We Fake I.D Guest Lecture

On Friday 1st May, Yvan Martinez and Joshua Trees came into Stockport College to give a guest lecture presentation about their design company, Fake ID. Yvan Martinez and Joshua Trees have been working together under the name of Fake ID for 10 years now and are primarily a graphic design studio working with huge clients such as Nike, MTV, Sony, Zune Arts and Urban Outfitters.

The lecture lasted around an hour and throughout the whole lecture, I got more and more confused as to what the presentation was about. Joshua Trees did all the talking but read from a piece paper, which was really obviously due to some of the mistakes he was reading. The presentation was all about their influences and interests including language, sound, text and noise but this was not clear as they just shown slide after slide of black and white images, film and sound clips with no explanation of why they chose to put each slide in.

All of the slides became more confusing as the lecture went on including an old advertisement for Burger Chef, which was an old animation in a similar style to Scooby Doo. The confusement lasted right till the end of the lecture and left me wondering if they had created this work and made it look like it was from decades ago.

I wasn't sure if it was just me who felt the lecture was confusing but I think it was proven by the lack of questions that were asked by the students as only one student asked a question and the other 3 were from tutors.

Whilst the questions were asked, it was then revealed by the pair that they were a little bored of constantly showing their work of to audiences so they decided to showcase a selection of their interests and influences. I found this quite odd and very disappointing as I heard they were a great company of some of the graphics students who had been working with them.

I think by showcasing your interests and influences could work as a lecture but maybe with a warning to the audience or maybe showing some influences and how it has effected their own work would of been a good idea.

On the whole I didn't enjoy then lecture but looking at their work on their website it clearly shows they are very talented designer, I just wish they would of talked about these in the lecture.

Purple Penguin Design Freelance Opportunity

Yesterday I opened up my emails and to my surprise had been sent an email from Rik Kirk from Purple Penguin Design. Following up from my portfolio critique in April, where I talked through and shown him my Major Project so far, he mentioned that the company were mainly graphic design and print based design but were interested in doing some motion graphics too. He seemed to like my work and said at the time would I be interested if anything came up and I said yes of course.

I was amazed when I received this email saying,

Hi Aaron,

How's it going and how's that final project coming along?

I'm just setting up a new company with a photographer friend of mine specialising in video and motion graphics. You can see what's been set up ' www.fudgescreenmedia.com '

Would you be interested in becoming a freelancer for motion graphics as and when we'd need someone? I can't promise any work at the moment but we could pay @ £100 a day as and when it does come in. Hopefully this new venture will be up and running in the next couple of weeks.

If you are interested drop me a line and we'll take it from there.

Regards - Rik

I was over the moon when I read the email and never thought I would get a job so soon because of the recent credit crunch and companies cutting down jobs. I know the job will only be temporary and every now and again but to have the chance to work on a brief along side Rik and his colleges will be an unbelievable experience.

I think this just goes to show important this contact report section is on the blog because if it wasn't for this, I don't think I would of started making contacts with companies until my degree was over.

This is what I sent back...


Hi Rik.

I'm good thanks. How are you? The project is coming along nicely, I've got my final deadline tomorrow.

I am really interested in working as a freelancer for you, that would be great. Do you have any idea when this would start and what sort of projects I'd be working on?

Thanks for the email and the opportunity, Aaron

Hey Aaron,

I'm guessing it'll be a late night tonight then with a deadline tomorrow?!

At the moment I've no idea when Fudge will start bringing work in. There's a small amount of video work trickling in, hopefully more when we push the site too. The guy I'm doing it with has a top 5 google listing that he's swapping to this company for a bit.

With regards to the type of work I've no idea. Obviously there's video work there which I'm happy editing. As for the Motion graphics I've only done a few pieces, which are on the site, so it's trying to show people what can be done really. I guess if you're definitely interested then it might be worth thinking if you have anything that could be put on the site to showcase your talents. predominantly we work for bars, restaurants, hotels etc at the moment but there's all kinds of stuff we could expand into.

Anyway, have a think once your final project's out of the way and we'll speak more.

Regards - Rik

T Mobile Sing Along Advertisement

T Mobile have released some impressive television advertisements lately including the 350 people dancing in the train station but the latest one they have released is fantastic and involves 13,000 people in a giant sing along.

The advertisement is set in Trafalgar Square in London and the 13,000 people are joined by the pop singer, Pink who all sing songs together such as 'Hey Jude' following the words from the giant screen.

"More than 2,000 microphones were used to record the rabble and 24 cameras captured visuals. Lysa Hardy is head of brand and communication for the mobile phone provider and said the advert was another display of the Life's for Sharing motto. The experience was "fantastic" for Pink, who said she was "thrilled" to be involved.

"Everyone singing along together in the middle of London ... it was incredible," she added. "I can't wait to see it live on air." (http://www.mobileshop.com/news/index.php/2009/may/pink-joins-t-mobile-singalong)

I personally love the advertisement because I find it amusing and entertaining and although I am a multimedia student and love motion graphics and animations, its great to see traditional filming still being used to.

Recently alot of companies have used animations in their advertisements such as the Llyods TSB advertisements but I think using live footage to capture this fantastic experience is the best medium to use. The idea of bringing 13,000 people together can only really be achieved by using live footage because it would be incredibly difficult and time consuming animating all those people.

Motion Graphics Lab

www.motiongraphicslab.com

Recently I have come across a great website called motiongraphics.com that is the website of award winning motion graphics designer, Dean Velez. I stumbled across this website whilst looking for influences in motion graphics for my final major project but found the website much more useful than that.

When looking at the website it looks really old with cheesy fire graphics in the background but the content is really useful with lots of different After Effects tutorials that came is really useful for learning the basics and learning new skills and techniques. For example there is a great tutorial for a line growing effect which came in handy when experimenting for my final major project.

I thought I would share this website with other people to help them follow some of the tutorials that may come in handy for them in the future.

Kate Moross

www.katemoross.com

Kate Moross is a 22 year old designer based in London. She describes herself as an illustrator and a graphic designer but hates narrowing herself down to a specific field.

I came across Kate's work whilst browsing through my Computer Arts magazines and seen her work pop in a few different issues so decided to look more into her work. Her unique style has also seen her work being used for the Ford, Zune Originals and the album work for the singer La Roux and the band Simian Mobile Disco.

I decided to talk about Kate in my blog because I felt her wide range of skills are similar to the various area's of design that we have used whilst on the degree course. Kate is mainly a print based designer working on logo's, CD Covers, Flyers, T Shirts and typography but has also worked with moving image with video and idents.

I think by looking at Kate's work has shown me that having a large range of skills can be really useful when looking for a career in design whether it be for a design studio or being a freelance designer.

In the future I see myself being drawn into the motion graphics side of design because this is the area of design I am really interested in pursuing a career but having a wide range of skills can help me add other aspects of design into my work.

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.