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EXPERIMENTAL COMMUNICATION This module online:
http://labretgraphics.co.uk/blog/category/experimental-communication
CONTENTS
This document is a summary of the work completed for the module Experimental Communication for third year Graphic Design. The module was originally taught by Mark Owen but handed over to Brian Whitehead several weeks into the module.
3....................... PHYSICAL 3D TEXT
The overall aim of this module was to “extend understanding of the nature of communication” and “become comfortable with visual risk-taking”. To achieve this, several briefs were set with very broad deliverables and were designed to encourage the use of several experimental techniques that this course had not featured prior to the start of this semester such as; projection, animation in After Effects, the use of Cinema 4D and monoprinting techniques.
6.......................ILLUSTRATION FOR ANIMATION 11.....................3D TEXT POSTERS 13.....................IDEAS THROUGH PROCESS & DEVELOPMENT 19.....................PROJECTION/GLITCH
A total of five briefs were set for this module including; Physical 3D Text, Illustration for Animation, 3D Text Posters, Ideas Through Process and Development, and Glitch [group project].
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physical 3d text Blog post at:
http://labretgraphics.co.uk/blog/experimental-communication/physical-3d-text
This brief required the production of a physical letter form which would later be destroyed. At the time I misunderstood how the letter was meant to be created and did not make mine in the same way others did. However, for the purpose of this brief and the experimental methods I think the letter object I created worked just fine. Coming up with an idea for how to destroy the letter was challenging, Mark had demonstrated an example of someone who used hundreds of match heads stuck to a letter form which caused it to go up in flames, as well as suggestions made such as creating it from ice and watching it melt or creating it from brick and smashing it until it was in small pieces. I didn’t want to re-create something that had already been done and as the time of this brief was close to Guy Fawkes night I decided to attempt blowing it up with the use of Fireworks. I began my spray painting the letters I had created with silver metallic paint. I did this for two reasons; first of all the metallic paint itself
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Full video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Blvjh6PQJYM Or search on Youtube: Experimental Communication / Physical 3D text / Fireworks “R”
was flammable and would cause the objects to ignite at a faster speed making the video more exciting and secondly because the only backdrop that was available for me to use was quite bland and the silver paint helped the objects stand out against the ground and fence. I encountered many challenges while filming the destruction of the letter as the camera I had been given was battery powered and consistently died during filming which meant I had to finish the recording on my phone. As well as this, the fireworks themselves did not function as I had hoped they would - the Catherine wheel didn’t spin at all which was really disappointing and had little to no effect on the letter itself. This is a still from the video I put together of the best shots from the experiment, one from the high quality camera and one from my
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phone which together show the majority of destruction of the letter forms. After the experiment the letters were definitely damaged but not necessarily “destroyed”. I actually created four letter forms because I was unsure how the fireworks would effect them and wanted to be prepared for something going wrong. I used all four in the hope that one would be fully destroyed but this method just didn’t work the way I expected it to. I considered going back and re-doing this experiment but was told not to worry about it so instead I will comment here on the ways I think it could be improved; It’s possible that the use of a physical “3D” letter form i.e one that has it’s own structure could help this experiment as the fireworks could be placed actually inside the letter and could have a different effect. I would obviously prepare my equipment better next time, making sure I have a camera that is reliable and can produce good quality film. I felt very uneasy completing this project as I wasn’t really sure what the outcome was intended to be. I definitely lapsed in the quality of the creation of my letter and I believe this let me down a lot. Hopefully I will have a chance to re-do this project to the right standards at some point next semester.
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illustration for animation Blog posts at: http://labretgraphics.co.uk/blog/experimental-communication/illustration-for-animation http://labretgraphics.co.uk/blog/experimental-communication/illustration-for-animation-part-2 http://labretgraphics.co.uk/blog/experimental-communication/illustration-for-animation-part-3
This task required experimentation with a form of automatic drawing or automatism; the method of drawing freely without criticism or planning, to create characters similar in style to that of Artist Jon Burgerman. In only one week I had to fill a sketchbook with individual characters or sketches, allowing my imagination to run free and be as strange or silly as possible. I ended up using only 32 of the roughly 50 characters or sketches I did to fill up the book and that seemed plenty to continue this project with. These 32 stood out as being the best from the group and after neatening them up in photoshop I had a collection of characters I could experiment with in many different ways. On the following page you can see all of the illustrations created for this task, although I have rarely used more than the ones featured on this page. The next step for me was combining the characters in such a way they they complimented each other and created their own little world. As most of these illustrations are quite detailed it was a challenge to create compositions that didn’t seem cluttered or over the top.
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These are examples of the first compositions I created using the majority of my characters. I experimented with different methods of presenting them, some where it appeared you were looking through a window at them and others where they stood alone such as the coloured in version. The original style of the illustrations as they are in black and white seemed to have more of an impact than the colour versions and so I naturally ended up using those ones less for the further development of this project. As far as I was aware the end product of this brief was intended to be an animation of some kind, which is why at this point it became very important for me to create a setting inside which these characters could be animated. Many in the class had opted for a spacetheme as a lot of characters designed this way seem strange and other-worldly, as well as that fact that it was suggested by Mark that we stuck to a space-esque theme. Because of this I took a slightly different route and began creating a world based on the inside of a bin - which suited these characters particularly well as many of them were food-themed. Through sketching and experimentation with photoshop I created the images on the following pages which were to be the setting for my animation.
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The bin backdrop as you can see on the previous page was not ideal for these illustrations - it all blended in together due to the illustratioon style and did nothing to compliment the illustrations themselves. After getting frustrated with the manning motion in After Effects using my simple composition, Mark completed a video for me demonstrating how best to pan across a still image with certain parts moving on their own tracks. Because this composition had already been done for me, I decided to create a new abstract but simple backdrop in Illustrator which could be animated on different levels to create a subtle sense of movement. I managed to create a minute of animation using only 17 of my characters because it seemed that any more than that would over-clutter the scene or make the animation unecessarily long. I am now quite please with the outcome although at first it seemed quite unprofessional and simple to me. You can watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRuwy47KDp8 Or search on Youtube for “Experimental Communication / Illustration for Animation�. If you follow the links underneath the title of this brief there are some more detailed experimentations with this brief such as mock ups on t-shirts and screen-printing experiments.
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3D text POSTERS/text modifiers Blog post at:
http://labretgraphics.co.uk/blog/experimental-communication/text-modifiers
This brief was started with Brian during Experimental Communication but continued on to Design Portfolio with Mark because it featured elements that were significant to both modules. The first step of this was learning how to convert type into outlines and transferring them into Cinema 4D. Everything else beyond that was Cinema 4D features and ways of adding decorative flair to the typographic rules we had selected during this class. These are the firsrt drafts of my posters which as you can see are very basic and not particularly well executed. It was a simple experiment to find my way around translating text to Cinema 4D and has been absolutely imperative in the completion of many different tasks across this module and the others. On the following page you can see the development of my skills in making 3D text in C4D and this helped teach me basic skills required for completing my final piece for the Design Portfolio module.
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IDEAS through process and development Blog post at:
http://labretgraphics.co.uk/blog/experimental-communication/semiotics-monoprinting
This brief focussed around the idea of semiotics; how to create images that are as simple as possible yet still convey a meaning to the majority of people who see them. The subject matter was left wide open and so I chose something instantly recogniseable to many people - the story of Alice in Wonderland. I scanned through the film quickly and noted down any significant elements that people recognise i.e the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter’s hat, Alice’s dress etc. I drew out the simplest forms possible and kept simplifying them until I was left with these black and white icons. It was also necessary to be very conscious of the closed splines as these were to be laser cut and needed to remain in one whole piece. I designed a total of 25 icons to represent the entirety of the film, all done in Adobe Illustrator. I thoroughly enjoyed creating these icons as Alice in Wonderland is a story I love and thus far haven’t had a reason to experiment with it in a graphic design setting.
Eat Me
I created several poster print style graphics that I think work really well as standalone pieces.
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Before this semester I had never experimented with monoprinting before, although I had done other kinds of printing throughout first and second year. I had also never used the laser cutter before which was a bit of a challenge, mainly due to closing and correcting the paths of my icons in illustrator so that the laser cutter software could understand how and where to cut. My first attempt on the laser cutter was with all of my icons on quite a small scale using standard printer paper which I then took to mono print on cartridge paper. I did not complete many prints in this first session as it had taken a whole day to achieve what I needed to with the laser cutter, but you can see from the small number I did complete that something was off with the materials or the process. Because of this I decided to re-cut my icons on a larger scale and work with different paper - this immediately produced better results and led me to scale up some of the icons even further and use a combination of small, medium and large scale icons in compositions together. On the following pages you can see the results of my second and third attempts at monoprinting - the third attempt creating some really interesting visuals and showing me what this technique can really achieve. I was surprised to see how much my skills with this technique improved even over these few short sessions and this is now
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projection/glich “the ghost in the machine” Blog post at:
http://labretgraphics.co.uk/blog/experimental-communication/projection-the-ghost-in-the-machine
This brief started in the photography studio at university, experimenting with what the projectors could do on the walls and across people’s t-shirts. The idea was to see how our work looked once translated through digital means and back into physical settings, the subject matter was left entirely open and so I experimented with all kinds of work I had available to me on my computer. We were then asked to split into groups and continue this project - outside. This meant borrowing a projector from the university and finding a place outside but with enough shelter to protect the projector in case it started raining. I was split into a group with Amy Papworth, James Nawka-Martinez and Chris White-Thornberry. I had already been working on some abstract Cinema 4D animations in my own time which suited this project perfectly and were really interesting to project onto the side of buildings and in different scenarios.
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In the photography studio we projected our work onto each other’s t-shirts; I used some work from this module as well as things from Design Portfolio and things I had done in my spare time. I tried to focus more on moving images rather than stills as this produced interesting effects when played onto different surfaces. Unfortunately as this task was set only a week before the Christmas break, my group was only able to meet once at an outside location. We were lucky enough to have access to a house close to university with areas outside close to shellter to protect the projector. It was raining for almost the entirety of our time together and although this made things a bit difficult, it createsd some interesting effects on surfaces and in the video taken by James Nawka. My group experimented with projecting onto the side of buildings, plants and bushes, gravel and walls. We immediately noticed that motion graphics with white elements showed up much better than anything else and tried to focus on finding suitable clips we had worked on over this semester. On my blog you can see more photos from the group work as well as a video I have put together of clips I captured of my own work while completing the group project. James was kind enough to put together a video of what he captured as our photographer, you can also find this on my blog.
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James’ video can be found online at: My video can be found online at:
https://vimeo.com/150525130 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=150&v=RKekz9iMNzE
It is a shame that we didn’t have more time to complete this project as we were producing some interesting effects. However, I think it would be crucial to this task for producing more complete outcomes if we had an end product in mind - be that an advertisement type video or simply and artistic film. Our standalone motion graphics although interesting to look at lacked consistency and didn’t really seem to connect to each other in many ways at all. Because of this our work has seemed slightly disjointed and not what I would fully consider “group work”. Mainly this project gave each of us an oppertunity to create graphics in cinema 4D that we otherwise wouldn’t have and then display them in a truly interesting and unique way. Because of this myself and James now have two more showreel videos that we can include in our portfolio that I think look very proffessional and showcase our talents in an experimental way. Please visit my blog for the videos as well as a more detailed and personal account of the work completed alongside progress photos and methodologies.
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labretgraphics.co.uk/blog/category/experimental-communication/
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