Freedom, The Flash Experience

My kinetic typography assignment is call Freedom, for the exact reason that freedom is the main focus of the solo the clip is to. It was done on Flash MX and Adobe Illustrator for some of the more difficult animations.
I was extremely excited when first assigned this kinetic typography assignment. Off the bat I knew exactly what audio clip I was going to use, and the message I intednded to convey with it. I chose to go with a more dark, urban mood, to match the song’s feeling. K’naan’s song “In the Beginning” brings up the importance of children, and their freedom. The song portrays the issue of child brutality and even brings police brutality to attention. With such serious issues I needed to convey a lot of deep thoughts into my clip.
The first issue was selecting a text. I needed a bold text that could be easily visible, even when words are up for a short amount of time. Tertre Extra Bold fit this perfectly. It bluntly displays the lines and stands out on the stage. For the more emphasized lines in the clip I needed a more intense looking font. Punks’ not Dead matches the song’s darker urban mood and really adds feeling to each line. This in my opinion was the most successful technical solution. It sums up all the moods throughout the whole clip into one font.
A lot of the main focal points in the clip go along with what K’naan is saying at the time. A candle lights up the dark when he says light a candle, and a heart appears when he says hearts we fill. These decision I believe were successful in directly portraying the message of the song into the clip. The text and content would also alter with the mood of the solo. The beginning of the solo has a much more calm mood, and for this reason I chose blue as the background. It gives it a more suggestive feeling and leaves you open for the more blunt messages towards the ending. The last half of the clip I mainly used a black background, to make the font have maximum contrast, making the words really stand out. I feel I was successful in using the right colours to stick to the songs feeling.
I am very happy with my final product because it is exactly like I imagined it being. All my initial thoughts were constant throughout all work on the clip. If there was one thing I would change on reflection it would be the detail in the background. It would be nice to see more than a flat colour in the back, maybe some pictures of buildings and alleyways here and there. I believe I made up for it by having a lot of movement in the clip. Probably the most difficult technical challenge was having the words keep up with K’naan’s fast flowing lyrics. Because it is rap the amount of words was very difficult to work with. So many lines had to be coming from everywhere at all times, and this made it challenging to keep up with the transitions. All in all I feel I was successful in this assignment, and really portrayed my initial message I intended to. The work was worth it and it is satisfying to see the final results.

This assignment was handed to us around the beginning of last year. As one of our first assignments we were just learning how to use the programs and weren’t really as confident as we could have been. The assignment was to make a logo for an imaginary company ran by you. It was a graphic design company with it’s own beautiful custom made logo.

Before I decided what my logo was going to be I needed to decide what kind of mood I wanted to get across. I wanted to get a kind of an energetic mood but try to show that I mean business. I thought around a bit and I finally came up with, a gecko. Playful, energetic and still one of the smartest lizards on earth.


I started to animate the gecko a little more and had many versions with all different colour decisions. This gave me a wide variety of choices to choose from. I finally decided to go with the colour of wealth and intelligence. Purple. After I made the main colour of the gecko I had to eventually go on and choose the colour for the specs. I thought that the purple was intense enough so I decided to go with a cool easy white.

After I got the colour down I needed to start thinking up design names. Some names past through my mind but I think the one that was most present was Naff. The word does not have a real meaning but I think it fits the energetic mood I was trying to set.

My logo really does represent my company but nothing ever stands for only one thing. The energetic gecko could stand for many things. It is very symbolic that business can be fun. The gecko is an intelligent and noble animal but at the same time it is very fun and lively. Loosen your ties guys, Naff is in the house.

As I said earlier this was one of the first assignments in the class. Since it was our first time using this program (Adobe Illustrator) it set the foundation for all other assignments I would do from this program. Without this assignment I would not have learned all the other skills that I would have needed in the future. This assignment really taught me about the gecko too. We needed to research the animal we chose and this was very beneficial to my “Gecko Knowledge”.

Facebook vs. Twitter

Site design is an important part of any success on the internet. It's extremely easy to have an un-appealing site that does not follow the ten principles of web design. This can also be easily avoided. Let's use Facebook as an example. For anyone visiting the site for the first time it's evident as soon as the page opens what the purpose of the site is. Clearly stated, "Facebook helps you connect and share with people in your life." These are almost the first words you see, and leaves you confident that is what your going to get out of the site. This allows the user to not even have to think, which is the number one principle of web design. The sign up details are also found without navigating anywhere, aswell as login info. On one page without navigating anywhere you can login, sign up and quickly see the point of the site. This is very useful and effective.

To look at the opposite side of the spectrum let's look over at twitter's home page. The first thing that takes my eye's attention is the side scrolling text, that upon further reading has nothing to do with knowing what the site does but is just a bunch of names. It is a very poor decision making the least relevant piece of information on the page moving, because this is where the eye will travel first. I am still not even one hundred percent positive on twitter's purpose and I've been looking at their homepage for a while now. The sign in, or sign up info is found after navigating a little through the site and this can cause some users to loose patience and leave the site. This refers to the second principle of web design, don't waste your users patience. Seeing a cycling list of top tweets definitely drains my patience, and also confuses me; what the hell is a tweet. A better idea would be to leave these "top tweets" or who else is on twitter to bee shown later after you login, because this information is redundant to someone who has yet to sign up. All of these problems could have been solved before they even became an issue. Keeping conscious of the purpose of your site throughout your design process is crucial to success on the web. People like things to be convenient and easy, not tedious and difficult.

Ashcan Art also known as Ash Can art's creation was a revolutionary art movement. In the United States Ashcan art is more commonly recognized to be darker and depressing; paintings of a dark city alleyway rather than a bright sunny field. This form came as the first important art movement of the 20th century. Made up of young revolutionary artists the Ashcan School is a group of painters that rebelled against academic taught art with their own individual style that stood out from all other forms. The group sought to capture the feeling of life at the turn of the century. Crowded dirty cities showing dark alleyways or bars captured a darker feeling than alot of paintings during that era. Paint was applied thickly and rapidly leaving evidence of brushstrokes. This is how the art was rebelling against academic tendencies. The movement is most associated with The Eight, a group of painters five of which are associated with the Ashcan School. These painters sought to display the truth about life in a busy urban city.

I find this group of painters very interesting, and personally inspiring. They rebelled against "normal" art and sought to convey their own personal messages, in their art. They took the world of art and turned it upside-down, just because they felt like it. To know that it is possible, to try something new, and different and become successful inspires me in all my work to strive further. Strive further and find that particular personal aspect of me going into my work. These painters noticed something, and felt the need to stick out like a swore thumb and display their opinion. It's people like this , constantly pushing the envelope, that end up changing the world forever. This does not only inspire me to try harder at my work, but any task i take personally.

Self Portrait

THis year in my Cyber arts class, we were assigned to digitally create a self portrait of ourselves. After this digital portrait is completed we are then painting it onto canvas. I chose this project to share because i feel it will be one of my best works. When the planning first came we needed to choose an art style that we were going to attempt to mimic. Many ideas came to mind, mainly clinging to surrealist styles. The idea I settled on was me as a zombie; this inspiration comes from being raised on zombie movies. My plan has many layers of meaning, which took a while for me to work out in my head. I'm trying to convey that i am a reliable person, who is stern in their beliefs. As of now it is a work in progress, and I'm still trying to figure out many details in the background. This project proves to be lengthy and will take all of my creative-thinking power to achieve what i am aiming for. Here is what i have so far.

Sprockets 2010

Yesterday April 20, our cyber arts class was included in a special screening of short films, hosted by sprockets. These short films, some animated brought many topics to attention about our global world. Others were just cartoons with foxes running around. One film, done in French was about a man making a movie, and it follows him shooting one of his scenes in a hospital. The whole short film leaves you confused, with the actors making it seem actually real. This comes to your attention when the actress is acting sick even when they are not shooting. I though this was a very unique technique for a movie to use.

The next longer film we saw was a cartoon in French, taking place in forest and a castle. It followed the story of a depressed princess with her rat "parents" and her unicorn friend named "U". U helps her become happy and almost acts as her guardian angle, as Molly the princess describes it. Their land is disrupted by a travelling gang of musicians. Molly's "parents" do not approve of these visitors and want them off their land. The whole story focuses on in depth character development for every single character. You feel compassion for every character, and understand their problems from every angle. No other movie has made me understand each character so well. These short films were a great experience and I'm glad I was a part of it.

El Anatsui

Let us take time to focus on great artistic mind in our world today. El Anatsui, a Ghanaian sculptor comes to New York to unveil some of his latest creations. Born in Anyako (1944) El Anatsui was active for most of his career in Nigeria. He delivers a very unique form of tapestry-mosaic art, sometimes using hammered down bottle caps to develop a beautiful quilt like piece. This makes his art unique, and delivers a bigger message hidden within the piece. His work brings to attention the issues with consumerism, waste and the frivolousness of people’s lives in our world today. He uses recycled bottle caps to support the idea of re-using materials, while also making a beautiful piece of art. Artists like these show initiative in changing our world, through their art. The art offers people inspiration; with messages like reduce reuse recycle in the inspiraration, El Anatsui’s message continues to move from one creative mind to another. This is my favorite element about art; the element that causes a person to say Wow more than they did when they first saw the piece. I like to think of art as something more than a painting, but a message. A message conveying an issue in our world that also relates to the piece the artist created. El Anatsui and many other artists alike continue to convey their opinions on our world through their art. These opinions must be heard, and listened to, or else artists alike will hold their brushes next time an inspiring idea runs through their head.