Visual Language - Evaluation

With this module, I’ve definitely explored around with different mediums a lot more. I’ll looked into the idea of what is a line in a more conceptual way which provided me the opportunity to test out things that I’ve never really got the chance to so far. My approach to this module has been quite flexible and open minded; looking at the topic from different perspectives and narrowing things down through constant experimentation. I’ve also been able to critically analyze my own work and move on with an informed decision, not allowing any particular styles to dominate what I should explore before moving on to a final resolution.

In terms of research, I’ve looked mainly into secondary resources, mainly into different designers/ creative’s of all disciplines to help identify the direction of my studies, ranging from photography to installation designs. Through recording on my blog, it was rather easy and convenient to add to my inspirations for my ideas. In terms of primary research, I carried out a brief questionnaire to identify what people’s first impressions/idea of what a line is, which helped me to identify where my ideas went. Although not much primary research was gathered for this module, I don’t think it affected my work process that much, as I felt that this module was more about constant experimentation and development into what a line is. Although maybe not considered to be research, the constant crit’s we had every week kept me on track to where I was at during the long module. I got plenty of influential opinions and constructive criticism, which inspired and influenced my development process towards resolving the brief.

I think one of the strengths from my work that have been evident from this module has definitely been the way I’ve approached the brief. It might be because of the amount of time we’ve been given, but I feel that I’ve been a lot more open to different ideas with this module. Rather than circulating around a particular idea, style or format I’ve been open to explore different mediums, working from 3D CAD to lego bricks. My final resolutions turned out quite well, hopefully demonstrating the concept and ideas behind it.

For such a long brief, it was difficult to keep a constant workflow and with the other briefs we have to work on, this made it even more difficult. Therefore I would definitely say that some of the weaknesses of this module were the organization skills, time management and keeping myself motivated. Again, I am aware that some areas of this module are a bit limited; it was rather difficult to stay focused with all the individual parts of the module, which I had to make up for towards the end. This has been said already, but I will be responding to these weaknesses by constantly adding to my work for any future briefs, the blog has helped a lot to keep my work organize for this module and has provided a good source of self reflection, this will be something that I’ll use a lot more from now on.

5 things I would do differently.

- Start the work and do something! – It was difficult to make a start on this, despite leaving it as a last priority due to other assignments. I was being quite indecisive to begin with, which I later discovered could have been resolved simply by doing something ad writing thoughts and drawings ideas out.
- Organize and categorize work from the day I receive them. - with the amount of work involved and small tasks to complete, it was difficult to record and keep track of all the work.
- Start work early and note down any thoughts/ ideas. – Especially when stuck for ideas or don’t know how to start, simply drawing things, writing down a few words and getting stuff down on paper really does help make a start.
- Keep a healthy daily schedule. – My sleeping pattern was a disaster for some time during this module, which affected my workflow and general concentration.
- Continue and use my blog more. – This has proved to be useful and I will be using this a lot more to document anything from thoughts, to the new magazine I’ve purchased.

Line 23/03/09

Althought not directly related to my work, these pieces have been of some sort of influence to my ideas on 'What is a line?' brief.

Keep your distant bus add
By Dukes of Urbino
The closer the driver gets to the back of the bus, the more distorted the type get's. This encourages drivers to keep a safe distance from the vehicle in front.


Cover for Zoot Woman
The design adopts a more artistic format, experimenting with type in a 3 dimensional space. This is the type of area I'm looking at for developing my idea on the typeface. From the work I have generated, I am planning on using typography in a 3 dimensional space, exploring type as an interactive element while looking into perspectives and depth. I think this will be an interesting direction to go upon at this late stage, where I have generated a typeface already, but using the time to explore the idea further.



A piece of work I so happened to bump into during one of my random ventures into the Leeds Met buildings. The piece is by Cornelia Parker, more of a fine artist than designer, but decided to take a few snaps to record the stunning results of such a delicate and tedious process, which is similar to what I'm practicing with my typography.

Playing with Lego!

The results of 2 hours playing with Lego.
Not much else needs to be said here really. By this stage, my concept is clear and it's simply a matter of experimentation to identify the most suitable format as a resolution to the question of 'What is a line?'

I quite like the alphabet, the only one that I struggled on was the 'P', the rest were resolved quite efficiently. The results are interesting but I want to move on again. I prefer the paper pieces I posted up earlier as they seem more dynamic in comparison to the static nature of the Lego blocks.

Line - 22/03/09

In terms of the direction I intend to pursue, I have decided to continue my exploration into the concept of space, perspective and depth outside a Mac. I find the 3d experiments a lot more interesting compared to the screen - based visuals that I have generated earlier on. Which is why I have decided to venture on the use of different 3D materials, exploring 3d space, depth and dimension - capturing and recording my progress through video and photography.

I like the interactive element of the concept of perspective, especially with typography as it engages the viewer quite effectively, therefore I have decided to stick with typography. In terms of directions to resolve this project, I have considered a few different formats that I will experiment towards:

- Installation
- Window display
- 3d billboard display

Line | Photoshoot 01

Furthering my investigation into perspectives and typography, I carried out a brief photo shoot to explore this concept outside a Mac. Up to this point, most of my work on this has been done digitally, which I wanted to move away from.

I created a few paper boxes of 2 different sizes, and played around with different layout and compositions, in an attempt to capture the forms of letters from different camera angles.

As a conclusion to this, I think the photo shoot has been more of a test on what I'll need to prepare for a 2nd photo shoot; the photos although were quite interesting, they didn't really reflect the concept and ideas on typography that I was looking for. The studio has been re-booked for another session on tuesday, which I will make a 2nd attempt on but probably using lego bricks instead as it would be easier to construct shapes out of.

12/03/09

An update on what i've been doing with lines! Refined the typeface based on Century Gothic, showing perspective with typography.

Original layout of the typeface, top/ plan view

Contact sheet showing 360 degrees view of the typeface in its final composition in a wireframe render.




A few different perspectives of the the typefaces, focusing more on the form and aesthetics of shapes and the layering of lines to form different 3 dimensional forms. I like how these resemble buidings in cityscapes, yet some how containing a glimpse of type within.


Front view - You can see how the layers of shapes vary in height, position, thickness and size to form the letters they belong to.


Side view - the 5 lines of letters are evident here




Just a few final renderings of an isometric view of the whole typeface, introduced a bit of colour to see what happens but wanted it to be quite subtle. Like the way the letter forms are slightly visible but distorted aswell as it's not being views at the correct perspective.

What is a line - Crit update 18/03/09

A brief update on where i'm currently at with this project with approx 2 more weeks till the deadline. So far, I have worked around the concept of perspectives and how a certain thing can only be seen at a specific point of view. This has been explored through shapes, layering and depth along with typography and how type can be formed by separate shapes that can only be visible and understood from one perspective.

Questions that I wanted answers to from this crit include:

1. What else can I consider with the concept of perspectives?
2. What other ways could I record type with this concept?
3. Is the concept of perspective and a line of perspectives?
4. What other mediums could I consider?
5. Should I move away from type? If so where should I develop this?

I received some really constructive feedback from my crit group, which has helped direct where I should move on to next. There has been a few mixed opinions as to what I could consider and experiment with, but the majority felt that the concept was clear, but I should move away from digital and experiment with 3D, interactive etc. So far, the majority of my work has been digital based, eventhough I am working on 3D visuals, and I totally agree and had intentions to move away from, however I felt that I wanted a bit more time exploring the concept with type more, which was more efficient to work on digitally.

As a general conclusion/ statement of intent of what I plan to do now...

I have decided that I want to stick with typography, although it has been suggested that I could move onto something more challenging, I still feel that I haven't completely explored the concept of perspective fully and therefore would be a shame to focus on the subject more than the concept at this point.

Whie I will continue to explore shape, depth, form and layering digitally, I will move onto more hands-on stuff. Things like making things out of lego, folded paper and recording through photography and video. The photography studio has been booked and it would be interesting to experiment with 3D form, depth and perspective in an envionment with controlled lighting.

18/03/09

Continuing with my exploration into the concept of a line of perspective, I have started to develop a typeface based on the Century Gothic font.






I decided to venture outside type with this concept, so worked on a self portrait ( wanted to try something non mechanical that has more organic shapes) and achieved some interesting results....

This one reminds of Cyclops from X Men!*


Another quick render showing the piece in motion and at different perspectives. I think i'm going to stick with type for now.....

What is a Line - Pavement Drawings

Some pavement drawings I found that reflect the concept of a line of perspective in a totally different way again. In comparison to the previous post on Clouds, which explores how 3D installations create a 2D image, these drawings look at that concept at an opposite point of view. 

Demonstrating a very high understanding of perspective, these images show how at a certain view, these 2D pavement drawings are made to look like realistic images, that adapt to the real environment. 

Below are a few pieces produced by 3 different artists, who either specialize or have done work on pavement art. 

Edgar Müller

Julian Beever

Kurt Wenner

Clouds

From the last crit, I managed to clarify where i'm going with this project. Looking into perspectives, line of views and dimension. I have continued to experiment with 3D shapes, perspectives and started experimenting with this concept along with typography. 

Below are a couple of pieces by Fred Eerdekens (who Becca recommended me to look into as part of my research), his work really reflects another dimension to my ideas and concept of a single lined perspective as this current point, and also adds the element of lighting that I should consider. 

Line 04/03/09

Further experimenting with 3D shapes, depth and dimension and merging with 2D based design software like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to tweak the stroke weights, colours and final look and effect of the type. 

Try viewing with 3D glasses! - Just a quick experiment into 3D effects by layering the layers with different colours. This effect adds to the idea of perspectives and depth

One Line of Perspective

A few further experiments with lined shapes, and a single lined perspective. 

Exploring typography by using layers of blocks and playing around with depth, dimension negative space to form the word line.

 

 

The word 'Line' is visible only at one particular line of view as demonstrated in these animations.

LINE - self reflection on current progress

Working on and responding to the feedback received before reading week. 

From my last statement of intent, I planned to look into the transformation of a line, experimenting with motion. So far, I've worked on experimenting with ideas relating to shapes, icons and how they can transform and merge into other shapes and forms. I have drafted a few sequences on ways to experiment with this idea but these are still in the early stages and have not yet defined a narrative to the idea, which is the main problem. 

At this current point, the direction of where my work's developing into is still unclear, I am still exploring with the current concept of a line as a connected development into different things but I really need to identity the purpose, narrative or atleast a theme to narrow things down a bit. 

What to do now...

- continue with my current idea of a connected series of developments represented in animated lined illustrations that transform from one thing to another. Perhaps I could illustrate a process of doing a task or something like an emotion - using lines to represent moods, sound events. (Refer to Royksopp Remind me video)  

Some experiments so far... 

 

Camera rotating, with the shapes and lines of each component taken away, forming a paralax effect.

What does this say about a what a line is??

This piece gave me an idea of visualizing the world in lines and taking things apart, which reflects the definition 'a mark indicating position, connection or boundaries', or ' a formation of people, objects or things on besides/ behind the other.'

Another 3d render, box with line embedded into each 4 sides. 

I wanted to simply experiment with line and motion but the sense of dimension with these experiments seem quite interesting. Although I'm still unsure where these pieces lie in terms of my ideas and how I could develop them, it might be work developing with this area to see where it takes me.

These two experiments kind of came out of no where, although I was initially inspired by the channel 4 idents with the paralax effect for the camera animation.

 

This is a line

Crit - 10/02/09

Feedback received

- look into transformation. 

- Identify a narrative to my idea. 

- Consider different formats, illustrated animation, stop motion, photoraphy, hand rendered.... 

- Series of events, what events/ situation will I base it on? 

- Categorize interesting elements of my research to identify a way to structure my ideas. 

 

Following on from the research and the experiments on 'What is a line', I have decided to look at the concept of transformation and how a line can be used to create shapes, forms etc. This idea will be a response to the definition of a line as ' a connected series of events, actions or developments. Looking at the video examples on stop animation, I have decided to experiment with this concept of motion. I will need to determine a narrative to my concept and explore the idea in more depth by experimenting, testing and continuing with my research. 

Line Rider!

While researching the possibilities of 'what is a line' I so happened to navigate my way into discovering the greatness of Line Rider! A game that allows users to design a course contructed simply out of a line, which line rider will jump on and ride down. I first saw this on youtube, and find the concept quite interesting as to what a line is. 

Below are a few examples of the tracks designed by the players. 

The game became so popular that the format was used for a Mc Donald's Commercial in the US.

Nice stuff by Kristofer Strom

Stop motion animation for Minilogue's Hitchhiker's choice. 

One of my all time favourite videos on youtube so far. I love the way the drawn 2D characters seem to interact with real life movements. It work's really well with the song and demonstrates a connected series of actions/ developments of the line illustrations. 

Another great example of his work - Kobra 06

More information about artist can be found at:

http://ljudbilden.com/

A line is : a connected series of events, actions or developments

Royksopp - remind me video

A really nice video for the song, a series of events lead from one thing to another throughout this video in the form of information graphics.

Honda Ad

Don't think this one needs any description, one of my favourite ads, which shows a line of connected actions triggered by another.

The White Stripes - Seven nation army

Although not a fan of the white stripes, this video did come to mind when thinking about a line as a connected series of actions/ developments.

The Ting Ting's did something very similar for the song 'shut up and let me go' , which i'm sure we've all seen....

Works by blublu.org

Following on from the research into 'What is a line'. I decided to put a few of my all time favourite animations, all developed from simple lined illustrations. With these ones, I particularly like the concept of the 2d animation coming to life by interacting with the 3d environment.

More info can be found at http://www.blublu.org