Research

In my research I looked at some vintage bicycle adverts, I think they are very rich source of visual research. I really like the typography on them, they have some great illustrations which are very much of their time and they are all fairly witty and entertaining.

Over 100 bike related postcards


Here are my personal top 10:

E4 Idents

There are a load of E4 stings/idents on youtube I get the impression a lot of them are amature entries for for the competitions E4 run, but some of them are really good.


This is an amazing piece of stop frame animation, I'm suprised it didn't win, or maybe it did it seems kind of familiar. The sound works really well with the movement and altogether it feels really professional.


This is a nice idea and well executed, I hate that music though.


This is a very cool reworking of that iconic Channel 4 ident.


Conceptually this is hilarious I actually loled a little bit. However the execution feels a bit amaturish, it is clearly an entry by a student for the E4 competition. I think a good, witty concept or idea is probably the most important part of a good ident, the implementation can be quite simplistic and it can still be effective.


Cool ident for channel 4 uses some interesting blending effects.


Ident for more 4 which I think is awsome, apparently it was made in after effects.

I couldn't find some of my favouite E4 stings on you tube but you can watch all of them on the E4 site Here.

Done, done and done

This was a test piece for the word absorb. I animated lines that I had made in illustrator to move into the centre of the word gradually turning it to black, the idea had come from some of the early thunbnails that we had done in the workshops. I am pretty happy with the overall effect.

This next video is an earlier version of my final piece I was fairly happy with it but I felt that the way that absorb turned into boom didn't work very well and also I had used Ariel rounded as the typeface for 'boom' because I wanted to keep it consistant with the typeface I had used for absorb, but I didn't feel this worked as well a Geist which I had initially used for boom.

This is my final piece I managed to iron out all the little niggles I wasn't happy with on the previous version, and I got the timing bang on overall I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

Story Board

This is the story board for my final 10 second clip for the silent movie brief.

Boom

This is my animation for the word 'boom' I animated 10 BOOMs separately all of them spinning and flying in different directions to give the idea of an explosion.

I've also been experimenting with lighting effects. they give 3D layers much more depth. This first video hasn't got a lighting effect applied to it.

This second video does have a lighting effect applied to it, it gives it a more realistic 3D feel. I'll probably use a lighting effect in my final piece.

Test Pieces

I have been working on the transition between "confused" and "absorb" I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and I stuck to my timeline and what I had planned fairly well. The pace on this particular video might be a bit fast.

I then tried to used a camera layer to follow the path as it spelled out "confused" but because I had nested several layers, when I tried to zoom in the quality really nose dived. Also because of the pace that the line moves at the camera feels really jerky and unpleasant. I think I can safely say this was a fail but at least I learnt something doing it.

Confused?

I made a few more animations on after effects, my main goal was to see how I could animate a path, I am fairly happy with the results but want to see how i could take it further.

This was my first attempt the arrangement of the typography doesn't really convey the idea of confused but I was just experimenting with animating a path to create the type.

This was my second attempt I tried rearranging the letters to make it more "confusing". Although I don't know if I've rearranged then too far and the word has become illegible.

This is my third and I think most effective attempt, I have rearraged the letters to convey the idea of confused but the word is still fairley legible. I like the way your eye follows the line.