Final Thesis

Visualizing Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth

Thesis1 Final Documentation

Juwan Lim / Thesis1 / Fall 2011 / Jun Sassa

Thesis Concept Statement For quite some time, I have been interested in visualizing words because sometimes the power of one sentence teaches me a lot more than simply pictures or moving images. Words make me imagine, think further from what I read.

As I read Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth, I saw a lot of visual potential in his words. The words themselves are inspirational and provocative. I wanted to celebrate his words with my own interpretation in the form of motion graphic pieces. The production process of taking on such an inspirational body of work will hopefully challenge me to grow conceptually and technically as a motion graphic designer. I plan to absorb and follow the meaning behind his manifesto as I create my interpretations.

The entire manifesto is very long, so I have decided to focus on a small selection for my thesis project. I am not certain exactly which statements or how many pieces this will be, but am in the process of conceptualizing several at this point.

As a final means of presentation, I am considering displaying the finished animations in a website I create for this project. Bruce Mau calls his manifesto incomplete because it is a continuing work in progress. I feel that showcasing my animations on a website allows the same open framework to continue to build upon my progress.

My hope is that reinterpreting his manifesto in motion will revitalize this timeless manifesto to a new generation of designers.

Research Inspirational messages I researched inspirational quotes. I tried to find them from a variety of sources, such as books, TED lectures, and other internet sources.

TED speech Stacey Kramer: The best gift I ever survived According to TED, Stacey Kramer

Woffers a moving, personal, 3-minute parable that shows how an unwanted experience -- frightening, traumatic, costly -- can turn out to be a priceless gift.

Book Keep calm and carry on Keep calm and carry on has lot of inspiring quotes. Book is divded into sections such as crisis, economics, speculation, the church money, greed and work.

School of design

the book is composed of many advices like Bruce Mau’s manifesto left page is a word for designers(in Japanese and English) and right page is the image corresponds to the word

Quotes about life Life is just one damned thing after another. (Elbert Hubbard) Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. (Woody Allen) Life is an unbroken succession of false situations. (Thornton Wilder) Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot. (Charlie Chaplin) True life is lived when tiny changes occur. (Lev Tolstoy) Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone. (Charlie Chaplin) Life is a tale told by an idiot — full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

Existing Precedents Rule 30 by Vladimir Tomin Merak_delete me by Lukas Vojir These pieces are great examples of motion work made out of quotes. They used abstract elements effectively to express the meaning of sentences. They are also aesthetically perfect

Daniele Manoli’s alphabet series Daniele Manoli made a website that contains all the motion pieces he did about alphabets. He unified the style of work by inserting cross stitch style outro in every pieces.

Other Inspirations I had a research about Surreal art pieces. Surreal artists are really good at making concept visual in a unique way. They are James Christensen, Yusuke Nakamura and Samy Charnine.

Mind map

An incomplete manifesto for growth by Bruce Mau According to BRUCE MAU DESIGN, Incomplete Manifesto for Growth was first written by Bruce Mau, (http://www. brucemaudesign.com/)Canadian designer, in 1998, articulating his beliefs, strategies, and motivations. In addition, The meaning behind “incomplete� is manifesto will be updated or growth itself is always incomplete.

An incomplete manifesto for growth — BRUCE MAU 1. Allow events to change you.You have to be willing to grow.

Growth is different from something that happens to you.You produce it.You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.

25. Don’t clean your desk. You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.

2. Forget about good. Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you’ll never have real growth.

27. Read only left-hand pages. Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our “noodle.”

3. Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.

4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child).

Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.

5. Go deep. The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.

6. Capture accidents. The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.

7. Study. A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.

8. Drift. Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.

9. Begin anywhere. John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.

10. Everyone is a leader. Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.

11. Harvest ideas. Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.

12. Keep moving. The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.

13. Slow down. Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.

14. Don’t be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.

15. Ask stupid questions. Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.

16. Collaborate. The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.

17. ——————————. Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others.

18. Stay up late. Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you’re separated from the rest of the world.

19. Work the metaphor. Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.

20. Be careful to take risks. Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.

21. Repeat yourself. If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.

22. Make your own tools. Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.

23. Stand on someone’s shoulders. You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.

24. Avoid software. The problem with software is that everyone has it.

26. Don’t enter awards competitions. Just don’t. It’s not good for you.

28. Make new words. Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.

29. Think with your mind. Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.

30. Organization = Liberty. Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between “creatives” and “suits” is what Leonard Cohen calls a ‘charming artifact of the past.’

31. Don’t borrow money. Once again, Frank Gehry’s advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.

32. Listen carefully. Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.

33. Take field trips. The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic– simulated environment.

34. Make mistakes faster. This isn’t my idea — I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.

35. Imitate. Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can.You’ll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable.

We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.

36. Scat. When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else … but not words.

37. Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.

38. Explore the other edge. Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We can’t find the leading edge because it’s trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.

39. Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms. Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces — what Dr. Seuss calls “the waiting place.” Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference — the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals — but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.

40. Avoid fields. Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life.

They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.

41. Laugh. People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I’ve become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.

42. Remember. Growth is only possible as a product of history.

Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That’s what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such, a potential for growth itself.

43. Power to the people. Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can’t be free agents if we’re not free.

prototype I tried to brainstorm many ideas as many as I can for each word in manifesto and I will choose the best 8 ideas to execute them for my final project. My prototype is consisted of the basic concept of story line and inspirations of my brainstorms that is correspond to the idea.

38 explore the other edge Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack.

We can’t find the leading edge because it’s trampled underfoot. Try using oldtech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential Reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8MrMTYasLA&feature=related Sort: 8bit animation Concept: Use 8bit (old video game like) to express explore the other edge. I’d like to parody old video game such as crushing bricks and make a type out of it.

3. Go deep The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.

Reference: http://vimeo.com/25186640, http://vimeo.com/32042492 Sort: Abstract 3D animation Concept: I will express go deep by zooming into geometry shapes from one to another. At the beginning, color of geometric shapes are dull, movements are quiet. But as camera go deeper, geometric shapes gets brighter and moves pleasantly. I’d like to integrate the 3d elements with ink-spread animation.

4. drift Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.

Reference: http://formandcode.com/code-examples/repeat-embedded Sort: vector line animation+simple geometric shapes with textures Concept: I will animate glowing line drifting in the dark space. The numbers of line will be changed constantly. Sometimes line will merges and make geometric shapes. I will play with texture of line too. I am planning to grid out the space so the line movements don’t look too random.

11. harvest ideas Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life.

Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.

Reference: http://vimeo.com/20800127 Sort: Realtime footage + tracking images Concept: One person keep thinking about new and fresh ideas. all the idea process will depicted with tracking images 36. scat Reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbL9vr4Q2LU(Ella Fitzgerald) http://vimeo.com/3191777 http://vimeo.com/3302330 Sort: Kinetic type Concept: Make a fast pace kinetic type animation.

21. repeat yourself If you like it do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.

Reference : http://threeframes.net, http://3fram.es/ Concept: Show repetition by using looping 3frame animation 19. work the metaphor Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.

Reference : http://www.tumblr.com/blog/juwanlim# Sort: stop motion Concept: I will use bagel(breakfast dish) to represent metaphor. For example, mad is burnt bagel . Love is a bagel with a lot of cream cheese. Sick is a bagel with mold 37. break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it Sort: 2d animation Concept: I’d like to make a typical how to graphic in motion. The character will literally break, stretch, bend the word IT.

2. Forget about Good Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you’ll never have real growth.

Reference: http://vimeo.com/3191777 Sort: Kinetic type Concept: Make a kinetic type animation using Iconic images.

For example, I will use Thumbs up to express the word good and growth for arrow icon.

42. Remember Growth is only possible as a product of history. Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That’s what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such,a potential for growth itself.

Reference: http://vimeo.com/27266751 Sort: Real-time footage plus Concept: close up animation shot emotional eye movement. Nostalgic video will be played on the eye (screen or Multiply) close eye and open the type Remember appears on the eye 4. Love your experiments (as you would as ugly child) Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.

Reference: http://vimeo.com/21189547 Sort: Stop motion using lego Concept: Stop motion animation Using Lego and change hairstyle to express experiments. I will animate face expression to express character’s emotion such as joy and frustration. (Lego pieces will be used to draw something like teardrops, sighs and question marks. Typeface will be also made of Lego pieces at the end.

29. Think with your mind Reference : http://vimeo.com/2188162 http://www.typographyserved.com/gallery/Origami-Type/371423 http://www.typographyserved.com/gallery/PAPELA-FONT/205258 Sort: Origami Slow motion Concept: Make typeface Think with your mind with origami method 9. Begin anywhere.

John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.

Reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJagb7hL0E(Study about John Cage), http://vimeo.com/15309287, http://vimeo.com/2911843 Sort: Ink animation Concept: Using John Cage’s distinguishable music, I’d like to animate note using depth 25. Don’t clean your desk You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.

Reference : http://vimeo.com/17449557 http://vimeo.com/18402677 http://vimeo.com/22600525 Sort: projection mapping Concept: Video projection on Book pile or book stack in the dark Using color variation and patterns that books piles can be art form too 18. Stay up late strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you’re separated from the rest of the world.

Reference : http://vimeo.com/3155626 http://vimeo.com/22473755 http://vimeo.com/15091837 Sort: Video editing Concept: I’d like to shoot nightscape of newyork and edit into symmetry(Kaleidoscope) animation. And then tweak it into dreamy style.

Feedback Since I am trying to make multiple motion graphic, Feedback was specific to each composition.

For #38(Explore the other edge) people said I should think about the way that 8bit animation has the rich potential to express the word (explore the other edge) in a unique way. And I should not go too fancy with 8 bit graphic such as using perspective because the motion lose the track from my initial intention.

For, #37 (Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it) most people said I should make a quick and simple animation that literally Break it, stretch it, bend it. However I decided to go with informational how to style graphic, such as flight safety instruction brochure, that the character will literally break, stretch, bend the word IT. If I go with this method, I should think about make it humorous in character’s action such as karate chop to brake the word It. For #19(work the metaphor), people said they like the bagel idea, but just showing bagel on the table is not enough. #8(Drift), the class liked my print inspiration. They said I should try something like this. They said think carefully about layering elements.

Resources I need to research, Storyboard and style frame for each composition to make a final Composition and website.

I made a production according to what recources I need from now on to due date.

Production schedule

Week 1 / dec19-25 Do more research, Create storyboard and style frame for composition1, 2 Week2 / Do more Week3 / Do more

dec26-jan1 research, Create storyboard and style frame for composition 3, 4 jan2-8 research, Create storyboard and style frame for composition 5, 6

Week4 / jan9-15 Do more research, Create storyboard and style frame for composition 7, 8 Week5 / jan16-22 Create #1 composition Week 6 / jan23-29 Create #2 composition Week7 / jan30-feb5 Create #3 composition Week8 / feb6-12 Create #4 composition Week9 / feb13-19 Create #5 composition Week10 / feb20-26 Create #6 composition Week11 / feb27-mar4 Create #7 composition Week12 / mar5-11 Create #8 composition Week13 / mar12-18 Work on revision and sound Week 14 / mar19-25 Work on revision and sound Week 15 / mar26-apr1 Work on revision and sound Week 16 / apr2-8 Work on website Week 17 / apr9-15 Work on website