a day on earth by kanchan dhankani

Project Documentation

A Day On Earth

610 frames duration 3 min 46 sec motion graphics film

Pincponc - International Design Project Process Documentation Kanchan Dhankani Semester 4 PGDPD Graphic Design NID 2008-2009 Batch Guide: Raija Holm Walter Hellmann

CONTENTS Summary

Starting Pincponc what is pincponc pincponc 5 brief

Process

Selection

Mood board Constrains Discussion with Hennng Ahlers & Thies Schwarz

Story boarding Characterizing 1st communication piece Reply from professor

Analyzing and understanding

Developing concept

Interview and pictures

Transitions

Limitations, Working methods

Music

Learning, Results

Summary This project was executed in Germany. It was the first time when the NID graphic design student was a part of an exchange programme in Fachhochschule Hannover (FHH). Pincponc is an international project for design universities around the globe, initiated and organized by the design studio Mintgold. The intention of this project is to investigate the cultural, emotional and artistic differences between the countries and also within the groups.

Hannover

GERMANY

NID-FHH Exchange students 2009-2010

Snehal Pawar

Shipra Singh

Cira Evers Students of NID Students of FHH 2

Martha Srieler

Rohit Parmar

Matthias Lauche

Kanchan Dhankani

Kristian Groth

Starting Pincponc Along with the growing role of technology in our life, a lot of changes are taking place in the field of graphic design - growing international cooperations, new trends going around the world and our communication taking place more and more through the virtual platforms and communities. We ask ourselves: Are there cultural differences in the work of design students in the time of globalization? Does such a thing like national design identity still exist? In 2003 we started the international design project Pincponc. We invited students from different countries to work simultaneously on the tasks dealing with cultural identities. The result exceeded all our expectations. The students work showed exciting approaches from their very individual point of view: serious examinations, humorous solutions and a lot of fresh design ideas. Mintgold is working closely with the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hannover, Germany supported by Prof. Walter Hellmann. We are happy to present in the Pincponc-gallery artwork from different continents and are looking forward to the projects ahead. Yours, Raija Holm and Sasha Ediger

First few experiences What is Pincponc? Pincponc is a design experiment between design academies in different countries. The academies work together as they offer parallel classes. These classes take place in the same academic year and treat the same topic. The intention of the project is to investigate the cultural, emotional and artistic differences between the countries and also within the groups. International academies work together as they work simultaneously on topics dealing with social and cultural self-perception in different countries. The students document and comment graphically their visions of the particular topic. The results are shared at the end of every project in Pincponc web gallery.

Pincponc 5 Topic

A day on earth Nothing is more thrilling than reality

Is every day life everywhere the same? Is a day on the southern hemisphere similar to one on the northern? We intend to document one day all over the globe. 24 hours in different countries, which allow us an insight in the other cultures.

Maze craze .... this is exactly how I felt my college here is. Silver rods and glass walls organized so well that you can get lost in them, room numbers run not only from 1 to infinity but also ‘a’ ‘b’ ‘c’ wings and not just that much, the room numbers are also in points eg C4.15 and god save you if you missed to see a little minus before the zimmer (room) number. Minus is the basement eg. Zimmer -C2.15 means its in - 2 and not 2nd floor. When you go there by lift you will be lost for sure that place looks like a chamber in NASA. Huge silver duct pipes running above your head and the temperature also falls down may be in minus in minus floors. Not only the building is so over organized to be confusing but also the system of courses. The best thing is that you can select courses for your semester according to your interest, but ‘Design’ and ‘Interest’ both are vast words and have extensions of their definition according to every individuals capacity and every one wants to explore them in their own ways. So one lands up not trying different things other then their interest

eg - if one likes illustration he will not opt for info-graphics and keep on doing courses in the same loop of illustration. So now the best part of the curriculum becomes the worst part also. You will find the best of the best course timings clashing. If you miss even one class you will never see yourself in that class again. Another good/bad thing is the flexibility of the first day - that is you attend the first class of every course and then enroll for it if you find it suitable. That means if you don’t like it you can leave it. So in that case students just keep doing 1st day class with as many courses as possible to find their best fit course and they land up spending a month just doing that.

Process • Select a person - a resident from the place where our university is located • Interview & spend a day following him and noting his activities • Concept building • Brainstorming on different ways of documentation • Explore different visual representation styles • Select best suited way of documenting for the person

Given brief

So finding my way in this maze craze and getting appropriate classes was a big task for me. This was my second week of college and I still didn’t know my batchmates and I still didn’t know how to start. Isn’t that like a cherry on an beautifully decorated Christmas tree on an north pole icing situation welcoming me in Germany.

Selection process Following people were shortlisted • Classmates • Hostel maid • Tandem friend • Hostel neighbor • Prof. Walter Hellmann Tandem programme - It brings you together with Germans who are learning your native language or want to learn about your country. During the tandem meetings you can alternate between German and your native language while discussing issues and topics of mutual interest. This is an opportunity to get to know Germany and the German people and try out your language skills. I had participated in one of the TANDEM programme. It was a great opportunity to practise my language skills without pressure, in a casual way. My TANDEM partner and I became really good friends. So I got to experience the local student culture much more than other internationals. So, I felt that she could be a strong contender but then I realized that I was already acquainted with students life and particularly with this age group. I had curiosity to know more about the life beyond the walls of hostel and more into the well settled person’s life style. Prof. Walter Hellmann came next in my mind.

Prof.Walter Hellmann Graphic Design professor at

Why selected Walter Hellmann?

Initially, it was very difficult to meet Prof. Walter Hellmann (head of visual communication) as I wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t aware of his timings. He was available at very odd timings, on specific days only. Once while I was attending an open class I saw him coming with a luggage bag, the sight was worth capturing in a sketch. The static vertical and horizontal lines of wends and floors Prof. Hellmann. The movement looked like ones in the video games. He was the one who introduced Pincponc project to me in English and with this communication between us gained momentum.

Choosing Prof. Walter Hellmann for my project I had an advantage of knowing more about a well settled graphic designer and can peep into both the ends of his life - professional and personal life. Germany has altogether a very different family culture and living style. There were many things new to me and therefore many new thoughts came up. Strangest of all was - Why did Prof. Walter Hellmann always carry a cabin luggage bag to university and I always wondered why and what does he carry every time he comes to FHH

Curious

Stereotype check

Time schedule of professor were different

Life of well establish Graphic designer

Know him more and his roles

Spoke English & German very well

Curious to know why do Professors carry a cabin bag to university

Life of 30 years and above age group

Mood Board The impressions before approaching Prof. Walter Hellmann with this idea. This is just an outcome of whatever little I knew about him.

Every Thursday we had a class meeting where we put forth our queries and have an exchange of thoughts over the project. Raija showed us documentation of previous Pincponc topics and showed us variety and scope of the project. The class schedule and list of guest speakers are given below DO 13-16 Clock 30.10 - Guest Speaker: Thies Schwarz : Illustrator 05:11 - Free talk 12.11 - Guest Speaker: Henning Ahlers: Story Board 19:11 - Free talk 26.11 - First Presentation 03.12 - Zwischenkorrektur 10.12 - Zwischenkorrektur 17:12 - Final Presentation

Thies Schwarz (guest speaker) A freelance illustrator working in Hannover, Germany We got a good overview of him and his work. A few tips on illustration styles and character building gave a good thinking direction. 8

When I approached the Professor with this idea It was a tongue tying situation for him. He could not wholeheartedly say “Yes” because of the constraints and responsibilities he had to handle, as he was the coordinator for this very project. He is indeed a very busy person and was already loaded with various activities. Eventually, he got convinced, but I had to keep some constraints in mind while working on this idea.

One of his illustration is placed above. To view more log on to http://tease-me.blogspot.com

Constraints • He doesn’t like to be photographed • Can’t give time consuming long interviews • It is not much possible to spent a whole day following him

After the talk, a small task of creating a character and giving a verbal description was given. “The Bin” was the character I made, who thinks that if he had hands he himself could pick up the garbage and keep at least the place around him neat and clean. 9

Planned communication To kick start I sent a communication piece to Professor, requesting him to select a day in coming week with lot of work load and make a schedule of ‘things to do’ for that day.

Henning Ahlers (Guest speaker)

1st communication piece

During his studies for graphic design at the Academie of Design & Medias in Hannover (Germany), from which he graduated in October 2000 with the Master’s degree in Graphic Design, Henning freelanced as a graphic artist for a vast number of companies. Among those were clients like Volkswagen, K2, Euromobil, Bahlsen, Bree, Agfa, McCann Erickson, Ogilvy & Mather etc. Beside his work in print and web-design he also worked for several production-companies and directors in Hannover, Berlin, Frankfurt and Los Angeles creating set-illustrations and storyboards for TV-commercials, short films and movie-concepts. In 2001 he started as an illustrator on Germany’s first computer generated animation-feature “Back to Gaya” [aka “Boo, Zino & the Snurks” (UK) (USA)]. During that production his position grew to the production designer and lighting supervisor on 75% of the movie. After designing the successful German animation movie “Urmel aus dem Eis” [aka “Impy’s Island” ] he worked on it’s sequel “Urmel voll in Fahrt” Currently he is working on his fourth movie “Animals United” aka “Konferenz der Tiere”, and other projects.

Beside the work on movies Henning built up the Illustration-Blog “DIE BILDERWUMME”.

With Henning we got good tips on story boarding and sequential images. Below is Harold Michelson’s storyboard of the film “Die reifeprüfung” which Henning shared with us after watching this part of movie. This gave us good knowledge about how a story board communicated every detail through important key frames and the whole scene is communicated in sequence of drawings.

After the talk he asked us to make a story board taking our selected person as antagonist.

The story boarding and styling Above is the story board I made in Henningâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s class The first sketch I made had a good visual impact and so I thought of starting my story board with this frame, with a lot of grid and lines. I have focussed on Prof. Walter Hellmann having a very structured life with his strong commitments with time and schedule. I believe he is very busy and therefore the rigidness of the structured lines and patterns follows him throughout the story. On the left there are a few impressions taken by using print making technique. I tried coming up with different variations in styles using this technique .

5:30

Breakfast (TV, coffee, cigarettes, Orange Juice, toast with cheese)

6:15

answering e-mails, working on papers for FH-Meetings this week (iPod: Bach, Well Tempered Piano)

Hamburg

8:32 Travelling by train to Hamburg (iPod: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness) 10:15

Studio-Tour in HH (We're looking for new rooms for our design-studio

12:00

Appointment with my Lawyer at the train-station for a talk + coffee

12:55

On the way back to Hannover (reading Newspapers)

15:03

Back in Hannover. Drive by Car to the FH. Meeting with Prof. Nobel. (lots of cigarettes, had a coffee + baguette) Try to make some copies of Docs for FHMeeting next Day. Copier out of Toner) 18:44

Driving to my Appartement, Hannover, Jordanstraße 51 (iPod: Rammstein, Völkerball!)

19:05

Bought some stuff at the supermarket (Bread, Butter, Toilet Papier, 2 Big Packs Cigarettes, Instant Rice)

(iPod: Paris-Buenos Aires{Electro-Tango}, Mark Knopfler, Pink Floyd, Miles Davis) 00:15

Dinner (2 Bananas, Last Cigarettes, Fruit Juice}, Watching TV, I don't know what, fell asleep)

20:15 Phone Calls to Italy {Friend}, Hamburg {my Wife Lissy + my Studio}, Answering e-mails. Artwork on Laptop.

Hannover

The distance between Hannover to Hamburg is approximately 159km Approximate driving time From Hamburg to Hannover - 1 hour 30 minutes

Analyzing and Understanding

Characterizing

I tried to plot him on map and trace how much did he travel. Another thing which had the potential was the information given about the music e.g. Well tempered piano during the start of the day and by the end of the day he switches to the Pink Floyd.

From the reply received from the Prof. Hellmann, I picked up the key points which could the substantiate the character and the narrative.

I had been to hamburg and therefore had experienced the environment there. Then I looked back to my picture album to bring out the essence of the place.

• Lot of travelling and movement • A lot of smoke and coffee • Music accompanying • TV news + newspaper = updated and aware • Planned day • Getting up at 5.30 & sleeping at 12.15 indeed a long tiring day

Developing the concept

Treatment

Looking at a graphic designers day, I felt I should highlight the brands and the logos he encounters in a day. Of course the logos and the brands does not matter much in a regular life of a person, but in this way I could bring in the essence, character and the flavour of the place and people. To me the brands and the logos are the touch points where the audience get a gateway to compare their life. The big or small decisions of choosing and using a brand is influenced by many factors. But you might have noticed designers value and therefore prefer Lamy pen more than any other common man. In the same way, I see Indian designers and design institutes are increasingly preferring Apple Mac instead of any other computers. It is not correct to completely believe in these kind of statements but it is doubtless that our association with brands have become stronger e.g. I say “Colgate is over“ instead of saying “Toothpaste is over”. Highlighting brands while documenting his day, will allow people to associate and relate better with the place and the person. Few brands are internationally famous and few brands are local brands. The international brands will help people all over to relate and the local brands will help plotting specific places and give a flavour of local environment. For example - Deutsche Bahn (DB) will help plotting the story in Europe and the Hansebacker will talk about exact place in Hamburg.

I thought the treatment and stylizing of the film couldn’t be restricted to one specific style as I believe a graphic designer has various ways of looking at the same thing. As a professor, I am sure, he might be looking at many different styles of students and the whole environment around him might be full of mixed feeling. So I thought of using vectors, hand illustration, photographs, typography, mono chrome, textures, patterns etc in the movie.

Still from the film Logorama by H5 14

The movie Logorama A world colonized by brands is the theme of a new film by French designers and filmmakers H5. Logorama is a slick 17minute-long animated movie that appears to lampoon both the Hollywood blockbuster — violent, crude and adrenalized — and the world of branding, a world where logos festoon every surface and where it is customary to be exposed to brand activity at every turn. I saw this movie much later, after I came back to India. They have narrated the story through brands which is very similar to my concept and I also completely agree to the way they have visualized the world colonized by brands.

Brainstorming

on different methods of documentation • Video film • Animation film • Book • Flip book • Puzzle • Personal diary • Bloging • Graphs and charts • Info-graphics • Records • Audio

Selecting the best documentation method for my project Flip Book I thought of making a planner book of Prof. Hellmann and it will show short moving images when flipped the pages of the book. Different sections of the book will show different incidents of the selected day’s schedule. There will be a clock that will show the time constantly in progress throughout the sections in the book. The starting page of each section will have written information of the incident. and the animation will be showing an important part of the written incident.

Interview & Pictures

As I froze on concept of highlighting brands and logos, I needed detailed information of the same. So, I looked out for products where I could highlight brands and made a list of it.