An Idea of Perfection!

For my motion graphics assignment I am considering doing a trailer for Pretty Little Liars. It is a popular book and more recently a popular TV show for teenagers—generally girls. This coming week there is a special Halloween episode airing. All week I heard about the airing of the show—my best friend is obsessed. As I “cleaned” my room, I found one of the books in the Pretty Little Liars series. The cover had a barbie on it, and all of a sudden I had an idea!

For my motion graphics I plan to somehow light a barbie on fire—I’m aware that sounds a little pyromaniac-like, but I really think it could look cool. Pretty Little Liars is all about secrets ruining “perfection”. When secrets are out, people break. I thought showing a burning barbie could reflect this idea. It might be a little crazy. However, in lecture we watched videos where mistakes (such as the bottle of liquid spilling), or trial and error made the entire piece stronger. So, I think I’ll buy a barbie—or dig an old one out of storage, and see what burning it will look like.

So far I am liking after effects. In grade 11 I took a Com Tech class where we learned to work with Flash. After Effects is a lot like flash—but with a little extra UMFF. Kind of like Flash on steroids. I don’t really know how to work all the fancy stuff yet, but everything else is pretty straight forward and simple. I’m excited to learn more about it. It looks fun. Although I am worried that we won’t have enough time to learn a whole lot before our trailers are due. I just I’ve just to wait and see!

Type Everything.

FASCINATED. I am a huge fan of websites like Tumblr and Lookbook, where you can scroll on forever looking at photos and quotes and clothes and AHHH. As I browed Tumblr today—sort of stuck in procrastination nation, I found this fascinating website. Continuously scroll down (really, keep scrolling, it doesn't end) and view typography. It's very entertaining—A lot better then an English essay, I promise (I know from experience).

Inspiration Through Type

Check out this website! It has 50 inspiring typography posters. Typography is honestly so versatile! You can do anything with it. I love when people create images entirely out of text! This website has some good examples. 

What's Your Type?

Bored to Death opening title sequence
This title sequence uses typography for it's illustration. Text off the pages—in the title sequence, form shapes and moving imagery to create a creative introduction to the show.

Tom Barham, Curious Pictures, Opening title sequence for Bored to Death, 2009

Bored to Death is a show about a writer who wants to be/pretends to be a private investigator. The title sequence takes the concept of the writer and mixes that with the Crime Noir comics the protagonist bases his investigational practice off of. One can see that the font forms shadows—But, when one looks closely, they realize that the words do more. After each character's introduced, words drift away from their text-bodies. These words reflect the character's feelings/actions and character traits in the show.


The font used in the title sequence is a basic serif font. This font is typically used for newspapers, books and other printed material. Using a serif font for this title sequence creates a "writer/reader" feel to it, which adds believability that this is a real book being used in the sequence. Serif, rather then sans-serif, is also easier to read and presents a more professional/sophisticated look.


The typography used in this title sequence reflects the themes & ideas for the show. With it's black and white layout, the target demographic is clearly one who likes both comic books & mystery. Although, with it's 'sophisticated' feeling and song, it implies an older [comic book/newspaper reading] audience.


To learn more about how the title sequence was created click here.

DEXTER

As many people know, my favourite television show is Dexter.  I think the overall show is simply amazing. However, I’ve always been iffy about the shows advertisements.  I can never decide if the typography and overall design is doing too little, or just the right amount. So, it is now time to decide. Firstly, here is a Dexter advertisement:

I started by figuring out which typeface is used in the Dexter adverts. I have recently discovered that I am awful at simply looking at a text and knowing what it is. For example, I thought Dexter’s font was maybe Helvetica bolded and even italicized. But after staring at the advertisement, I realized that this was not the case. Whereas in the initial picture posted above, the T’s little top flicker looks like part of the blood splatter, in this advert (posted below) I realized it was part of the text. So I went to google to learn more.  After typing something really silly, along the lines of ‘Dexter font theme title’ into google, I found a few forums where hardcore Dex fans discovered that the Dexter typeface is called Soda Pop.  

Now that I knew the font, I looked more closely at the advertising and decided it was really well done. The sans serif font starts off very simply. It’s just clear font. And as the title continues, blood sprouts out of it. This simple idea tells Dexter’s story—He is a simple man by day, but at night he kills. The plain text represents Dexter’s “real” life & the blood splatter represents his dark passenger.  Its simplicity also suggests an older targey audience. One who doesn’t need separate colours or a fancy typeface to understand what Dexter is all about.


Toys R Us

The Toys R Us logo has always made me feel happy! It’s big and colourful and loud. I think that the company has done an amazing job at capturing their entire essence and target audience. The letters are bright and happy much like little children. Little children are drawn to the store because of their branding. Children like big playful letters similar to the ones used in this logo. If instead they had used a typeface such as Ariel or Helvetica, it would not have the same effect. 

The font used for this logo is called Toy Box—With the manually reversed R.

The pastel colours of the logo work extremely well too. When one thinks of children, or even toys, their mind—or at least my mind automatically goes to two things: pastels & the rainbow. I think that Toys R Us has used colours that reflect their target audience and products. Note that the colours are not either pink and girlie or blue and boy-like as people usually associate with babies, but rather pastel, darker, truer colours that toddlers & older children are associated with.

In conclusion, Toys R Us really knows who their target audience is for the products they are selling & their logo proves this.

If like me, you did not realize that their logo changed—from having a reversed R in quotation marks to instead a reversed R with a star in the middle, don’t fret. Read this article I found online to learn more about the change!
*Please note that none of the above images are mine. I do not claim the rights to any of them. They are simply images  I found online and believed worked well as examples 

Sketch

CLICK HERE to see a piece of motion graphics that I love.

I have chosen a PSA (Public Service Announcement) from Sketch. Every time I watch this I get an automatic thrill. Think about how long this must have taken—to draw, film and find the perfect song to match! Notice that the paper piles up after every drawing is added. The creator(s) definitely worked hard to make this PSA the wonderfully enjoyable yet informative stop motion piece that it is. It's contrast of black & white/colour is so simple and lovely. I chose this piece because I love anything that is home made and I believe this PSA does a really good job at suggesting the ability of one's hand.

Below is a brief summary taken straight off of their website telling you a little bit more about this non-profit organization and what they do.

"Art making is a curious way to address homelessness or poverty - growing issues in Canada, one of the wealthiest nations in the world.
Art making offers expression, self discovery and skill building. It facilitates participation in community life and in the making of culture.

Sketch creates art making opportunities for young people who live street-involved and homeless or who are considered to be at risk.



"

How I found out about Sketch:


In grade 10 I had to do an assignment on a non-profit organization in Canada. I decided to use Sketch because I simply loved what they were doing. I found them through extensive online research and upon seeing their PSA (posted above) I fell in love. The organization was so art-filled and lovely.

Bad Dream

Check out the song Bad Dream by This Century. It’s the song I created my album artwork for. 

CD Cover

Artist Statement

For my first assignment I chose to do a CD cover. The reason I chose this was simply because I love music. Not only do I love music, but I love CDs. Even with downloading and file sharing, I’ve always found it more exciting to go into a store and buy a physical CD. I love looking at the album artwork, the lyrics and all the extra stuff that musicians put into their albums. As I got started on the assignment, I had no idea what I was going to do. I looked through my pictures and many different websites for inspiration. I finally found a picture that I liked and decided to use it. I was going to create a band and design a CD cover based on a few things I found online. As soon as I got started, I got really into it. However, I discovered that when using an image—that was not solid as my background, it was hard to find fonts and colours that really stood out. I tried playing around with saturation and a few other blending techniques, but I never got the effect I wanted.

The next day I lay on my bed waiting for inspiration to hit me. Suddenly I realized something so obvious. I have a love for dream catchers. I looked at the massive one hanging on my wall and then shifted my eyes to the tiny one attached to my key chain. Now, I didn’t know exactly what to do, but I knew if I incorporated something I loved, that this would be easier. I opened up google and searched ‘Dreamcatchers’. I then began creating my own dream catcher. I decided I probably needed a band name so I opened up my iTunes. I typed ‘dream’ and found Bad Dream by This Century. How had I not thought of this earlier? Not only do I love this song and band, but it works perfectly with my design idea. 

Next I went onto www.colourlovers.com. I decided my target audience would be teen girls around my age—since most of my friends that like This Century fit this description. Young, Girls and Pop/Rock music made me think of bright colours. I found a few colour palettes that worked and got drawing. Drawing feathers that don’t look like spiders can get quite tricky. I’ve never been an amazing drawer so tracing often helped me in this assignment. It was fun to work with many different colours. I chose a dark background to help the dream catcher—the main piece, stick out. The fonts and colours I chose were ones I believed were complimentary to the dark background colour and overall theme of my piece. I also tried to align my wording so it looked more uniform. In the end I really played around with colours, fonts, placement and blending. In the end I think I achieved my goal of a colourful piece that matches my opinion of the band—This Century.  


Benefits of Class Crit.


I enjoyed presenting my piece to the class. It feels really nice to hear feedback about what was both good and bad about my own work. The good stuff is really re-assuring. It gives me confidence. After looking at your own piece for so long, sometimes one can grow tired of it—As I did with mine. I really liked what I created, but after a while it just looked the same, ya know? So hearing from the class helped me see my piece in a new way. I saw things I achieved and things I could have improved on. The entire session really just taught me to keep going. If I think there's something wrong, or something's missing in my piece, there probably is. Also, it made me more comfortable with sharing something I've produced. I didn't really show anyone what I was working on until it was does (besides my parents of course) But I think I could have benefitted from showing it to some people in the same class/program as me, hear their feedback & make improvements to my piece. In conclusion, I really enjoyed seeing other peoples hard work & sharing mine with them. After working on something for such a long time, it's really rewarding to share it.