Top ten things - First achieved ident

Taking much inspiration from innocent smoothie adverts, I have created a collage like ident. Using a range of textures, I have managed to create a realistic setting, that relating to the tone of mocktails: fruit; summertime, light heartedness.  I have used colour appropriate to medium, again to make objects look realistic, believable and identifiable.

I am very pleased with my first attempt considering how bad my after effect skills are. But I feel I've worked best to my ability. After speaking with Lorraine I came to the conclusion that my time would be spent within illustration, as that is where my skills lye, not in after effects. I wanted to create aesthetically great pieces of artwork, to very simply animate to communicate my top ten to a viewer. I feel I have achieved this to some level. 

Storyboard for above ident

Top ten things - More storyboards

I feel the quality of my storyboards are improving, although I'm not using colour, for me personally, it communicates my idea better. I am able to figure out exactly what I'm doing, movement wise. I lacked a lot of detail in earlier storyboards, when others overlooked them, I was quite simply embarrassed at the standard of my drawings!

Using kinetic type alongside imagery: 

A cows udders are 'milked' into a martini glass,words come into scene, they appear the be squashed by an Orange carton, which is then kicked by a cows leg. I wanted to try a humorous tone to my work.

Top ten things - Hand rendered illustrations - Exploring a different medium

I saw some of my peers work and saw a few which were completely hand rendered. I thought it might be a nice idea to try and do the same for mine. Although nice as outlines, they looked pretty bad with colour, so I felt it best to not take this route, nor experiment with animation due to time. Its something I can try in future projects as I do like the line drawings.

Image - Eye chart - Illustrations

I decided I love this brief. This really gave me the chance to start drawing, so I put pen to paper, producing a range of different pocket watches, in a range of detail, some more logo like, others very detailed. I intend on using the more illustrated and detailed as the larger scaled elements of the eye test chart, and the smaller logo like images to be at the bottom, so from 30ft they are still legible due to the little detail.

I'm really proud of the standard of my drawing, My pencil especially but I don't feel that medium will be most appropriate, as it can be very faint, and won't be legible when standing a distance.

Top ten things - Further Vectoring and Type

I realised that I'd missed a few things out from my list of 'things to vector', just a few more to do!

I also took this opportunity to start designing the type which would appear in each of my idents. I decided to keep it aesthetically simple, as the images I use are quite bold, detailed and colourful. I needed to use one colour throughout, I felt, to keep it consistant. One which could be used against any colour. I also needed to use a typeface suitable to be used alongside the bbc one logo. 

I decided on the mass of text to be that of the same typeface as the font. The title 'Top ten mocktails' to be Reisling. A decorative font, sophisticated and simple. I felt it had qualities similar to the 'clubbing scene' in regard to style and weight.

Top ten things - Animating slicing fruit

I realised a lot of my storyboards included the slicing of fruit, so I felt it would be best to create some animations to do so, using smaller compositions would make creating my animation to be much easier. These do need touching up as timing is an issue, and the legibility, it doesn't quite look like the knife is innfact cutting the fruit. 

Top ten things - Working with audio - Ident 4

As previously stated, I feel I needed to use music to communicate what my top ten things are. I decided on 'Artic Monkeys - I bet that you look good on the dance floor', its a song with a very long intro of no words (easier to edit), is played within various bars and clubs, and is known by a wide audience. I have picked a clip of the song, which I feel is most appropriate, as its almost a build up of what else there is to come, I'm treating the ident as a 'teaster' for the 60 second animation.

Top ten thing - Improvement in my AE skills - Ident 4

Animating 4th Ident idea (can be seen within storyboards)


I'm not sure if this is quite the approach I want to take within all my indents, as I'm not sure it communicates what my top ten is. I will have to use some kind of glass wear and music to convey this idea I think. Although i am very happy with my after effect skills, it's no longer something I stress about, but in fact look forward to using and creating my moving image pieces. I am very happy with the colour palette I've used here, so thats certainly something I'm going to stick to.

Top ten things - Storyboards

First initial ideas - Orange being sliced, juice being squeezed into a glass.

1st Ident idea

2nd Ident idea (from 2nd page)

3rd ident idea (from bottom right)

4th Ident idea (from 2nd page)

Top ten things - Background

After looking at several examples of drink related animations, especially those of an alcoholic nature, I found the colour palette within them to be very colourful to reflect the nightlife scene. I wanted to do the same, so I created a psychedelic colour wheel, which changes colour at every key frame. It almost look like strobe lights, its the appearance i wanted to create. I feel I have done this successfully, I will be saving this as its composition feeling it will be easier when working with larger files. Below is my created piece. I have worked with pastel tones, that similar to those found in the fruit I've been working with. Another reason for the pastel qualities is viewing ability, I don't want viewers to be put off by overtly bright colours, it needs to be pleasurable to watch, not painful.

Image - Type as image - Feedback

Scales image - "Nice disjointed text, you have to really look to be able to read the content"

'Latte Factor' - Try printing straight onto stock, edit in photoshop to look crisp

'Secretly seeing' - Try a different background, to help communicate message.

try a key hole shape, arrange type around.

Look at Brians 3rd year work

Try using an image of a spectacle, the word 'seeing' magnified, shadowed.

Top ten things - Experimenting with animation

A very simple idea for an Ident. I saw a peer doing something similair with a different subject matter, I wanted to attempt to do the same, just to improve my after effect skills if anything! It certainly needs some re-touching, but its a start. I have yet to use music and a background.....I really need to get a move on.

I began to think ahead of myself a little, thinking about what I would possibly need within the title. As I intend on showing the making of cocktails I felt a few things would be repeated throughout. Heres a test piece I did for the squeezing of a slice of lemon.

Just a quick idea for an ident. A repeated vector image, I want to use music alongside which will compliment the fast movements and fade ins here.

Image - Type as Image - A1 Prints

The final finished print outs. I'm very happy with the final results, the scale and composition of each piece is appropriate to the designs. Although, I did make a printing error on the scale piece, a miscellaneous white square was left on the final piece which I could see on screen. The 'Secretly seeing' design I feel is too precise to the original typeface, I wanted a handwritten / made tone but it doesn't evoke this.

Top ten things - The direction I'm going to take

After having a mental breakdown at the lack of skills I seem to have on after effects, I spoke to Lorraine. Finding that my skills lie within illustrating and hand rendered pieces, she suggested I followed the path of some student in previous years; to concentrate the bulk of your time on creating stunning visual illustrative material, and use AE to simply move these pieces around the screen, as the images would speak for themselves. 

I was much happier after realising I could do this, so decided to get cracking on creating some intricate, colourful illustrative material. I also realised, when coming to create the packaging, I would have art work readily prepared, so in a sense, it was a time saver on that part!

I illustrated everything I could think I would need within my idents and title sequence.

Heres an initial animation. Using the images above I have created a first moving piece. I was unsure of the tone I wanted to create. It has humorous elements (the cow kicking the juice and glass) alongside serious elements (the statistics about drinkers). Its basically a collation of a series of approaches I could take. 

The text element - as its own composition - 

I decided I wanted to experiment with Kinetic Type, not very well I must admit, but its a start!

After Effects Workshop

1. Keyframing
2. Grouping layers together
3. Use of audio\

Speed - Changing / adapting

Select key frame > Animation > Keyframe assistant > Select appropriate

Select 2 Key frames for 'Easy ease'

Graph tool icon

Anchor points can be adapted (yellow) to change speed

This changes line, circles with in it will get closer / further apart, the further apart, the slower, and vice versa. 

Turn a solid, to another shape. Select object, double click shape tool option

Holding anchor point, hold 'shift' to get it directly above

'n' shortcut to cut time to point of finish

Changing the graphs, to adapt speed - Rotation

Layer > Transform > Auto orientate  - Object will move and rotate appropriately to path




Layers selected > Layer > Pe-compose > name appropriately
Nested composition is synchronised when working with time, if you change something, it will automatically update

Image - Type as Image - Sketchbook

Trying a few typefaces, sketching a few ideas for composition.

The final outcome for 'Secretly seeing' quote.

I intend on vectoring and placing onto an A1 document. I will be changing the composition as I'm not too happy with it is now.

Image - Type as Image - Second final image

"Latte factor"


I really love the idea of creating type from abstract materials. When I found the quote 'latte factor' the idea of making type from coffee immediately came to mind. I made several attempts, using a stencil and frothy milk, to coat the latte with type made of coffee, I failed. It just sunk, and I made a mess. So Instead I took the easy option of stencilling it onto a solid object, that being the saucer. 

Image - Type as Image - First final image

"How to balance the two risks"


Looking at the idea of 'Balance' I looked at what mediums and objects are related to the word. I instantly thought of scales (I happened to be in the kitchen). AT first I wanted to physically create the letterforms to place on a set of scales, but realised the scales I had weren't exactly 'pretty' and cutting the letterforms would be very time consuming, so decided to vector it instead.


The idea of balancing the words on the scales.

Image - Type as image

I made my first mistake. Using far too much 'image' based content...

On the upsight it sparked further idea, which use a lot more type.

Image - Possible fonts to hand render

www.1001fonts.com


I want the typeface to look hand rendered, although from a diary extract. So I look at some calligraphic , hand drawn typefaces which would be suitable. 


'Secretly seeing'


http://www.1001fonts.com/font_details.html?font_id=3385 - Precious


http://www.1001fonts.com/font_details.html?font_id=3206 - Peach Sundress


http://www.1001fonts.com/search.html?query=scriptina - Scriptina

I decided that Edwardian Script was most suitable, and easy enough to hand render.

Article image - Changes made

After seeing the final print out I realised my first design wasn't appropriate to the given size. I had used far too much detail and the writing was unclear and illegible. I realised a better way to approach this would be entirely image based, simple but communicated the article well. Here I have produced a visual timeline of the human body, showing the stages of life. With each, the iconic 'cold' logo, showing a decline in the number of these icons through age. This I feel communicates the article well and when printed will be more legible and befitting. 

Image - Type as image - Photoshoot

I decided to focus of photography for this piece, creating a stencil to form the typographic elements, made up of coffee granules. Originally I was going to stencil the writing onto the top of the coffee froth, but my inability to make enough froth made the design for me. I tried a few places, on the saucer and towel to try a few different things.

Edited Images