1-STATIC DYNAMIC PROCESS REFLECTION
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Research Discovery Making Storyboards Animating Revision
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Research
I don’t know what it was about the day I started searching for music for this project, but I found myself only searching for British tunes from TV shows. Georgianna from the BBC’s Pride & Predjudice, the theme from Jeeves & Wooster. and finally the theme of the show Downton Abbey recorded by the Chamber Orchestra of London entitled the Downton Abbey Suite. It’s audio mimicry of the drama of the show, lends itself beyond the original script into new explorations of narrative and dialogue between visuals and words,
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Definitions
tense adjective, tens¡er, tens¡est. stretched tight, as a cord, fiber, etc.; drawn taut; rigid. in a state of mental or nervous strain; high-strung; taut: a tense person. characterized by a strain upon the nerves or feelings: a tense moment. Phonetics. pronounced with relatively tense tongue muscles; narrow. verb (used with or without object), tensed, tens¡ing. to make or become tense.
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tender adjective, ten路der路er, ten路der路est. soft or delicate in substance; not hard or tough: a tender steak. weak or delicate in constitution; not strong or hardy. (of plants) unable to withstand freezing temperatures. young or immature: children of tender age. verb (used with object) to make tender. Archaic. to regard or treat tenderly.
brilliant adjective shining brightly; sparkling; glittering; lustrous: the brilliant lights of the city. distinguished; illustrious: a brilliant performance by a young pianist. having or showing great intelligence, talent, quality, etc.: a brilliant technician. strong and clear in tone; vivid; bright: brilliant blues and greens; the brilliant sound of the trumpets.
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Discovery
When creating the 72 images for this project, I remained in a state of play and let the product be what the process made it. At first, I began trying to make images that fit an aesthetic purpose I was imagining with the word in mind. I soon found wildly more interesting results came out of letting the word guide the image instead of forcing the image to find the word. I had an arsenal of materials, I went to the recycling bin and grabbed all sorts of scraps, chose a prompt, a word, and documented an exploration with it.
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Types of Making: Hand Made
The handmade images were largely based on material exploration. I used the words as the driving force for the images. I considered the formal elements of the images in different ways for each word, prioritizing my focus on the element that I thought would best steer an image to represent the word. For tense, I thought more about the actions while I was making the image. I let those images be unresolved. The tender images were softer, my making approach was more gentle and resolved. Whereas the brilliant images were more about creating contrast and moments of surprise within the compositions.
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TENDER
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BRILLIANT
TENSE
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Types of Making: Photographic
The photography process was at moments the most symbolic and at other moments the most literal interpretations of my explorations. I went through images I had taken on a SLR, on a film camera, images from books, cookbooks, and magazines as well as going through my sisters darkroom image folder. With the collages I thought about how to create tender, tense and brilliant moments between the borders of the images themselves as well as finding images that had more tender content, such as the raw meat in the cookbook.
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TENDER
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BRILLIANT
TENSE
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Types of Making: Computer
For the computer images I went back and forth between using base images and using what the tools of the application to create. Many of these started with physical materials I collected that I thought represented the words well, such as blankets and vein-y leaves for tender. Lights and bright colors for brilliant. As well as rigid imposing materials for tense. I experimented with several scans before deciding whether it was resolved enough to leave as a scan or be used as a based image for editing in the programs to intensify its visual relationship to the word.
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TENDER
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BRILLIANT
TENSE
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Making the Hybrids
My first path with the hybrids was the combining of the dark and bright images. My goals was to represent the contrasts in the song through the contrast in the imagery. Some of the hybrids I physically cut out and glued together, some I Photoshopped in pieces, though by the end I was liking the atmospheric collages the most so for the sake of creating a visual language, I stuck with the Photoshop blending tools.
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COMPUTER-COMPUTER
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COMPUTER-PHOTOGRAPHY
HANDMADE-COMPUTER
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HANDMADE-HANDMADE
HANDMADE-PHOTOGRAPHY
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PHOTOGRAPHY-PHOTOGRAPHY
Story Boards
Storyboarding was a difficult and essential part of the process, as all the images lived in the land of stills and perceived motion. Trying to lay them out next to each other and imagine the motion with the added layer of music was an exciting challenge. I started with images that I thought would go well in pairs. Then, turned them into sequences. During class, I was challenged to make three storyboards, that used my color pallet to reflect and refract various aspects of the song. The first used the range of color to hint at the dynamic of the entire song. Then, using the only the bright pieces. The third used a mix of both to go from dark to vibrant.
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Editing Story Boards
I decided my visual narrative would be about the brighter and darker notes in my images correlating with the staccato and legato emotional elements of the song. I wanted a story that highlighted the contrast of the delicate and bold parts of the song. I wanted to use the bright colors and hand motif peaking through in a subtle way, to show the nuance of the storyline. As for showcasing the staccato and legato parts, I used transitions. Quicker transitions and fades to keep with the more prominent beats in the melody. The over-laid type becomes the characters acting in the storyline.
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COLORFUL-DARK
LIGHT-COLORFUL
DARK-DARK
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DARK TO BIRGHT
COLOR NARRATIVE
FIGURATIVE
Research for Animating
VARIATIONS OFF THE ORIGINAL IMAGE
SAUL BASS, ANATOMY OF A MURDER
I liked the examples we were shown that had a main concept or image, that the rest of the images were broken off from to form the narrative.
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NORMAN MCCLAREN ANIMATED MUSIC
SAUL BASS, IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD
STRANGER THINGS TITLE SEQUENCCE
Thinking About Motion I wanted to keep the animation fairly simple, avoiding slideshow but also avoiding IMovie Magic show. I drew inspiration from the title sequence idea and decided to make this a title sequence for the song that a poster could be drawn from like Saul Bass.
SAUL BASS, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM VARIATIONS OFF THE ORIGINAL IMAGE
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DALA FLODA INSPIRED
EDWARDIAN SCRIPT
SANS-SERIF BOLD
Thinking About Type
I wanted to use the type in this process as characters if the images were the atmosphere of the visual narrative. The letters are the focus in place of figures or a traditional narrative. I went through a series of explorations with the typefaces. The first round I chose felt like they weren’t doing much to convey the tone of the song. They were a bit too bold, there was no hint of the nuance and delicacy. I tried Edwardian script inspired type- face seemed to match better with the words I had chosen and the themes I was trying to capture of delicate and bold.
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38-Revision 38 RUFINA STENCIL ITALICS
EDWARDIAN SCRIPT: MEMORIAM PRO OUTLINE
Reconsidering Type
At first I wanted to use an Edwardian Script inspired typeface to provide contrast to the atmosphere of the animation. Though, after I began my animation I realized that the type was a bit to flowery and figurative for the mood of the music. I decided to switch. The typeface didn’t need to be Edwardian script inspired in order to balance the themes of bold and delicate within it’s form. I started with the suggestion of Dala Floda (a serif typeface designed by Paul Barnes at Commercial Type in 2010.) I used Typewolf.com to find Rufina Stencil on Adobe Fonts as a free alternative.
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Reconsidering Motion
My first draft of animating, I was working with the ideas I had researched. I wanted to emulate how active the type was treated in those animations against the music. Though, when I added the typeface I had chosed, the composition seemed slightly overwhelmed and busy . When I revisited my sources I found that the animations I was drawn to such as the Stranger Things and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World title sequences, The subjects and their activity were balanced in proportion. This way they avoided becoming to much. I revisited my peice and limited hte animation, therefore the high level of over-activity. I wanted it to be more haunting and less spritely, upon revision.
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Critique feedback: It was said that the way “abbey� was animated worked well because of the piano type imagery.
RUFINA STENCIL ITALICS
MEMORIAM PRO OUTLINE
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Storyline Treatment
Memoriam Pro Outline Designed by Patrick Griffin. From Canada Type.
Downton Abbey Suite
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Rufina Stencil Bold Italic Designed by MartĂn Sommaruga. From TipoType.
Downton Abbey Suite
Poster Treatment
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POSTER FINALE
BASED OFF OF POSTER
FILLING WHOLE SCREEN
Criticism
I rewatched Saul Bass’ Anatomy of A Murder title sequence when finishing up this animation. I felt resolved with the dance, timing and drama of the peice, but it was agreed in my review that it could benefit from one more element of surprise and connection that could still be added to strengthen the piece. I edited so the animation to poster/ vice versa inspiration was a little more literal. I matched up the animated words in the to the still typography at the end, after I also mixed up the placing of the type at the end so the “poster” design mimicked the song’s dynamacy a little more in the placement of the words.
Critique feedback: Type size could still be smaller for the animated words, I agree and am going to play around with smaller sizes.
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TYPE PLACEMENT SKETCH
TYPE PLACEMENT SKETCH
CURRENT TYPE PLACEMENT: TO BE RESOLVED BY ADJUSTING HIERARCHY
Reflection I enjoyed this assignment because it made me thing about type as a performer in an entirely different way. I think the act of visual storytelling over time was a good exercise in thinking about design beyond the physical object but about how it exists in time and other media as a storyteller. I learned how making/experimenting with basic elements of the project in mind could assist in creating the emotional atmosphere. If I were to do it over again, I would start with the end. I think beginnings are stronger if created with the end in mind. For example, when the title sequences we watched in class were made, the plot of the movie and ending we already know. Therefore, the title sequences could act as a foreshadowing, something viewers could go back to and see nuances.
During critique a comment said that the read of the final title was confusing. I still like the way the title is arranged but I think that there could be adjustments still made with the hierarchy/format for type to resolve the confusion.
The ending could still be more resolved as well. I am going to experiment with where the music can fade out and where the title comes in.
I believe the desire to cycle back through work to investigate deeper connections is the marker of a successful piece.
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Designed by Megan Stansbury in September, 2019 as a part of Capstone in Design 1: Research Methods (Form and Function). Typeset in Rufina Stencil ALT Designed by Martin Sommaruga at TipoType Foundry and Avenir designed by Adrian Frutiger at Linotype GmbH.
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