collaborative briefs analysis

We started off the session with a discussion with our collabaro's, discussing which out of the briefs we would of liked to work on. We was quite lucky as me and mitch both chose pretty much the same briefs to work on so narrowing them down was quite easy. 
We had to chose our 2 favourite briefs and our least favourite,
the briefs we chose were; 

2 favorites;
-ferigoni
-swaroski
least favourite;
-BLYK


we then had to pick 5 reasons why we liked the 2 briefs and 5 reasons why we hated the other which you can see below.


We then had to chose the best brief out of our 2 favourites for us to work on. This was quite a difficult decision, with both briefs being quite similar, however we came to the decision that the Swaroski brief would be best for us.
We decided this because; even though the reason we liked the ferigoni brief was that is was all print based therefore there was a really high potential for creating some really interesting outcomes we could still take all this into consideration whilst doing the swaroski brief. Also with swaroski brief designing something for females was something we both thought would be interesting because it is something we hadnt really done before, also with the fancy high class connotations jewelry brings with it it would allow us to make use of our mainly illustrative backgrounds using illustrative type and calligraphy within our outcomes. However the main reason we chose this brief was because it seemed everyone else in the class had chose the ferigoni brief and we wanted to do something different to the others in the class.

OUGD203 Briefing & Seminar - choosing a partner

After the briefing and presentations first thing in the morning we were given our first task, the tak was to create 2 a3 posters outlining the kind of designer we are and the kind of designer we would would like to collaborate. One of the posters says 5 things these posters would work in selling our selves to the others in our class one poster highlighting 5 of our strengths and one seeking a designer, highlighting 5 strengths we wanted in a partner. We had around an hour to design these, which wasnt really enough time for me to create the type of poster that would fully reflect myself as a designer which left me to have to quickly design these.





Once stuck up we had to choose from the posters who we would like to work with solely focussing on the designs of the poster and the content, not knowing whose poster was whose. 
I was quite happy towards the end of the session because i was left with quite a few comments on my posters with people complimenting the poster design, even though i wasnt too happy with it myself and allot of people who felt we could collaborate well together based on skill set and what i was looking for in a partner. Also i had a few offers at the end of the session off people asking if i would like to collaborate with them which was nice to hear, however i already had it in my head who i would of liked to work with.

I decided that it would be best for me to collaborate with Mitch, the reason being we share similar interests when it comes to design which would i thought would be interesting sharing our skills and interests and seeing what we would come up with. 

YCN - briefs

For this module we are going to be paired up to collaborate on a competition brief from the YCN website.
To be honest i looked at all of the briefs and initially hated all of them, they all seemed to be focussed solely on type and layout and no briefs that i could use image and illustration which is my preferred style of working.
However i read through all of them and here are a selection of the ones i though i could work with and the ones which i hated.



Initially i liked the sound of the Ferigoni brief because it is quite open in terms of outcomes, also it is solely print based which could be interesting using a range of print techniques and my knowledge from the print module to create some really unique innovative designs.
Also as well as the Ferigoni brief i liked the sound of the Swarovski brief, because even though i couldnt necessarily use image and illustration within the brief i could see use of illustrative type and calligraphy working well to within outcomes, calligraphy something that i have always wanted to master and practice and this brief would allow me the opportunity to do so. Also creating design work aimed towards girls is something i have never really done before so would allow me to try something completely new.
The Industry Trust brief as well sounded alright because even though the outcomes are very limited it could allow me to use some kind of illustration within my design work, however the only thing that was putting me of this was how it says 'Ideas should not: Be negative, scare-mongering or finger-wagging', which basically says we have to draw happy childish things which is something i dont really like doing, still would be interesting to look at. Also another issue with this brief is that i dont really agree with the cause, it would seem wrong doing a project telling people not to watch films illegally when i and pretty much everyone i know does it all the time.

These are the two briefs which i hated, the BLYK brief and the graze brief. The BLYK brief because after reading it i found it hard to picture and initial ideas of possible ways approaching the brief, the brief is also solely screen based whereas i was really interested in working with print again. The brief also didnt contain allot of information on it as to what the company wanted from us as designers and the possible outcome seem quite restricted. Also the Graze brief just didnt make any sense at all, giving us the chance to rebrand and re package the company however not allowing us to change the packaging whatsoever, even if we didnt necessarily like the original packaging design. 

end of module self evaluation

What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
The whole module for me was using skills that i have never had the oppertunity to use before, learning a whole new software to a fairly high standard was the main one. Workshops and help from tutors has been a massive help whilst doing this, starting using after effects and having to create 10 animations on it was tough however i feel i really got to grips with the software towards the end of the module and now feel quite comfortable using it. Working with motion has been a whole new experience for me, just the overall concept of not just creating a still outcome but and outcome which last for a certain period of time was tough, but with the help and use of storyboarding and such things it was made easily do-able. I hated after effects at first but over time grew to love it as i began to understand how it works and is hopefully a software i will use throughout other modules in help of trying to make my outcomes really stand out.
What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development 
process?
Just learning this new software was a big thing for me and the help from tutors really showed me how to use it within my outcomes. Use of storyboarding and researching into other motion graphics have also helped my development research helped showing how far you can push the software and gave me some initial ideas in tackling a brief which 3 months ago i wouldnt of had any idea of how to do so. StoryBoarding also has been a great help when getting down ideas from your head onto paper and allowing you to roughly see how they would work or even if they would work when applied to screen.

What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
My main strength i feel is how well i got to grips with the software, i felt by after mid december i was really cumfortable using after effects which helped when it came to creating my final outcome but allowing me to actually create these mad ideas which i had in my head on screen. Whereas like i said 2 months ago i wouldnt of had any idea where to start when doing things such as camera movements, zooming in and out on objects, i wouldnt of even been able to make a circle move across the screen. Another strengh would be my actually design work, because at the end of the module we had to create the packaging and using my design skills which i have developed throughout the degree i was able to create, what i felt was, the perfect packaging for my produce.

What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?
The only weekness would be being completely new to this way of working, after effects and storyboarding really threw me off at the start of the project and not really knowing how to go about either for along time made me really struggle when it came to getting work done, like i had all these great ideas for the silent movies however did not have any idea how to actually make then within after effects. I think their isnt much i could do to adress these, should of really asked tutors allot more for help towards the beginning or sat on tutorials to help where i needed help, i did adress it towards the end however and now i feel i know after effects well enough to try and apply it someway to every brief.

Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?
Not leave it all till the last minute
use storyboarding more when designing on screen
be more careful when saving files
probably should of done more design concept research
blog frequently.


How would you grade yourself on the following areas - 1 being poor, 5 being excellent.
Attendance; 5 | Punctuality; 4 | Motivation; 5 | Commitment; 4 | Quantity of work produced; 4 | Quality of work produced; 4 | Contribution to the group; 5

problem with disk!?

i've burnt my files onto different disks 3 times now and for some reason the 5th silent movie wont convert onto disk, everything else seems to be working fine but everytime it cuts off the ending off the 5th movie.






this one.
silent movie 5.

title sequence

ident 4

indent 3

ident 2

ident 1

silent movie 5

silent movie 4

silent movie 3

silent movie 2

silent move 1

final tweak of my 60 second video

Just did a final clean up of my animation, made sure nothing was in the composition that shouldnt at any time, hid layer that went necessary, sorted out any messy movements and silly errors.
Also moved the keyframes around in sections to try and get it more in time with the music.

Silent Movie Post Production Boards

silent movies - reworked

The next effect i started messing around with was one called shatter, it had a really nice crisp finish when on after effects but when i uploaded it onto youtube it seemed to loose all its quality, you still get the idea though, its lots of particles rushing around then they collide into each other and form a word.

not my favourite animation ever, but it still works, if i had abit more time on the project i could of experimented further and made it allot better.

silent movie - reworked

I then started getting more experimental with my outcomes and playing around with the effects,
this is using an effect called skatter, i dont think it is suppose to but i was messing around with it and when you tweak rotation angle it makes these balls appear as if they are bouncing.
So with each bounce i changed the keyframe velocity to make it slow down as it reached the peak of its jump, also increased the ball size as it reached the peak to really give the illusion that they were bouncing.

silent movie - reworked

This was my favourite concept out of all my ideas for collide and i feel i finally had the skill set to make it nice and smooth and how i pictured it.

Using the rotation tool again to drop the C in the the 'ollide' quickly squashes then expands and shoots the E out... etc.

Used allot of keyframe velocity within this to get the perfect speed for the rising and fall.

silent movie - reworked

During mikes sessions he taught us away of animating this sort of thing really simply which i didnt know about when i initially made it; moving the anchor point high above the letter then setting keyframes and changing the rotation, which works perfectly and takes like a quater of the time compared to what i used to be doing.

Then i toyed around with keyframe velocity again to get the perfect drop with the C.

silent movie - reworked

After becoming quite comfortable on after effects and feeling like i pretty much knew how to work the software now it didnt feel right handing in the atrocious silent movie things i did in december, i decided to go back and quickly redo them before hand in.
The first one i did the word collide was split into 2 and banged into one and other, quite a quick animation to do really, used the guides to line up the letters perfectly and find the meeting point, then the slowly moved backwards before shooting into the centre and then exploding all over the place. One thing i did to really make the animation move perfectly was toggled with the keyframe velocity options. Turning influence up to the very top to make the words start off extremely slow then pick up speed quickly.

packaging - finished packaging.

i then mounted the gold foil printed sheet onto some white card so make it slightly sturdier and cut out and folded my packaging design. Think it works really well as packaging for the rich list, fits the topic perfectly, simple, crisp, elegant design.

packaging - foil printing

So because i missed my lazer cut slot i had to go for something else, i wanted to emboss the title into the case however i didnt have enough time so i decided to do some foil printing. The foil printing actually worked really well, i mocked up a quick minimalistic design on illustrator and began foil printing in gold and silver. Looked really crisp and fresh, perfect for my packaging.

packaging

Trying watercolour paper, i went to the library to see what stock they had available to create my packaging on and i saw the watercolour paper, nice texture and thickness, would work really well for my packaging. So i tried it out and it looked really nice but turns out it is slightly too thin and flimsy, feel as if the cd is going to fall out.

packaging

Further pushing this packaging design that i have come up with, seeing how it would work on card.

Initially my idea was to use card such as this, lazer cut the title of my title sequence out then place like a silver stock underneath, i had a lazer cut slot booked for today to actually go ahead and do this however the card just didnt work very well with the design, it was too thick and once it had been cut out and folded it just looked messy, and really with a subject such as the rich list i wanted something as neat and crisp as possible.

packaging

Initial concepts for packaging; instead of just doing a design a printing it off and slicking it in a pre-made sleeve i wanted to give my packaging a unique style by designing the whole box, i had a few ideas in mind already of what i wanted it to look like and how i wanted it to work so i began experimenting cutting out paper to see what would work best for my DVD. Creating some initial ideas and testing how well they would work, quite happy with the ideas that i came up with, could work really well for the packaging with some more development.

ident 4

This is the final finished ident, which has been edited according to what was said in the final crit, the 'm' was sorted, as well as some of the timings and the programme it is aired on.

ident 3

For this ident i had to move some of the things around abit because the original footage only lasted about 5 seconds, so by moving things around and stretching things out i managed to make it into an ident which still runs smoothly and works really well.

ident 2

Ident 2 is using the introduction to the title sequence, which again works really well as an ident, especially with the music, the letters falling in time with the music really makes this simple animation work extremely well.
This is the first attemp but i think the timing is abit off at the end, you dont really get long enough to read the text.



Finished ident 2 with timing sorted...

ident 1

To save time i decided to take most of my idents out from my 60 second sequence, just take a part of the sequence and edit it into an ident, for this one i took the final scene, sped it up abit and then looped it but on the loop set it to a quater speed to it ran through each person so fast you couldnt see and then slowly 'the rich list' slams down on a separate background followed by 'tuesday at 9pm, bbc2'.
Which i think worked really well for an ident, cought your attention straight away and made you want to know more about the programme so you would tune in to watch it.

Ident One - version 1.

Ident One - version 2.

I then added a texture to the video to see if it would make any difference, it's a very subtle difference but definitely give it a really nice finish and is allot nicer.

finished video

finally finished the video, must of took pretty much 2 weeks of constant sitting on after effects, after effects is the most awkward programme i have ever used but one i got use to it and realised its capabilities i really enjoyed it.
But after 7 compositions and thousand of layer and files finally finished.

Finished 60 seconds, still in need of a quick clean up to get it more in time with the music in places and get rid of some errors which i noticed once it was rendered.

final stage

The sequence ends with a fast passed run through of the top 10 rich people, with each person on a different background they drop down infront of each other one by one, i did this easily by animating each background first then just adding the photographs and parenting them to the appropriate background layer. It then ends with a white background with the text 'the rich list' [the title of the programme] coming in.

stage 8

This stage starts with Carlos coming in from the left followed by the type.

Then by moving the anchor point to the right side and changing the scale of a period of time it looks as if the line appears from nowhere and draws itself, then i duplicated it and rotated it so it looked at if the y axis came from inside the x axis.

 Then as the bar charts rise, using the same camera layer and null object the camera quickly zooms out to so the bar chart grow bigger and bigger before being slammed down by the next final scene of the sequence.