Postfolio

www.postfolio.org

Postfolio is a creative community of people who do and love postproduction and visual effects. The idea of postfolio is to showcase your work in this specific area by having your own account. Whilst reading through the website I noticed that as well as showing your work, there is a section where you can add your making of video to show others how your work was created, which I think is a great extra as you can watch others and pick up tips and techniques.

Although I am not interested in this area of design I thought I would include it in my blog for others who might want to use this website. Another key thing about the website is that there are many forums so you can discuss topics with other designers who have similar interest as well as including a friends network so you can add your friends and share interests with just them as well.

On the whole I think it would be a great website to use if you were interested in postproduction and visual effects, I just wish there was one specifically for motion graphics.

Norwegian Ink

www.norwegianink.com

Norwegian Ink are a Norwegian design studio who specialize in graphic design, motion design, logo design, channel idents and title sequences. I thought it would be interesting to look at a design studios other than UK and American based to see how they differ.

However, when looking at their work you wouldn't guess it was from another country in Europe because I have looked at the work of graphic designers such as Welcome To Cloud and Look At Me Design who are both from France and you can see the difference in their style and themes to their work because they tend to use lots of white space with abstract shapes and lines set up in a beautiful composition.

I thought by looking into a motion graphics company I could take some influence and ideas from their work and incorporate into my own work but I found this specific company being very similar to what I have seen before. Maybe there are other European design companies who use motion graphics in a completely different way than we do over here and I will keep looking over the internet for influences from other countries.

Iphone Inspiration. Blade Runner?

http://design4dough.wordpress.com

I was browsing through a blog and came across this still from the 1982 film, Blade Runner.

"Is Harrison Ford using an iPhone to control his apartment elevator in the 1982 movie Blade Runner? The likeness is exceptional. The metallic outline, the pictogram-matrix-touchscreen, the black chassie and the designated home-button area at the bottom. Coincidental? Hardly!" (http://design4dough.wordpress.com)

I think the likeness to the iphone is extremely similar but I don't think iphone looked at anything like this when coming up with the phone. It just goes to show that although technology has developed dramatically since 1982, interfaces have not changed that much. I think this is because user friendly is a must and making easy to use interfaces similar to this will still be around in another 30 years no matter how much technology develops. This is another great example of looking back at the past to gain ideas and inspiration for current projects.

Sony Bravia Motionflow Advertisement

I have recently come across the latest Sony Bravia television advertisement for the new Sony Bravia Motionflow. The advertisement uses a 10 tonne zoetrope that plays images of the AC Milan footballer, Kaka to represent motionflow. London design studio, Fallon were behind the making of the advertisement with the zoetrope being situated in Venaria in Italy.

I find it fascinating how old techniques come back around and are used again in a new format with added technology because the first zoetrope is believed to have been invented around 180 AD. The idea of a zoetrope is also used in one of the BBC2 idents with the spinning images making up the BBC 2 logo.

After looking into the Sony Bravia advertisement in more depth, I found the making of the video on Sonys website. I originally thought the advertisement was created in 3D with the audience pretending to look at the images of Kaka but the zoetrope was actually built and has been recorded as the worlds largest zoetrope at 10 metres wide and 10 tonne in weight.

This advertisement has shown me that history is very important as old techniques and styles can be reused in any medium of multimedia. I think it would make a great project to recreate something from the past using multimedia

Kings Of Leon Competition

Competition Entry

1st Place

2nd Place

3rd Place

www.designedbyhumans.com

I have recently come across the website called designed by humans, which is a t-shirt design website that let's customers design their own t-shirts and get them printed or you can buy one of their own designs. Whilst I was browsing through the website I came across a previous competition that they had running, which was to create a t-shirt design for the rock band, Kings Of Leon.

The competition has ended now and the band picked the 3 best designs in their opinion, which are now on sale from the website. I really liked the chosen winners, as they all used lots of white space with a simple logo and text at the top of the t-shirt. They have also all used a selective colour palette as well, which doesn't over load the t-shirt and reveals the bands name even when looking at it for a split second.

However, I have found on the forum on the website that alot of people have disagreed with the decision of the band and people calling the competition a waste of time for entering. Here are some of the posts that people sent in.

peterdewolf

Quote

JEEEEEEZUS, WTF, unf—-ingbelievable, the winning design is without any merit whatsoever, two runnerup designs with exactly the same theme, one with a deaths head ( are you guys on anti-depressants or something ) and the other simply very badly mocked-up clipart.

What a waste of everyones time and effort making serious attempts at real design.

FalcoTurboJesus

Quote

Think of all the the hours that went into all the designs that were submitted, all to be trumped by a black shape on a shirt

roelke99

Quote

wow, these winners are absolutely s****…i totally agree with pete, i never liked KOL, but now i hate them. Their taste of art is comparable to what i make in the toilet.

malibuingenue said I think the first one is cool. It’s a combination of Tennessee and Oklahoma, the two states where the band members were born.

I think it reflects the band, and I like it. I would totally buy it. So there.

I was quite surprised at all the negative comments about the chosen winners to be honest, alot of people seemed to think that designs like the top one of this post should have been chosen as a winner because of the amount of work that went into it. I have to disagree with the negative comments because of think these winners deserved to win, I think they have though about the composition and layout of the t-shirts and placed them perfectly.

The use of typography and images being kept to a minimal design is something that I like to work with. This is used in my final major project, where I have my illustrations and the typography with lots of white space around them to emphasize the important of the main subject.

This competition just goes to show that everyone has their own opinion on art and design but to get far in this industry you need to meet your clients needs, which in this case is simple type and images, which show the bands name very clearly.

Peepshow

www.peepshow.org.uk

Recently I have come across the website 'Peepshow', which is a collection of 10 illustrators, designers and animators including Miles Donovan, Luke Best, Jenny Bowers and Pete Mellor.

All these designers are freelancer designers in their own specific field but team up together to collaborate on certain projects that include an impressive client list such as Diesel, Levis, MTV, Nike, Sony and Samsung to name just a few.

I find it really fascinating how all these designers can work independently, but then team up with their colleges to create something that they maybe cannot do on their own. I think this is a great process because as well as bouncing ideas of each other, they all can learn new skills and techniques of each other to contribute to each project.

I love the idea of being a freelancer designer but then combining with other designers in another area of art and design. This reminds me of my first year of my degree when we did the 'chindogu' project. The idea of teaming up with other students from a different pathway and combining our ideas and techniques to create an invention and film it.

The whole idea is something I would consider doing myself, even with another ex student when I graduate from my course.

Spherical Images

www.sphericalimages.com

I came across the website 'Spherical Images' today and was amazed with this great website. The idea is find a popular location anywhere in UK and this website will show you a 360 degree tour of the area.

It allows you to look at famous landmarks such as the Millennium Bridge and Piccadilly Circus in London and The Royal Crescent in Bath, which are all pictured above.

The site lets you click on the photographs and move around at any pace and with any angle to get a great picture of what the place is actually like, you can also pause at any pacific point and lets you put the screen as big as your computer screen.

The still shots that you can create is something I have created back in college when working with panoramic shots, we had to take a number of shots by moving slightly to capture the whole scene. This also reminds me of the work of the photographer, David Hockney who creates beautiful panoramic shots but in a joiner technique that also creates a sense of movement in an abstract form.