Natalie Byrne Talks Design

Monday, 11 March 2013

PRINT TO PIXEL: An introduction

Brief:
To create a 20 - 30 second animation with an allocated piece of music.

We consume motion design all the time, we are constantly coming into contact with graphic design that moves from adverts, to GIFs to movies. Within this breif I will exploring how to control motion and also be incorporating the element of time into graphic design and understanding how time based design works.

In this brief I must respond to the clip of music I have been given emotionally and this animation will be my personal response to audio. I have always loved animations that are perfectly in time with music, and really well in sync. So I will be exploring past animations and how I will combine movement and audio.

The first reactions to animation most people think of first is Disney and Pixar, although this is a great place to start, there is more to animation than that. Since I started experimenting within animation at 15, I have always been more inspired by abstract motion graphics. I started with stop motion and have made quite a few stop motion animations, using my photography skills. But with this project I want to really explore new aspects of animation I have always stayed clear due to the possibilities of risk factors involved. Stop motion is something I have been doing for a while therefore I can really understand it, I love the way I have been able to manipulate real life and control what I want.

The difference between a narrative and a story will be investigated. Literal or illteral? Characters with faces or none at all, how to create a bad guy with symbols and minimalism. How to use colour? can colour depict innocence? The use of little colour? Black and white? what will red mean? How to make something as simple as walking, look real and have characteristics of the personality show through.

Mixed media is something I have recently been incorporating. Mixing illustration, graphical type and shapes and screen printing all in my previous project and I really enjoyed it. I typographic animation is something I have dabbled in quite a while ago now and I enjoyed. I have an obsession with type and that will defiantly be something I want to explore, additionally illustration has been also a route I've been taking recently and have had some nice outcomes with. But how to make my animtion origional will be a huge aspect of the route I take.

So here is my audio clip...

Thursday, 31 January 2013

Curated By Part 3: johnny Kelly

Johnny Kelly, a graphic designer from Ireland. I know him as the man who made the procrastination video. To me when I saw this video years ago, was a reassurance that I knew I was in the right path, this was so inspirational to me and has always been something I have looked back on for inspiration, and research. Just one of those things that you show all of your friends even if they aren't in a creative field, and they always love it, who wouldn't. Johnny Kelly Talk about how he was inpired by comics to enter into animation and showed us Radioheads music video for pyramid song made by Shynola. He said this was the reason he went into animation. As soon as he said radiohead, I got excited, 85% of the time when im working im listening to radiohead and they inspire me so much. Kelly describes this as emotional art, which I liked the sound of. Johnny showed us a numerous videos that had inspired him, including a bit of a disturbing piece that involved naked screaming children that were being put into a van, which he introduced by saying "it's properly too early for this" He then went on to telling us about how to apply graphics to story telling and when your animating something, you always have to question why is this being animated? Why does this have to be animated? is this a story that can only be told in animation? And that animation is also a convosational starter. Back to the Start from Johnny Kelly on Vimeo.

The Back to the start animation is amazing. I also really enjoyed watching the making of it. kelly describes himself as a list monster, he loves making lists and fills his sketchbooks up with them. He also talks about the interactivity in the 80's talking about the storybooks which you can choose your own adventure, and how they interested him.

Back to the Start - Making of from Johnny Kelly on Vimeo.

"One of the hardest things is to balance between the work you want to make and the work you need to make to make a living"

Nike asked 78 artist to Challange the function of a pair of nike shoes. John began by stripping all function out of the shoes. Buying a pair of clogs from ebay, he painted them as a nike shoe. Removing all function from the shoe.