DAY 12

HMA 11




Midterm is here! Explorations are done!


For our work today we were suppose to start structuring all of our paper studies for the final compiled book. We printed each one out with a proof to make sure we were within title-safe and Dorian looked through all of them to give us any constructive feedback before submitting our final versions for a grade.


Correcting these will take a long night because I made a lot of careless mistakes that could just use some tweaking to make stronger compositions.. a lot of refining and toning down type mistakes that I could have fixed earlier.
Guess I need some coffee!

DAY 11

Motion Studies 6
Project Description
Again, we were to take the previous studies and put them into after effects and play around with video and the type compositions. The challenge for this is to keep in mind that the screen becomes more active with the use of video or moving images, so its important to not overload the audience with too many things going on in the screen and give enough time for the audience to decode and digest the typographic messages.

Thoughts
I didn't really want to find video footage for these studies so I tried to animate the images in the previous studies. I had difficulties with a lot of small hiccups trying to animate these still images as well as running out of time from doing too many projects over the weekend.


Critique
Because I had nothing to turn in due to all the issues I ran into while rendering this video footage, I kind of shut down during critique. I remember a lot of the issues involving other studies were due to trying to do too much with video footage and being a little cheesy looking as well as some not really utilizing their compositions very well. 

DAY 10

HMA 9
Project Description
Going into these studies we were supposed to now work with type and image. After so many variations of how to use type we were really just perfecting our skills at making compositions and learning how to use the right type faces for the composition. Now we were supposed to explore 4 studies involving image and 4 studies involving texture.


Thoughts
I was really excited to get back into using imagery with my type studies. I slowly grew confident in creating compositions after so many studies involving type. I now knew basic starting points and how to utilize thirds, hierarchy, as well as creating a dominate vertical and horizontal, and keeping out of the title safe areas if I want the type to be read. Now we are allowed to explore cutting up images and texture to play with type compostions. 


Critique
A lot of the problems with the compositions we spoke about today were us getting too involved with our images and completely ignoring our typography compositions. Its very important that we look at how we're handling our type over what we are doing with our imagery.


A lot of people didn't like some of the things I was doing and then there were stronger piece people responded to. I didn't agree with the class on some of the things but I do think I played it a little safe with my type to fit into the confines of the images I chose.

Joint Venture

I honestly wasn't too interested in digesting this reading material but one thing I remember really sticking out to me while reading through the interview was this little snippet: "It is no more possible to have form without content and content without form. Even the most designerless prose, the justified block of type, is a design instilled with value (in this case, standardization and simulated transparency)."

DAY 9

Motion Studies 5
Project Description
This project was to set in motion our previous HMA7 studies after we corrected the mistakes we had made. Previous motion study rules were applied to the idea of 'expressions' and 'effects' while we played with our compositions in after effects. The one thing we have to keep in mind while doing either of these is if our motion is hindering or helping our compositions while they are on screen.


(I can't find the video footage for this...)


Thoughts
I've never really used expressions before so this project seemed to be a little daunting at first. But once I started to read up on how to manipulate the tags on After Effects I slowly got the hang of it and what they were meant to do. I don't think I used a whole lot of these because I felt as if they would become a little cheesy and get annoying after a while. 
However, I really enjoy doing effects in AE because I know what I'm doing. But these explorations are to explore things we're not comfortable with. 
Maybe I played it too safe, though.


Critique
Not everything on the screen has to move and do cool things.. it is ok to keep things simple and direct the viewer to look at one thing moving on the screen. Try not to overload the composition by doing too much because it can get very confusing. Give your audience time to view and enjoy each thing. Every movement has a meaning behind it, so give it a lot of thought while implementing them into your compositions.

DAY 8

HMA 7
Project Description
This exploration had us look at adding extra elements into our composition to improve legibility and leading the eye of the viewer: using boxes, rules, lines, or points. Our phrase today was  "Designers must function as visual editors to establish and amplify textual meaning." This was an assignment that was closely related to the piece we had to read as well. All the previous rules for compositions are also applied in these studies.


Thoughts
I've never been a huge fan of adding too many extra elements with type so I had a very interesting time trying to create compositions that made sense. I used a lot of inspiration on these studies by looking through my tumblr > design & typography tags just to get some good ideas on what is already being made currently that people enjoy. 


I ended up doing a lot of very simple pieces and one that was pretty abstract and weird.


Critique
There are several technical things you must always keep in mind while designing a piece for on-screen: legibility and title safe are two important ones. Legibility: things become too lost if the type is small and overpowered by bolder/heavier font faces and avoid using too light of a gray.


Also, I need to keep in mind to always print out work to see simple mistakes instead of just judging them on the computer screen..

Type and Deconstruction

DAY 7

Motion Studies 3 & 4
Project Description
Taking our previous exploration with type variations and display faces, we were to create 8 new motion studies exploring z axis and rotation as well as including previous motion study rules (fade and x&y). We weren't really supposed to change our previous compositions other than improving them from our previous critique.

Thoughts
This was a challenge because I introduced cameras into my motion study and it killed my render time. I tried to have fun getting these type studies on the screen in several different interesting ways.. I really didn't want them to be boring to watch by repeating the same techniques.

There are a lot of hiccups and some of it goes by fast.. overall, though, I think they were okay. I really like these motion studies, I just don't really enjoy how long they take to do.


Critique
Don't confuse your audience with having too much on the screen. Make sure your compositions have a nice even pace so you can read what should be read by giving them enough time before doing something else.
An issue with some studies was how long does repeating something on the screen become annoying or fun to watch? Be careful with movements and the way they effect the audience.

DAY 6

HMA 5

Project Description

HMA 5 studies let us mix in display faces with the previous two type faces while building off of previous study rules. We were to find 4-8 different display faces to use per study with the phrase "Display faces are for seeing and type faces are for reading." 

Thoughts

These were a lot of fun, I enjoyed trying to find some type faces that all had their own different character and expression. I explored different font foundries and "best free font" blog sites to find some fonts that I was happy using for my compositions. Though a lot of my compositions will be tweaked by the end of this, I have a long way to go with understanding type. 

Notes

We spent time discussing how fonts create reactions out of people "what exactly makes a font face bad?".. like comic sans being a huge deal with designers but it's an ok font to use with the right context (like a kid's show). Choosing fonts really comes down to preference while designing. There is no right or wrong, it's just what you personally like to work with (or the client). During critique we had the class point out "sins" and "atrocities" of each composition by all the students. Then we all picked a composition by another student we thought we could fix if we were the art director.