used and situations where it is not as effective such as when the background has numerous colours. I feel the poster addresses its goal because it communicates the team and the tournament details clearly. I believe it successfully addresses the target audience because it uses bright colours and the pictures are of students. Throughout the creation of this project I was challenged to use a new program and produce a poster that appeals to an audience and shows good design aspects.

Analysis:

This assignment first and foremost taught me how to use computer software to manipulate and put together a clean piece. Throughout the tutorials I learned various techniques in Fireworks which were implemented into the production of the poster. I also learned how to implement design techniques, colour choice and font technique. Also i learned to appreciate the amount of work and time that it takes to create posters even simple ones take a lot of effort and thought. The in-class critique mostly focused on the placement of the word in the top corner and how it is not placed equidistantly from the side as it is to the top. It was also suggested that the placement of the players could be changed so that the player catching the disc would be on the left side and the word "Torontula" beside them. I think these critiques show that outside opinions are vital to a good piece of work because you can see other perspective on your piece that you may not have noticed on your own