CargoCollective
I haven’t been updating my blog as much as I was throughout the year over the last month due to one main reason, I’ve been so busy with finishing the last few weeks of my four year degree. I finished on the 16th of October and since then I have been working for a Laboratory on campass called the HITLab NZ [Human Interface Technology] doing some Graphic Design and Video editing for a documentary on their work. I’m using an amazing Mac Pro G5 8 cored Xeon, 8Gb of RAM and two 30″ Cinema Displays! It has been a good experience. I’ll put a link up to the video once I’ve finished working on it.
In the mean time—check out my online portfolio at the new creatives network CargoCollective.com!
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Tags: Portfolio
Adventures of Helvetica Man!
More photos here.
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Research Essay—Hyperreality
Technology is advancing so rapidly allowing people to explore their creativity through it so much more. Every year new computer systems are designed, new interfaces are developed and as a creative professional, it’s our job to utilise these technologies—exploring and taking them beyond places previously ever imagined. The majority of the schools within the arts (such as Photography, Film and Design) rely on technology to enhance, alter or in some way generate work. As this technology begins to get more complex and advanced, logically, so can the work we create with it. Software has begun to get so complex that people spend their entire lives working towards developing it, and others therefore using it—like the Adobe Creative Suite. So what is this ‘hyperreality’? It’s not natural, nor is it virtual—its somewhere in between or a multitude of these states of thinking. Hyperreality is then some kind of enhanced or altered state of reality. There are two parts to this way of thinking; there are hyper real objects or forms that have been intentionally changed, and there are people or—lets call them ‘proxy’ that live in a constant state of hyperreality mimicking someone else, always attempting to be like something else, and therefore not themselves. Today’s popular culture, media and mass consumerists can be seen as occupying a hyper real world. Objects are falsely altered to become more desirable, wanted and needed, to blindly sell and make more revenue. Therefore people strive to be like cultural or celebrity icons, who use these products, rather than being themselves. People strive to be like cultural or celebrity icons, rather than being themselves. Some people even live in a way where everything is taken care of for them, like the lives of celebrities which can be seen as a hyperreality. Sometimes losing the main essence of life like simply communicating to people. The opposite of this is someone trying to imitate the lives of others portrayed in the media, television or film, after watching this fabricated world they then wish to be part of it themselves, which becomes a hyperreality. Hyperreality is a means to characterise the way our consciousness defines what is actually ‘real’ in a world where a multitude of media can radically shape and filter the original event or experience being depicted. Frenchman—Jean Baudrillard, argues that we live in a world in which simulations and imitations of reality have become more real than reality itself, He calls this condition ‘Hyperreality’ . Artists have been exploring ideas of reality for some time now, and thanks to technology the ability to distinguish between what is real and what is not part of reality—is actually quite difficult. Although, in some cases people choose not to, living in a constant state of what is called ‘hyperreality’.
Advertising and Consumerism are a perfect example of imagery and film that’s intentionally altered to create a perfect world, where you purchase a particular product; all your problems will be resolved, which obviously—is a false hyperreality. Because realistically it’s not going to happen—this is also true with mass communications such as television and movies, even radio and music. Further more; video games are a prime example of some kind of alternate virtual reality. Games such as World of Warcraft—a massively online role playing game lets players indirectly interact with people through their computers. The player moves through a virtual computer generated world quite literally filled with millions of other real players/people—some people become so immersed in this hyperreality that all they want to do is constantly be immersed within it. Contrastively, what most people call virtual reality is some what different, its another step forward to literally being in another world. A virtual reality allows someone to navigate or move quite literally through a computer simulated environment physically using high tech equipment such as a heads up display and electronic receptive clothing such as gloves and shoes, making full body immersion and interaction possible.
When considering reality, virtual reality and hyperreality, one almost immediately thinks of video games. Now that the video game industry has grown bigger than the film industry, its visual language has become so accepted that it is beyond fictional. Virtual computer worlds are becoming increasingly real and blended with our physical world, to the point that games are in some ways—even more real than life. In some online role playing games, aspiring participants have to write an application letter in order to be accepted into a certain group or clan. We still have to get used to the fact that you can earn an income with gaming now, but how normal is it anyway that at the bakery you can trade a piece of paper – called money – for bread. Most aspects of hyperreality can be thought of as “reality by proxy”—for example; a viewer watching pornography begins to live in the nonexistent world of pornography, and even though pornography is not an accurate depiction of sex, for the viewer the reality of sex becomes something nonexistent. Pornography therefore becomes sexier than sex itself. Most people would denounce spending too much time in a virtual world, but which world should be called virtual then? Simply defining the virtual as the opposite to physical is perhaps too simple. The word virtual has different meanings that are often entangled and used without further consideration. Sometimes we used to think the word virtual meant ‘almost real’, while at the same time we mean imaginary and hyper real.
It would be naïve to think hyperreality is limited to video games. In a sense all reality is hyperreal, it is constructed through our cognition and sensory organs. Reality is not so much ‘out there’ rather it is what we pragmatically consider to be ‘out there’. Ever since the first paintings, sculptures and architecture were perceived, people have been interacting with art, objects and form by simply looking at it, or even touching it, but the art generally doesn’t respond to those acts of interaction. But what I’m interested in is the recent advances in technology allowing artists to generate truly interactive art on more levels than just simply looking at it. Involving a persons senses in a whole new way, but also in what seems a natural way. This type of interactive work then begins to bring something new generating emotion, feelings and other things to the experience. All whilst having a certain unpredictability about the whole thing. Installations in gallery spaces can often come across as vacant cold and boring, but by bringing in a sense of interaction whether it be through physical touch, movement or sound suddenly people begin forming a bond with the work—a relationship, even emotions come into play. Another huge part of an interactive work is the uncertainty or that sense of discovery, the process of figuring out how to interact with the work itself. A quote from Wikipedia justifies the definition of interaction perfectly; “Interaction is a kind of action that occurs as two or more objects have an effect on one another”. “The idea of a two way effect is essential in the concept of interaction” .
Now, after discussing the differences between hyper real, virtual reality and reality, I’d like to explore where they meet, and how they affect art. At the moment a work of art is placed into a gallery, people begin de constructing it, and looking at it from every possible angle they can. They really start thinking about the work in different ways. So as soon as an artist alters a work, digitally or physically it becomes something new, something different something hyper real. For example, I’d like to look at Build , and particularly a designer named Mathew Falla . Falla uses conventional print display systems to create animated posters. A kind of merged media installational conceptionalist, in a way—dissecting the intersection of graphic and interaction design. Falla can be seen employing media from print to motion, generating a digital environment from a conceptual idea. The work ‘IT’S OK TO TOUCH’ made in 2007 in London, is an A1 interactive poster design for the “Intergraphics” show in the London ARAM Gallery. Users can interact with the piece by touching the conductive ink, this then triggers a series of events (slogans, FlickR feeds and animations) beamed direct (via Bluetooth) onto the poster using a high resolution projector. The screen print—with gloss UV varnish, fluorescent green ink and silver granules (suspended in a solvent) is executed in a marvelous way. Although this concept seems very unique and original, projectors are now being executed by many artists around the world. Installational art using projectors and interactive elements through touch by receptive surfaces or motion sensors are becoming much more common. I like the relationship that begins to build up between the viewer and the technology behind the piece.
I’d like to look at a number of other artists—all of which can be perceived as having hyper real elements to their work in some way or another. I think there is something interesting with the idea of taking imagery from video games, set in a virtual 3D space and completely flattening them by print, or even generating a painting from it. I’ve always been interested in the distinction between Video Games and Art, and even the idea of Video Games as an art form, which in my point of view, Video Games can be an ultimate collaboration of many areas of the Arts. James Barnnett does exactly that. Although this is a different approach again, creating something new from an existing Video Game and bringing it out of it’s native medium and putting it into something new—Painting. James Barnnett himself said; “A series of landscapes painted from video games. These aren’t from screens hots I found online; I navigated around inside of each of the games until I found a composition I liked, and then made a painting of it.” . Hyper real paintings by Adam Stennett (b.1972) are executed with the utmost attention to detail, but clearly the detail has been exaggerated ever so slightly making the images look larger than life, unreal. For example; the water that features in a number of his works is oddly realistic, but there’s also something else about it, something uncanny, something different. Moving onto a light based installation piece, Japanese based designer and artist Makoto Tojiki (b.1975). I’m absolutely blown away by his projects, and in particular this work titled “The Man with No Shadow”. Although this specific work isn’t interactive, it’s a great example of how technology can imitate nature, in this case, lights are imitating the human form. The work is created completely from LED lights suspended in space. I love how this work blends ideas of human nature with electronics and technology. Quite literally blurring the lines and also bringing in ideas of Hyperreality—by creating the human form digitally. A direct quote from Makoto illustrates his ideas for people to look at things in a different way “I hope the message I convey in a product changes the way people look at things” .
The most fascinating in interactive work I’ve come across is that of ‘Multitouch Barcelona’ . Multitouch Barcelona is a small collaboration of people working on using surfaces to create interactive work with. They explore the way in which people connect with surfaces, communicating with the technology and how these trigger emotions. They attempt to use the entirety of the human body to interact with a given work, generally in front of a large format—custom designed screen. After developing tabletop multitouch technology and working with that, they began moving onto a conceptual installational space where large screens were used, on a wall generating a huge touch surface for one to interact with. Titled “HI–a real human interface” the piece was designed for the Red Bull Music Academy in 2008 and by involving people, it forms a natural relationship with the technology. Its made up of a two projected display system and a multitouch wall some 3 meters in size. Multitouch Barcelona created from the ground up—applications designed to engage the viewer into friendly user experiences rather than flashy visualisations. Space invaders is a prime example, just like the original game except the viewer literally physically throws foam balls at the screen to ‘attack’ the enemies on screen. You can digitally paint with your arms by brushing them across the surface. A physics simulated application lets the user toss around or throw balls about and literally even hold a ball in the ‘digital space’ by pressing against the surface. Multitouch Barcelona tries to “blur the boundaries between real and digital with natural interaction”.
A video installation artist; Sam Smith, based in Australia has created a number of interesting works around the ideas of reality, and digital worlds. His latest work—‘Into the Void’ is a video work which starts off flying over New York City, then walking along city streets, Sam then enters the Museum of Modern Art, walks into a gallery space and then enters literally into a painting. “The artist uses video special-effects to give the illusion of him physically immersing himself in Klein’s famous blue paintings and suspending himself in a sublime realm. The work culminates with Smith’s reinterpretation of Klein’s famous Leap into the Void photograph, where Smith has melded multiple moving-image shots of New York to make up an astonishing, modern-day version of the photograph. The artist hovers not only in space but also in time, suspended in a digital loop” . Sam Smith is a perfect example of a practicing artist interested in concepts of reality and hyperreality. FreeBoard collaborative, a group of enthusiast longboard skateboarders have created this amazing work basically creating a Video Game in reality. The video illustrates them skateboarding down a street in San Francisco at night, while huge numbers of people with large shapes that resemble the classic video game ‘Tetris’ skate down this long steep street, all stopping in a particular formation to recreate a similar visual aesthetic like that of the video game. Ms. & Mr. is a collaboration between Stephanie and Richard nova Milne that has spanned the years since they met in 1998. This couple recently presented a lecture to our Fine Arts Department about their work and life. I found it very interesting, especially their most recent works through video editing. Their idea is to take old family footage from their family vaults ad edit them by placing each other digitally in each others past. In a way they are taking on or playing the role of a god, by changing their own personal memories and history. They are “Interested by the relational mechanics of functioning as a composite, they acknowledge this pursuit as a romantic proposition. Important is their admission to, and misappropriation of scientific theories that remain in the realm of practical fiction”.
The movie ‘eXistenZ’ brings ideas of bio-organic computer systems that one plugs into through a ‘bio-port’. Eventually the characters can’t tell the difference between the virtual and the real world. By being in video game for extended amounts of time, the player temporarily forgetting the difference between the game and reality. A similar idea through film is A Scanner Darkly ; an animated film, where actors appear as abstractions of actors, through the magic of software that pictures them more like sketchy, baggy simulations. Every now and then, parts of the screen suddenly resemble undoctored photographic images. The film tells the story of identity and deception in a near-future dystopia constantly monitored by intensive high-technology police surveillance in the midst of a drug addiction epidemic. The main character plays with a dangerous new drug and begins to lose his own identity as a result. To give the film its distinct look, the movie was filmed digitally and then animated using interpolated rotoscope over the original footage. Rotoscoping is an animation technique in which animators trace over live-action film movement, frame by frame, although this device has been replaced by computers in recent years it is surely a perfect example of taking a untouched image and turning it into something else, something digital. The Matrix; is well known for its ideas of artificial intelligence, computer programs, virtual and hyperrealities. During the story a computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against the controllers of it.
This brings me to a number of ideas brought forward from Japanese anime series. Set in the future, Ergo Proxy is a story about a group of AI or intelligent robots who become infected, with something called the cognito virus. They begin to become aware of their own existence. So these robots, which have been tools of humans decide to go on an adventure to search for themselves. They have to decide wether the virus that infected them created their identities, or whether they gained their identity through their own experiences. This question is meant to represent our own depiction over whether we become who we are because of our environment, or because of things that are inherent to us. Does our current situation, ie living in a partial virtual or hyper real world affect this, well ofcourse it does. The robots are named after philosophers, Derrida, Lacan and Husseul. Another Japanese anime series similar to Ergo Proxy, is Death Note . A generic everyday teenage student happens to receive a superhuman power and controls the way in which people die, and how they die. The contrast between that and this type of ultimate happy utopian civilisation is huge. Set in a modern day Japan, the narrative is totally fictional and brings in ideas of ones reason to live—‘Raison d’être’.
Similar to Anime and Manga, Comics can portray any kind of story, which can express ideas of hyperreality and virtual realty. Popular producers of comic book series Marvel Comics and DC Comics both have their unique fantasy universes with interesting fictional superheroes and out of this world environments. As a child I read these growing up and there is an obvious impact that this has had on me as a person and my imagination, feeding these ideas of hyperrealites, even if some what unaware of it at the time. This surely has an effect upon our younger generations in the way that it effects what they see as reality. Another example of comics in a different context would be Aha’s music video ‘Take On Me’ which is based around the idea of being able to enter a hand drawn comic and move around this world. Similarly, growing up reading books such as Frank Herberts DUNE series, reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and watching such movie series as George Lucas’ Star Wars generated many ideas within me that really are so far fetched they’ll never actually become a reality, but definitely have an affect on the mind, expanding its ideas. And now that the video game industry has become much larger that the film industry a newer younger generation will be affected differently with a different background and approach, with questions of reaity involved.
As hundreds of millions of gamers join in battle against hordes of enemies in a hyper realistic virtual reality, connected together through the internet, are they just taking steps towards using advanced technology or are they intentionally stepping aside from their real realities and escaping into a carefree world where they can do quite literally anything they’ve ever dreamed of, in a neither here nor there world? Although not limited to the digital world of games, more examples of hyperreality could include ideas of; a sports drink of a flavour that doesn’t even exist, photoshopped models, a well manicured garden—nature as hyper real, massively promoted historical facts—altered through the media, professional sports athletes perceived as super and invincible humans, locations such as Disney World, Las Vegas, TV and film, in particular—reality TV, invented personas and celebrities. We are now living in a society, in which simulations are often, more influential, satisfying and meaningful than the things they are presumed to represent.
Our brain is able to construct ‘reality’ by combining and comparing sensory perceptions with what we expect and already know. For example when we fill in the gaps i.e. when words are constructed with missing characters and we automatically ‘fill in the gaps’ just by judging the general shape and assuming it should be something else, similar to it. As we descend into the depths of our genes, greet web-cam friends across the ocean, send spaceships to the outskirts of the universe, find our way using GPS, inspect our world with google earth, and as if it is not unusual for healthy right minded people to inform themselves about conditions in the world by spending the evening slouched in front of the T.V we come to realise that our world view is fundamentally being shaped through hyperrealities, surely—the designers of these things have an important responsibility in this regard. As media technologies evolve and are incorporated within our culture, our experience of reality changes along the way. “The simulation of something which never really existed” . This process, is so profound – and one could argue, successfully–that it almost goes without notice, that to a large extent, we are actually living in a hyperrealistic—virtual reality, already.
A-Ha—Take On Me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPgMTIgwS6s&feature=related
Barnett, James:
http://jamesbarnett.net/
Baudrillard, J. (1981) —Simulacra and Simulation.
Published: Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c1994.
Build Design Studio:
http://www.wearebuild.com
‘ITS OK TO TOUCH’ Video Installation:
Death Note Trailer:
Ergo Proxy—Opening Sequence:
eXistenZ Trailer:
Falla, Mathew:
http://www.mathewfalla.com
http://www.osmotronic.com
Freeboarders:
Kelly, K. (1952) —Out of Control: the new biology of machines, social systems and the economic world.
Published: New York, Basic Books, c1994.
Maruyama, Shinichi:
http://shinichimaruyama.com/
Matrix Trailer:
Ms and Mr:
http://msandmr.net/
Multi Touch Barcelona Design Studio:
http://www.multitouch-barcelona.com/
Guten Touch: http://vimeo.com/3288753
Scanner Darkly Trailer:
Smith, Sam:
http://www.samsmith.net.au
‘Into the Void’: http://vimeo.com/6748747
Quote from Blog: http://nextwavetimelapse.blogspot.com/
Stennett, Adam:
http://www.adamstennett.com
Tojiki, Makoto:
http://www.makotojiki.com
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/hyperreality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interaction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/jean_baudrillard
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Tags: Essay, Graphic Design, Hyperreality, Research
FEZ
I’m always interested in Indie Developed Video Games, this one called FEZ which isn’t out yet, looks great. Its kinda relevant to what I’m doing right now in the way that I’m looking at pixelation and rasterisation. You play a 2D man/character on a voyage of discovery into the mysterious 3rd dimension. Change your perspective and look at the world in a different way.
Here’s two trailers from the yet to be released game coming out on Xbox Live Arcade in 2010.
Visit the official FEZ website here.
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Tags: Games, Indie, Video Games
Japanese Anime
I’m heavily influenced by many kinds of Japanese Anime and thought I’d take the opportunity to share a couple of my favorites with you. Not only for the great execution, animation and story driven designs, but look how beautiful they are drawn! Breathtaking. The character design being part of my favorite aspects.
Ergo Proxy
Mushishi
Gankutsuou
Death Note
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Monthly Inspiration #5
Quite a short selection of works this month, I’ve not had as much time to search the internet for inspirational work due to being so busy with university work!
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Pixelated
If you’ve read my research essay then you’ll know I’m fascinated by the ideas of reality and hyperreality. During the last few days I’ve been creating a few works around a photograph and some static images of myself which I’ve drawn from.
Basically, the work is about a 30second long clip than can be constantly repeated on a projector. It moves inbetween realms of a clean high resolution image and into a highly pixelated world. There’s also an added figure who appears to come from this pixelated realm. I quite like the contrast between high resolution photographs and intense pixelation. It generates some interesting compositions. Here’s a couple of screen grabs from its current state.
I’ll upload a video to Vimeo eventually.
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Tags: Animation, Graphic Design, Projection, Research
Research Essay Draft
Another part of our 4th years work involves a rather large and in depth essay on our research topics. I’ve just written up a semi-draft of how this might look, and in what direction I might go with it. Its not due for another two months, and this is about half the length it will be in the final.
Graphic Design Research Essay Draft for DESI401
Creating Hyperrealities through Interactive Conceptual Design.
Technology is advancing so rapidly allowing people to exploring their creativity through it as a medium so much more. Every year new computers are created, new interfaces are developed and as a creative, it’s our job to utilise these technologies, exploring and taking them beyond places previously never imagined. The majority of the schools within the arts rely on technology to enhance or in some way generate work. As this technology begins to get more and more complex and advanced, logically, so does the work we create with it. Software begins to get so complex people spend their entire lives working towards completing it, and others therefore using it. Therefore we are confronted with ideas of reality, hyperreality and virtual reality, which hold within them strong ideas of what is real, and what is not, and how we tell the difference between them. Artists have been exploring these ideas for some time now, and thanks to technology the ability to distinguish between what is real and what is not is actually quite difficult. Although in some cases, people chose not to, living in a constant state of what is called hyperreality.
What is a VIRTUAL/HYPERREALITY?
So what is this ‘hyperreality’? It’s not natural, nor is it virtual — its something in between or a multitude of these two things. Hyperreality is then some kind of enhanced or altered state of reality. There are two parts to this way of thinking, there are hyperreal objects or forms that have been intentionally changed for a purpose, and there are people or ‘proxy’ that live in a constant state of hyperreality mimicking someone else, always attempting to be like something else, and therefore not themselves. Today’s culture, media and consumerists can be seen as being a hyperreal world. Objects are altered to become more desirable and wanted or needed. People strive to be like cultural or celebrity icons, rather than being themselves. Some people even live in a way where everything is taken care of for them, like the lives of celebrities which can be seen as a hyperreality. Sometimes losing the main essences of life like simple communication. The opposite of this is someone trying to imitate the lives of others portrayed in the media, television or film, after watching this fabricated world, they then wish to be in it themselves, which becomes a hyperreality.
Advertising and Consumerism are a perfect example of imagery that’s intentionally altered to create a perfect world, where if you purchase a particular product, all your problems will be resolved, which obviously, is a hyperreality—this is also true with mass communications such as television and movies, even radio! Further more Video Games is a prime example, games such as World of Warcraft— a massively online role playing game lets players indirectly interact with people through their computers. The player moves through a computer generated world quite literally filled with millions of other real players/people—unfortunately some people become so immersed in this hyperreality that all they want to do is constantly be immersed within it. Contrastingly, virtual reality is some what different, its another step forward to literally being in another world. A virtual reality allows someone to navigate or move quite literally through a computer simulated environment using high tech equipment such as a heads up display and electronic receptive clothing such as gloves and shoes, giving a full body immersion, and interaction.
What is CONCEPTUAL and INTERACTIVE DESIGN?
Ever since the first paintings, sculptures and architecture was perceived, people have been interacting with art, objects and form by simply looking at it, or even touching it, but the art generally doesn’t respond to those acts of interaction. But what I’m interested in is the recent advances in technology allowing artists to generate truly interactive art on more levels than just simply looking at it. Involving a persons senses in a whole new way, but also in what seems a natural way. This type of interactive work then begins to bring something new generating emotion, feelings and other things to the experience. All whilst having a certain unpredictability about the whole thing. Installations in gallery spaces can often come across as vacant cold and boring, but by bringing in a sense of interaction whether it be through physical touch, movement or sound suddenly people begin forming a bond with the work—a relationship, even emotions come into play. Another huge part of an interactive work is the uncertainty or that sense of discovery, the process of figuring out how to interact with the work itself. A quote from Wikipedia justifies the definition of interaction perfectly; “Interaction is a kind of action that occurs as two or more objects have an effect on one another. The idea of a two way effect is essential in the concept of interaction.”
Where do they MEET?
Now, after defining the differences between hyperreal, virtual reality and interactive design, I’d like to explore where they meet. At the moment a work of art is placed into a gallery, people begin deconstructing it, and looking at in from every possible angel they can. They literally stark laterally thinking about it in every possible way. So, as a soon as an artist alters a work, digitally or physically it becomes something new, something different something hyperreal. For example, I’d like to look at Build, and particularly a designer named Mathew Falla. Falla uses conventional print display systems to create animated posters. A kind of merged media installational conceptionalist, or the intersection of graphic and interaction design. Falla can be seen employing media from print to motion, generating a digital environment from a conceptual idea. The work ‘It’s ok to touch’. Made in December 2007 in London, is an A1 interactive poster design for the “Intergraphics” show in the London ARAM Gallery. Users can interact with the piece by touching the conductive ink, this then triggers a series of events (slogans, FlickR feeds and animations) beamed direct (via Bluetooth) onto the poster using a high resolution projector. The screen print is by K2 on G.F Smith Colourplan, with gloss UV varnish, fluorescent green ink and silver granules (suspended in a solvent). Although this concept seems very unique and original, its now being employed by many artists around the world. Installational art using projectors and interactive elements through touch by receptive surfaces or motion sensors are becoming much more common. I like the sense of a kind of relationship that begins to get built up between the viewer and the electrical technological side of the piece.
EXAMPLES/ARTISTS who create work like this.
I’d like to look at a number of other artists who also employ the use of installations, with interactive aspects to their work, all of which can be perceived as hyperreal in some way or another. Hyperreal paintings by Adam Stennett are executed with the utmost attention to detail, but clearly the detail has been exaggerated ever so slightly making the images look larger than life or not real. For example water features in a number of his works and its scarily realistic looking, but there’s also something else about it, something uncanny, something different. A. Stennett (b.1972) living in Brooklyn New York. Moving onto a light based installation piece, Japanese Based Designer and Artist Makoto Tojiki (b.1975). I’m absolutely blown away by his projects, and in particular this work titled “The Man with No Shadow”. Although this specific work isn’t interactive, it’s a great example of how technology can imitate nature, in this case, lights are imitating the human form. The work is created completely from LED lights suspended in space. I love how this work blends ideas of human nature with electronics and technology. Quite literally blurring the lines, but also bringing in ideas of Hyperreality. A direct quote from Makoto illustrates his ideas for people to look at things in a different way “I hope the message I convey in a product changes the way people look at things”.
But the most fascinating in interactive work I’ve come across is that of ‘Multitouch Barcelona’. Multitouch Barcelona is a small collaboration of people working on using surfaces to create interactive work with. They explore the way in which people connect with surfaces, communicating with the technology and how these triggers emotion. They attempt to use the entirety of the human body to interact with a given work but this is generally in front of a larger screen. After developing tabletop multitouch technology and working with that, they began moving onto a conceptual installational space where large (up to 6meters wide) screens were used, on a wall generating a huge touch surface for one to be involved with. Titled “HI - a real Human interface” was designed for the Red Bull Music Academy in 2008 and by involving people forms a natural relationship with the technology. Its made up of a two projected display system and a multitouch wall some 3m x 2m in size. Multitouch Barcelona created themselves from the ground up applications designed to engage the viewer into friendly user experiences rather than flashy visualisations. Space invaders is a prime example, just like the original game except the viewer literally throws foam balls at the screen to ‘hit’ the enemies. You can digitally paint with your arms by brushing them across the surface. A physics simulated applications lets the user toss around or throw balls about and literally even hold a ball in the air by pressing against the surface. “Multitouch Barcelona’ tries “to blur the boundaries between real and digital with natural interaction”. I think that is what they have succeeded in making but what does the future hold with advancing technology? Where will it take design and conceptual art in and out of the gallery space?
This writing is still a draft, please take that into consideration.
I’d really like some feedback, so if you have time, please leave a comment. Thankyou.
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Tags: Design, Graphic, Hyperreality, Interactive, Research
Makoto Tojiki Design
I’ve just discovered Japanese Based Designer and Artist Makoto Tojiki. I’m absolutely blown away by his projects, and in particular this work titled “The Man with No Shadow”.
The work is created completely from LED lights suspended in space.
I love how this work blends ideas of human nature with electronics and technology. Quite literally blurring the lines.
Also, bringing in ideas of Hyperreality, such as my own research. Quite spectacular.
Check out his other work online here.
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Multitouch Barcelona
As my work and research is purely heading into the realm of interaction design, I’d like to share this interview with studio ‘Multitouch Barcelona‘. Its totally relevant to my work and a great read. Be sure to check out the video [at the bottom of this post] to get a better idea for the concept.
“In the last years technology has advanced in giant steps”…this is not a new thing but today it seems to be a reality for everybody. Open source is now an open door that will come into all houses, exponentially speeding up creativity and development possibilities.
Next, a short introduction that will analyse the key moments in the last ten years of technology and creative development in the field of interaction and new media, and end with the performance and interview of one of the most interesting artistic collectives in the last few years: Multitouch Barcelona.
The web has always proposed dynamics connected to interaction (Action/Reaction) used everyday by all the net users. Flash in the ’90s has given colors to this panorama, giving to all interested (including me) the possibility to create funny experiments with animation, colors and graphics.
Nakamura, Amit Pitaru, Naztke, and Jushua Davis, only to name a few, have recently proposed experimentation born under the flash movement and its creative possibilities.On the other side of this scene, in 2000, I remember having gone to the Offf Festival in Barcelona to the presentation of the installation of Golan Levin and collaborator. This installation was opening up new possibilities in the coding, interaction and MIDI, including all its infinite applications. In 2001, when processing was founded by Ben Fry and Casey Reas, and later the turn of Reactable, a project created and launched by Interactive Sonic Systems Team directed by Sergi Jordà (Università Pompeu Fabra, Barcellona): a electronic music instrument was presented for the first time in 2005 at the International Computer Music Conference Barcelona, to be used later at the Coachella Festival 2007 in California by Bjork, and presented subsequently in diverse events across Europe.
From here we started to develop a project connected to Multitouch technology as a natural touch screen evolution (the first one is sensitive to touch at the same time in different point of the screen) and in this year 2009, after nine years from Offf ‘00 Barcelona, the neo format MultiTouch was presented at The Offf Oeiras ‘09, in front of 4000 people. The interactive installation Space Invaders XL, exhibited at one of the main festival rooms, consists of one video screen of 6 X 4 meters and allows all to play the well known video game “Space invaders”. Hundreds of balls were launched from public to “a sensible screen” to hit the target and eliminate it. It was a moment of collective euphoria!
Interaction is a kind of action that occurs as two or more objects have an effect upon one another. The idea of a two-way effect is essential in the concept of interaction. (Wikipedia)
…When we add to this simple principle, the passion for the code, creativity and the natural human aspects for fun-born Multitouch Barcelona. The collective born just one year ago was able to quickly enhance his international recognition thanks to his experimental, fresh and funny video installations.
Multitouch was founded by four young designers, based in (X), who work across interaction and New Media, and develop platforms linked to entertainment, play and experiment, by constantly exploring the communication between people and technology.
Contrary to many different projects made in this last period in this field, MultiTouch was able to show, in his artistic projects, the human aspects, and opened up another interesting option in the education and entertainment fields.
Next is an interview of Xavier Vilar de Paz, one of the four collective founders that will tell us in a better way how MultiTouch was born and how their artistic projects are developed, by going through a selection of his more representative interactive installation analysed by the eyes of the author to achieve and locate the concept of art and design in this right historical moment.
Marvin: Hi Xavier, tell me a little about how was MultiTouch Barcelona born and what are his principles.
Xavier: Hi, Marvin. Multitouch Barcelona is a group-of-four-project born a year and a half ago. Within a context where a lot of new interactive paradigms where appearing we focused in multitouch technologies, hence our name. We wanted to see how it feel to manipulate this kind of interfaces and so, we decided to build our own prototype.
Soon, we realized the power such interfaces -not only multitouch interfaces, but all the new ones that were appearing- have to connect with people. They involve senses in a whole new way and people feel more comfortable using them. Thus, a new way to communicate people and technology was appearing and we felt like contributing with our project. We saw the opportunity to make technology warmer and more close to people. This was the aim of our early works: to create or use technology to trigger emotions on people.
Later on, we discovered that even though this interfaces were an improvement in emotive technology they would never -or at least for now- beat human interaction complexity and richness.
So we redefined our goal, we wanted our work to serve as an excuse for human encounters to occur. Really shiffting attention from our work to what people feels in the environment it generates, we clearly aim for the experience, which is personal, unpredictable and unique. I believe that to be, currently, the main principle of our work.Marvin: What is your connection with Barcellona?
Xavier: We live in Barcelona and we enjoy it a lot here.
However, something tells me that you are refering to our original name, we could have make it better with it, we know, but we did not expect the project to evolve as it has and so we went for a practical descriptive name: what you do + where you do it. As it turn out, we are no longer doing multitouch -or not only-, who knows if we will be moving someday too.
Anyway, we will always have a part of Barcelona in our insides, and this is reflected in our projects.
So it makes sense to us.Marvin: What kind of technical support do you use in your installation, and exactly, what is your relation with technology?
Xavier: We all have a little background on computer science and we love design and interaction. That is nice because it has allowed us to work without any technical support. Everything in our projects we made it in our own from hardware -not the computers itself, everything but-, software, design, grahpics and so on; we even designed and programmed our website and recorded and edited our videos.
We work this way because the main intention we had when we started with the project was to learn, and that stucked. As any way to work, it has advantages and drawbacks but we are happy with it.
The main advantage -a part of learing with every new project- is that we can integrate everything perfectly since we have control of all the layers of the project. The main drawback, we work slower with new technologies we do not know. All in all, for us, the results pay off!Marvin: Your Demo-Reel “GUTEN TOUCH”, transfers a lot of emotion, the belief and the passion for your work. Interactive installations are often cold. Now, it’ s nice to see how it is possible to combine the cold technology aspects with the human contact, the game, the entertainment…your slogan “ready to play” doesn’t leave any doubt…What can you tell us about this?
Xavier: As we said, there were a lot of new interaction paradigms coming out at the time we started and we saw their potential to warm up technology. By involving the whole human body and senses into the interaction process we believed that technology could become closer to its users. It is all about making technology warmer. When a user sweats in front of your installation, while playing around, you realize that he/she is not perceiving it as technology but as fun. We want our projects to benefit from that kind of interaction.
Marvin: Tell us a little about your installations…how and from where did you start? Which was your first project or experiment as a team?
Xavier: We started building a tabletop multi-touch interface prototype. We wanted to experiment with it and building it allowed us to develop several simple applications and start messing around. We learned a lot out of this period and we applied this knowledge in the conceptualization of our first serious intallation: the Guten Touch Installation.
Marvin: One of your last installation “HI - a real Human interface” has demonstrated a major importance of human aspect in your work. Tell us two words that can used to describe it…
Xavier: Well, HI is not an installation really, HI was intended to be a concept project that somehow descrived vaguely our phylosophy.
At one point we realized that people no longer understood what we did. We believe our misleading name to be the blame for that. However, we wanted to find a way in which to reflect our project essence leaving room for interpretation.
HI contents our point of view on how interaction design should be and how we like to approach it. At the same time we wanted it to be though provoking with the possibilities that technology is providing.
The most incredible and useful output we got with HI were the comments people make of the video.
They help us to define ourselves, then we knew it was a succesful project.
Since HI is a descriptive project, it is not closed, so HI fans should wait for new releases… there will definitely be
Marvin: Have you ever thought of involving children and old people in your project? It could be the principle of new educational aspects…
Xavier: Defenetly! Children are wild, creative and playful; an actitude that we all should try to maintain as we grow old. This actitude turn them into incredibly interesting testers -since they challange the rules all the time- and a great source of inspiration. It would be a great to develop a project specially devoted to them, sure we will enjoy!
In the other hand, developing for old people will also be interesting. They tend to be unfamiliar with technology and usually affraid of it. Making technology closer to them would be a great challange and would test our skills in warming up technology.Marvin: Which are your dreams in short, medium and long term?
Xavier: We love what we are doing… so I guess that the answer to all the questions is to be able to keep doing what we do. Part of our philosophy is enjoy while doing, we’ll try to keep it up!
Marvin: In the last years we have seen an exponential growth of new communication media. Thanks to the democratic power of the net, every day a new blog, radio and streaming TV are born and seems to arrive to a bigger collective consciousness. Where are we heading to and what function does art, design and technology play in this historical moment?
Xavier: We think is a great historical moment for creativity. The ability to share and the creation of exchange places have triggered the most important thought revolutions in human history. Internet has become the place to share work, knowledge and exchange it with other people and influences.
It has become a place where hierarchies blur. No matter who you are, just what you do. For us this has been crucial for our project to exist.
Marvin: What do you want to tell to the world?
Xavier: Always think that computers are wrong, not you!
I personally think this work is amazing. I’d love to work on a project similar to this in the future.
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Monthly Inspiration #4
This months inspiration is a week or so late, and I’m sorry. But here’s some awesome images to wake up your creativity.
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Tags: Graphic Design, Inspiration, Research
After submitting my work so far this year, for the first Semester, and speaking to a number of people about my work, I’ve started realising a number of things. For a long time now, I’ve been excited and amped towards making a particular thing, an interactive experience with video game elements using type as a recurring theme. But, after creating a working side scrolling game in Flash, with a typeform as a character and hand drawn backdrops, I started to repeatedly realise I didn’t really have a narrative for the work, a reasoning behind it. I knew what I wanted to make and the medium I wanted to use, but no purpose or drive or content as it were.
So, I’ve come to a revelation or a possible turning point in my research for the years body of work. After meetings earlier in the year with Aaron, our design lecturer we had discussed if or wether I’d like to head in the direction of ‘Educational Design’, in other words, informative, or a kind of learning experience, or even ‘Infographics’. I originally wanted to stay clear of this, but after much thought and a constant pull towards having type to be a huge part of my work, even the content itself revolving around type, I’ve decided this is actually exactly what I want to explore. I’d like to create an interactive experience, with elements of games, an element of control illustrating and exploring in depth typeface anatomy. Throughout previous Research Proposal drafts during the year (which are posted on this blog) explored works that have inspired me and talked about possible narratives for a video game utlising type as a main theme, but I really think now the best option for me to explore is a thorough look into showing and displaying in an interactive and intuitive way, the anatomy of type.
I’ve had a few influential works that have lead me into this resolution. Including this AMAZING work titled Creative Code Multitouch Proof of Concept, by a University student overseas:
Creative code is a multitouch prototype I made for media class at University. The task was to create a folder (print/movie or digital) about/inspired by important designers and artist from the last century. The context of it should be a fictional exibition of the specific designer. I chose Ben Fry and Casey Reas and wanted to create a tool which is fun to interact with but also tries to illustrate the concept of using custom programs/code to create art. In concept the multitouch application would be placed as some sort of terminal in an exhibition about generative art. A screensaver encourages the visitor to interact with it since most people are not used to multitouch in their daily life. The main tool is just a blank canvas you can draw and move circles on. You can toggle different behaviours to get various visual results. The bottleneck of the whole thing is that you can flip the canvas and see some pseudocode, explanations and controls of how the current image gets created. The toggles are also available there to see the direct impact on the code and output as soon as you toggle something. The “codeside” is kept in a really sketchy style to enhance the metaphor of using code as a brush or artistic tool in general. The program is not finished at all but it’s enough to proof the concept I had in mind. Everything about the software aswell as the hardware setup was done really quickly and roughly but the video is still ok i guess. I know the title is a total rip off from john maedas book but it simply fits perfect for the application and since reas and fry are his students there is nothing wrong with that.
Technical details:
I wrote a small 2D Verlet Physics engine which can handle up to 500 particles with collisions at 60fps (on my 3 years old MBP). I could have used box2D but I thought it would be a good chance of learning a little bit more about physics simulation. Other than that it uses a work in progress version of the next ofxTuio client for openFrameworks I am working on from time to time. Tracking is done with CCV.
After watching the video of this work being used, I realised I could do the same thing but using type and the CONTENT being entirely about teaching the anatomy of TYPE. I have access to multitouch systems through our University HitLAB who I caught up with earlier in the year. I need to figure out what software and what programming is involved with creating this kind of project and if its still going to be possible within the time frame I have remaining.
Also, here is another inspirational work involving type and animation I’ve discovered:
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Tags: Animation, Graphic Design, Research, Typography, Video
I thought I’d make a list to share of all the Apps and shortcuts I have to design related webpages/blogs on my iPhone. If you are an iPhone user, then these are all must haves. If you are like me, I like to keep up with the current trends and inspiration through Graphic Design even when I’m away from my MacBook Pro or Wifi connection.
Apps:
Facebook
Perfect for most of us, go on admit it, you’re addicted to facebook. Great for keeping in contact with fellow students and designers.
ActionMthd
This App is great! Its put out by the Behance Network, and is the answer to all your productivity and project management nightmares! A great tool for working on projects, both client and designer based tool.
Evernote
Evernote is pretty much what it sounds like, a great tool for recording and taking notes, saving and sharing files. A must have!
TweetDeck
Is a FREE Twitter client for iPhone’s and Mac. I’m not going to explain what Twitter is. Its the best I’ve used, and above all, yes its FREE! Aside from the odd crash here and there on iPhone OS 3.0, its still the best Twitter App out there.
FontShuffle
If you’re a designer, you should be in love with type. If not, you should still download this App. Its made by FontShop and lets you sample type from their huge catalogue. Great for proving those ‘what is that typeface’ arguments when you’re out with other designers!
KERN
A FORMation Alliance product, KERN is a minimalist typography experience challenging you to precisely place a missing letter into a falling word while avoiding and unnecessary ligatures! Good fun! Re-playability due to the scoreboard!
okimok
Think Flickr for iPhone users. Made purely for people to upload photos from their iPhones and share within the community, also includes a similar system to Twitter where one can Follow other users, and see their photos uploads.
WhatTheFont
Just like the online equivalent, except made easy for the iPhone.
WordPress
Post to your blog, edit and moderate comments all on the go from your phone.
Webpages:
Abduzeedo
deviantART
Flickr
Glyphboard
FFFOUND!
Digg
Engadget
hugeType
I Love Typography
Kotaku
Netvibes
Threadless
By going to any of these websites on your iPhone, you’ll automatically be redirected to the mobile friendly version.
There you have it, all my favourite Apps and webpages that get used most days on my iPhone! Have any you use?.. and would like to recommend? Please comment and share!
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Tags: iPhone, Tools
Monthly Inspiration #3
A large collection of images this month. Most images come with links back to their respective sources. I think I’ll work on a Video Inspiration post in the future, as I’m increasingly coming across some great design related clips more and more lately. Enjoy!
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Tags: Graphic Design, Inspiration
Amazing photography by Shinichi Maruyama, I love it!
Absolutely amazing work, this last image shows the working process if you like…
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Tags: Graphic Design, Inspiration, Photography
I’ve always been interested in the distinction between Video Games and Art, and even the idea of Video Games as an Art Form, which in my point of view, Video Games are a kind of ultimate collaboration of many areas of the Arts. This is a different approach again, creating something new from an existing Video Game and bringing it out of it’s native medium and putting it into something new–Painting…
“A series of landscapes painted from video games. These aren’t from screenshots I found online; I navigated around inside of each of the games until I found a composition I liked, and then made a painting of it. I certainly spend more time in games than wandering the idyllic countryside. There’s a whole spiel behind this, starting from frustration at 3D games slavishly imitating real life (though this has been lessened thanks to Braid and others), but really, artists should shut up and make pictures. Just think of me with my blue smock, sun hat, and luxurious beard in front of an easel on a hill in Fallout 3. Mmm, radroach meat.”— James Barnett
A rather fascinating concept.
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Tags: Painting, Video Games
Research Proposal v2.0
Two months ago I submitted my research proposal. Now, things have changed. So I’m revising it.
As far as I see it, my current objective and direction is to generate a Flash based interactive gaming environment depicting the story or experiences of a piece of type. In other words, bringing to life something such as a singular type form, giving it humanistic qualities and a will to live. Something it wouldn’t normally have, generating interest and personal character development throughout a story driven experience. From creating the code in Action Script 3, the story and visual aesthetics with illustrations, to the possibility of sound during the experience.
This all came from somewhere, surprisingly. My initial obsession with traditional typeface design, layout and grid systems was a starting point. I began delving into the traditions and obsessions of Swiss and Dutch based typeface and layout design. Also taking a liking to modern approaches to the style or movement reformed by studios such as the well known Experimental Jet Set and even closer to home Experimenta. My Grid layout for our first brief this year is solely based around these principles.
I then attempted to include my interest of modern mediums such as projections in a gallery space, like that of Build’s interactive poster ‘It’s okay to touch’. This interactive poster uses conventional print display systems to create animated posters that come to life. A kind of merged media installational concept, or the intersection of graphic and interaction design. I’ve since come across many inspirational works similar to this. Pushing the boundaries of animation, the inclusion of sound in some cases even music videos, and interactivity. This short music video by Venetian Snares illustrates amazing emotion and atmosphere through the simplistic use of the elements. Following that we have this interactive music video by Labuat which demonstrates how interaction between the viewer can immensely heighten the experience, bringing to it something completely different to that of traditional video formats. I’ve also explored the internet vastly looking at a huge amount of interactive flash websites and environments, applications and the like. Another of partcular interest is that of Yugop.
I’d like to now demonstrate some research I’ve done in the direction of games based around design, and namely typography. A blog that I frequently read was a great starting point. I Love Typography is a huge inspiration for me and a huge resource for all things type related, new and old. On this site is the first of a number of type games I’ll be referring to, and its plainly called ‘FontGame‘. Through this simple web based game, users are tested on their knowledge of typefaces and their names. Its rather difficult. But it’s totally making the process of learning slightly more interesting. Another typographic based game is at Deep.co.uk and is also titled ‘FontGame’. This explores the same principle, although with a bigger approach to the aesthetics and visual flare. Users go about the same task of distinguishing typefaces but use a more advanced gameplay mechanic by which you ’shoot’ the required/incorrect typefaces. Something a little different is this idea of making a static board game to do with type. Like this game called ‘Name That Typeface‘. Although, I’m more interested in the medium of flash and action script for this research project. The most recent typographic game I’ve come across online recently is at Veer.com; and is called ‘Kern in Space‘. An interesting game which you are lead to believe is about kerning, but after playing, its simply a basic ‘Lunar Lander’ type game and doesn’t really have much depth to it at all.
So after exploring some ideas about interaction, design, typography and games, I can now talk about the direction in which I’m heading. I want to create an interactive experience, call it a game, experience or work of art. But primarily its about the experience and how one can control that experience or process. I’ll be illustrating, coding and telling the story of a singular pice of type as it enters the world from conception after being designed, drafted and created. Then following the form as a character through its experience of life, as it explores, and starts being used by designers. To being pressed into posters and printers. The type form then escapes the confines and explores the world, discovering other instances of type around the world and the environment that the player or character moves around in. In comparison, here is a website made by the Wellington studio Resn. Made for the band Minuit, Its an interactive experience, with a platform nature where the viewer becomes the participant, selecting a character which comes to life having a personality, the viewer then becomes enveloped amidst this whole new world, and therefore begins to explore it unravelling its mysteries.
I wish to create a much more story driven experience than the above game references. With complex animations and interactive aspects to the work. With scripted motion events happening to and around the character. I wish to push the boundaries of game interaction rather than it simply being about the participant or viewer only controlling an entity in the game, but to draw them in as part of the experience. I don’t want this to simply be an educational game that one would play to learn about type or design, but for it to be accessible, interesting and exciting to anyone by its narrated story telling nature and enjoyable gameplay mechanics. To do this, I’ll need to increase my knowledge of Action Script, and I plan on continuing to do this during university holidays. In some ways I’m restricted to what I can do because of my knowledge of the software and programming language, but my imagination is not. So the more I learn about the Action Script language the better I can push my imagination into fruition. I do however currently have a working model and example for the flash environment I wish to create but is only a work in progress and nowhere near complete. But its enough to give an idea of what I’m aiming for.
The final product presentation for the end of year submission will include limited edition packaging similar to that of recent video game releases, with box art design, including extras such as a limited edition concept and artwork book, a manual, and also some kind of figurine of the final concept for the character design I’ve settled on. For example, something like this special collectors edition for the game Alone in the Dark.
I’ve now begun generating a series of concept landscape or environmental world ’scapes’ as it were, types of environments that I’d like to utilise through the experience. You can see these in the previous post on this blog, or click here.
REFERENCES:
Experimenta, Wellington, NZ.
http://experimenta.co.nz/
Video of the ‘ITS OK TO TOUCH’ Installation in London:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMKIgmHHWwQ
Documentation of ‘ITS OK TO TOUCH’ poster and print process:
http://www.wearebuild.com/projects/osmotronic
Experimental Jet Set:
http://www.experimentaljetset.nl/
Lecture by Experimental Jet Set [23 rd March 2009] on their influences and thought processes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2pzHa6ks0M
Venetian Snares – Szamár Madár Music Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PBeKzVhWHY
Yugop – Graphic Designer with an AMAZING flash based website.
http://yugop.com/
TYPOGRAPHIC GAMES
FontGame at ilovetypography.com
http://ilovetypography.com/fontgame/
FontGame at Deep.
http://deep.co.uk/games/font_game/
Name That Typeface Board Game
http://www.magpienest.org/feathersofhope/511/name-that-typeface
Veer’s ‘Kern in Space’
http://ideas.veer.com/features/kerninspace
OTHER RESOURCES
Resn – Interactive Design Agency based in Auckland.
http://www.resn.co.nz/
Minuit interactive flash based website
http://minuit.co.nz/
Great source of information anything type related:
http://ilovetypography.com/
Rules and informative posts related to modern grid systems:
http://www.thegridsystem.org/
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Tags: Flash, Games, Interaction, Research
Flash Project Concept Artwork
Just a quick post. Here are some images I have drawn recently as possible backdrops/landscape for the game I’m working on. They are in no particular order.
Simplistic lines illustrate the images with a nice sense of detail.
Flat areas of grey’s and blacks help distinguish main themes or highlighted items of interest.
You can’t tell in these low resolution images, but I’m really liking the current black and white style, but with tiny highlights of color. Like the lights on the printer and on the stereo.
I’m contempt with the idea of this game having a narrative, leading the character through a story, or in a way, its ‘life-cycle’ as a piece of type. Its revelation into realising what and who it is. As a pure form and entity. The critique room represents a drawing board, a beginning, a conceptual stage in its life, possibly even ‘birth’ or the beginning of the typeface.
The press, I guess in a way signifies the type being applied to a work, pressed onto paper, becoming a reality, and having a purpose or use.
So, ideally, the game will allow the player to explore these ‘landscapes’ or ‘environments’ as he or she wishes, learning more about the life and story of this particular type form who is thinking outside the box, and wondering about some kind of alternate purpose in reality.
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Tags: Flash, Graphic Design, Illustration
Monthly Inspiration #2
Here’s this months bunch of interesting images I thought were note worthy towards my research. And just plain wanted to share them.
Great! A shorter selection of works this month, But, more relevant content.
I feel like I should be linking all of these works to their respective owners sites. I’ll work on this.
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Tags: Inspiration
Okay so I’ve begin playing around with flash. I’ve managed to figure out how to create a basic side scrolling environment, place images and backgrounds into the environment whilst also have a character that moves and looks realistic thanks to some basic animation. Here’s some screen shots, I wont share the final .swf until the project is complete.
Something that cannot be expressed through screenshots is the way in which I’ve animated the character ‘A’ to physically appear to be walking across the screen, and therefore bringing it to life.
The character also appears to jump when instructed, allowing it to get through or past obstacles through out the experience.
This landscape was just taken from a previous work I done to test the way landscapes could be used.
So, at this stage, most of the content is just place holder content, as I haven’t finalised a narrative or story line, I think now that I have the game engine running, I’ll step back a little and finalise some story boards and the main purpose of this work.
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Tags: Flash, Research
Alright, So here’s what I’ve been working on over the last few weeks.
As part of my research project for my 4th year at University studying Graphic Design, I’ve finally come to some kind of resolution or break through in regards to what I want to do for the rest of the year. I’ve come to a realisation that, in actual fact, it would be very helpful for me, to have a sound knowledge in writing Action Script 3.0 in the future. So I’ve begun learning it. Now I have done some programming before, but not for a number of years and I’m unsure of whether that’ll be much help anyway. After using Adobe Flash for a few years now, I’ve made a fair bit of progress in using it for animating, but never delved into Action Script.
I’ll lay it out simply. I’m proposing to spend the next six-months, generating on my own actual game, in Action Script 3.0 using the Flash environment. Now, the basis for this has come from the last near 3 months researching everything and all that interests me in the world of Design, and I ultimately belive that creating a game will be the ultimate culmination of a number of areas that I am rather obsessed with.
I love typography, and there for this will play a huge part, if not solely being the primary content producer for the piece. I love games, and they are a huge inspiration for me. I love the idea of Interaction design, and how people interact with art, and make it something of their own, bringing to it something new. And, I love the fact that I’ll be able to install this work into a space, using a high resolution projector, with the possible use of sound, to totally immerse the viewer, and giving them a controller or input device to interact with the piece. Now, this could well just spawn off more elaborate works or extensions of current ideas, but at least I have some where to begin, a thread to unravel, explore and express.
I don’t actually have anything much to share with you yet, as I’m only just beginning the basics of Action Script for Game Programming, aside from this nice poster I’ve made, containing one of the typefaces I’ll be exploring throughout the piece, Futura.
Its obviosuly in the early stages of merely being a conceptual idea, but I’m very excited about it never the less.
Has anyone done any Action Script 3.0 programming? More importantly, for game development?
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Tags: Flash, Research
Monthly Inspiration #1
After spending a lot of my time looking at other design websites and blogs, and personally keeping a folder of monthly inspiration to reference, I’ve decided to start a series of posts purely for inspiration. Mostly type and illustration based, but will include all kinds of imagery I’ve come across that relates to my work and I’d like to share with others. Hopefully something you haven’t yet stumbled upon already.
So, here is a collection of inspiration from April ‘09.
And thats about it for this month. Hope you enjoyed this post! Until next month.
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Tags: Inspiration
This is a TwoWeeker
I made this poster within an hour or so actually, BUT the reason I created it was just for a bit of a laugh. We just got a brief from our design lecturer titled ‘TwoWeeker’ and have to completely finish a work within that time space, so I made this to show him before I show him my ACTUAL work for the brief.
I love this typeface. You can download it for FREE. Its called Twist.
After generating those posters, I then moved onto something rather different. I started looking at what happens when an image is placed on a window and what happens when light passes through it.
I began making posters which changed during the transition of day and night. This spawned from noticing the next image I found online, I’d printed it double sided on A4 and had it in my window.
The effect of the type showing through from the other side was rather interesting.
I then attempted it with my own work with the same results.
The main interest is just to take note of how things are changed by the light, and time of day, and how one could utilise that in design projects with the use of typography.
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Tags: Posters
Here’s a nice wallpaper I’ve put together from a work in progress for a friend of mine.
Its set in Helvetica Neue Light and Helvetica Neue Bold. I’d like this to be printed on some nice heavy stock at some stage, or even on a tshirt.
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Tags: Typography, Wallpaper
Research Proposal
I’m currently working on my research proposal for this years body of work.
Here lies the outline of my proposed work for the entire University year. I’ll try and be as elaborate as possible.
My main threads of research are going to consist of the use of typeface layout and design in a Dutch and Swiss style, and how these can be applied to successful poster design. The development of using symbolism to convey ideas whilst replacing the need for type to tell the story. And, primarily to generate a work or series of works of the installational kind, that can be interacted by people within a space.
These ideas come from research into the history and current trends in Dutch & Swiss typography, but namely a modern approach to the style from the likes of modern studios such as Experimental Jetset, We Are Build and the now up and coming N.Z studio Experimenta based in Wellington. One of the designers graduated from Canterbury University. These styles and trends, be it a modernist approach to type and grid systems excite me the most.
In relation to my main idea for this years body of work, I’d like to look at Build, and particularly a designer named Mathew Falla. Falla uses conventional print display systems to create animated posters. A kind of merged media installational conceptionalist, or the intersection of graphic and interaction design. Employing media from print to motion, generating a digital environment from a conceptual idea.
I’m primarily interested in deconstructing the work ‘IT’S OK TO TOUCH’ [seen in the above image]. Made in December 2007 in London. An A1 interactive poster design for “Intergraphics” show in the London ARAM Gallery. Users interact with the piece by touching the conductive ink, this then triggers a series of events (slogans, FlickR feeds and animations) beamed direct (via Bluetooth) onto the poster using a high resolution projector. The screen print is by K2 on G.F Smith Colourplan, with gloss UV varnish, fluorescent green ink and silver granules (suspended in a solvent).
The remaining questions, like if I should be focusing solely on one aspect of the above ideas, such as only pursuing the idea of interaction design, or doing a bit of that and working with my other huge interest in modernist typographic design inspired by the above studios is something I’m yet to answer Integrating the two would be one answer. Ultimately, I really wish to create work(s) that’s not only created or conceptually designed by me but is also given elements of design by the people or viewers that can interact and take part in the visual outcome of the piece.
References thus far:
Video of the ‘ITS OK TO TOUCH’ Installation in London:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMKIgmHHWwQ
Documentation of ‘ITS OK TO TOUCH’ poster and print process:
http://www.wearebuild.com/projects/osmotronic
Experimental Jet Set:
http://www.experimentaljetset.nl/
Lecture by Experimental Jet Set [23 rd March 2009] on their influences and thought processes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2pzHa6ks0M
Great source of information anything type related:
http://ilovetypography.com/
Rules and informative posts related to modern grid systems:
http://www.thegridsystem.org/
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Tags: Research
Research Presentation
This is a sequence of images that I presented to the class, kind of like a starting point of what I’m interested in and possibly some kind of direction I’m heading in.
This first image is a postcard created by Experimental Jet Set who were asked by a small exhibition space to design the invitation and catalogue for a retro-spec of Wim Crouwel. Called Typographic Architectures. This is obviously a photographic work, whilst turning the type into a spatial environment, even an actual piece of architecture. Crouwel adds a physical dimension to the piece.
This John & Paul & Ringo & George T-Shirt by Experimental Jet Set was designed for a japanese T-Shirt label 2K/Gingham. Referring to a T-Shirt genre itself, as an archetypical ‘band shirt’. Stripping it down to type rather than an image. Most archetypical bands like the Beatles/music being a huge inspiration to Experimental Jet Set. The Ampersand was added purely for straightened line endings!
This offset printed Helvetica Documentary Film poster was also made by Experimental Jet Set. Directed y Gary Hurstwitt. Created similar to a type specimen sheet. Inspired by movie posters from the 60’s and 70’s. Classic catch phrases referring directly to the typeface as the actor or introduction “Meet the Cast”. Giving the typeface even more humanistic qualities than it already has.
Ten Years of Posters was a solo exhibition by Experimental Jet Set, in London. Its a pure typographical poster, listing some of the things they’d been doing for the last 10yrs aside from making posters. Inspired by song lyrics.
Charity poster of a small print run. Experimental et Set were asked along with 20 other designers/studios to make posters around the theme of ‘health’. Quote from Satre — issues of life and death. Showing the abyss that exists under paper through a visible tear.
Experimenta website. Minimalist Swiss style.
Experimenta Poster 1
Experimenta Poster 2
Trip-Tych by Build. Commissioned by +81 Magazine in Japan. Under the theme ‘Think Global, Act Local’. Displayed in a Japanese clothing store.
Same theme, symbols replacing type.
Objectified Poster by Build. Featuring drawings of dozens of objects from designers in the film incl. the bottom row of images used to create the film. Metallic, Silver and Black—Lithograph.
Symbolism Poster. Using the everyday graphic language of symbols. A1 poster created by Build. Screen printed in phosphorescent ink. Limited Edition of 100.
Three-way collaboration with Build. Bold prints encased in custom frames. As well as Vinyl wall graphics.
This is a ONE off custom framed presentation piece by Build. Commissioned by Sony for president of Sony Computer Entertainment Phil Harrison. Screen printed design on 6 layers of plexi glass, incased in a custom acrylic box.
The following Illustration is part of a design production for an original hand-painted artwork for a T.V Commercial to promote a new ‘Pritt’ correction roller.
The last two images are by Build and Mathew Falla. It is an A1 interactive poster design for Inter-Graphics, a show in London. Users interact with the pice by touching the conductive ink, this triggers a series of events. Slogans, Flickr, and Animation Feeds. Beamed directly via Bluetooth onto the poster using a high resolution projector.
//End
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Grids and Typographic Hierarchy
One of our first brief’s this term was to create a layout and grid system to use with all our previous years workbooks, including the possibility of using it for this years work also. Here are a few of the spreads I’ve come up with.
I’ve created a 6 x 6 grid system to work with, and begun to work with Bookman Old Style as the heading typeface, whilst using Interstate Light for the body text.
I think these two typefaces compliment each other nicely.
This is all aligned to a baseline grid for overall unity.
Ultimately this will, by the end of the year hold a complete retrospective of all my four years of Graphic Design at University.
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Tags: Grids, Hierarchy, Typography
Periodic Table of Typefaces
This table lists and displays 100 of the most popular, influential and notorious typefaces ever.
Not only informative but great for a wallpaper!
Full size version. Click.
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Tags: Typography
Graphic Design Podcasts
I’d like to make a quick post about a few podcasts I listen to. I find them very helpful, informative and interesting. Its always great to listen to people discuss the things you are constantly thinking about.
Read Between the Leading although only running for 5 episodes so far but is absolutely brilliant. Its a couple of American design students discussing Type, Grids, Graphic Design in general with the odd special guest.
TypeRadio has been going since early 2004 and is a couple of Dutch designers who travel the world visiting Designers and Design events, interviewing big names and any who wants to talk about Design. This is probably my favourite.
Freelance Radio in a broader sense, is not only about Graphic Design, but about being a freelancer, dealing with clients and the like.
Thats it for now. If you have any recomendations of other podcasts similar to these, let me know!
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Tags: Audio, Graphic Design, News, Podcast
Graphic Design 401
Yeah, so it’s been another couple of months since my last post. But I’ve been on holiday and haven’t really done much design to tell the truth.
I’ve just gone back to University, and the first week back was reasonably quiet. I’m rather excited about this being my last year, not only because I’ve nearly finished my degree, but because of the freedom we get within our personal practice. The fourth year of design is based upon research and influenced by the work you have tendered towards from previous years of study. Although we have been given a small brief to kick start the first few weeks of study which I’ll talk about in a new post. Lets just say, Grids.
On a side note, I’m currently in the market for a new mobile phone due to my trusty Nokia finally becoming unusable. I’ll admit it, I really want an iPhone, but at this stage I really can’t justify the price tag. I’m also curious if Apple is reasonably close to dropping the prices and releasing a newer model, I’ve heard the rumors.
Secondly, I’m interested in buying a new camera. Preferably a DSLR. But, I think I’m going to wait a little longer or until DSLR’s finally standardise features such as native 1080p video recording.
Okay, well thats enough off topic talk, next up—grids.
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Tags: Graphic Design
Creating DVD Cover Art
I’m Currently in the process of creating a cover for a DVD containing a short instructional piece on Yoga. Here is my current concepts and I’ll update this soon with an image of the final work. I’ll also be creating as stamp for the disc to complete the look.
I’m going for a very sparse, clean aesthetic, as obviously Yoga itself is about a healthy, non-toxic, free-breathing lifestyle.
I’m also staying away from stamping generic brushes all over it like everyone else does. That annoys me very much by the way. Can we please move on?
Edit: This was the final DVD Cover that was used:
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Tags: Freelance, Graphic Design, Illustration
Coen Brothers Silhouette
After being blown away by the movie No Country for Old Men, and at the time having to generate a work for a brief related to the Coen Brothers I created this silhouette. I then later cut it from vinyl about 4 meters wide, and also laser cut it from 2mm thick sheet metal whilst mounting it and giving it a light source. Quite an enjoyable brief from beginning to end.
This illustration is taken directly from screen grabs at certain points during the movie and then I stitched them together. I recreated the entire thing by drawing it as a vector based image.
I can really appreciate the movie from a different light after deconstructing the imagery throughout it to come to this result. The harsh cold reality and stillness of the images generate a dark atmosphere and portray the movie for what it really is.
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Tags: Graphic Design, Illustration
A Killer Review
Excuse the lame pun, but I couldn’t resist! Its been two days since the latest album from the American Pop/Rock/Indie/Electronic group The Killers released their latest studio recordings titled Day & Age. I’ve listened to it at least ten times through and its surely a worthy album on their part.
Heading again in a new direction, like their previous album, the new songs are vastly different from their debut album Hot Fuss. Long gone are the bands raw sounding double pick ups indie licks and garage sounds and in come the commercialised big beats and catchy even-dance remix sounds. In fact this album is much more along the lines of their compilation of fan released tracks on Sawdust.
If you are a Killers fan then this is a must buy, as you’ll love it no matter what, but if youre a new comer, give it a listen to first. I know I’ll be chilling out to this sweet album for years to come.
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Tags: Music
A Complete Abstract Diagram
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Tags: Graphic Design, Theory, Typography, University
I Neglected You, And I’m Sorry.
There you have it, its true. I Neglected the blog which I’d only just started to regularly keep up with. But here’s to trying to amend that over the next few months. I’ve completed my year of graphic design and my submission went great! I have a bit of spare time now until the course starts again in february for the final year of study.
Over the next week or so I’ll be uploading some images of work I had spoke about previously and have since completed. I’ll then delve into a bit of research and begin to try and figure out what I want my next years study to be based and influenced upon. And I’d like to share that online in this space, which is great just for documenting it for myself.
I wonder if I actually have any viewers?
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Creating An Abstract Diagram
First post for a few weeks, I know. I’ve been on a 5 week holiday and have returned to university ready for semester 2.
My latest brief at university is quite simple yet quite complexe nonetheless. We are to apropriate an existing diagram, remove the content from it and enter our own in relation to our practice. Being that I am avidly awaiting a move to London I chose the London Underground map.
I then proceeded to recreate the map in illustrator using the pen tool and simplified it to an extent.
I’m still working on this project and coming up with new ideas for the theory side of things. As you can imagine its actually quite difficuilt defining what influences you and how your creativity flows and in what way plus on top of that illustrate it in a diagram!
I’ll be sure to update this with my final outcome later on.
UPDATE: Still a work in progress but here it is in its current state.
I will upload a high resolution version as soon as this project is complete.
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Tags: Diagram, Graphic Design, Theory, University
Firefox 3.0 and PicLens
Just a quick link to a neat add-on I’ve discovered for FireFox 3.0, its not very pracitcal but looks great and is fun to use. Its called PicLens and is only about 2mb’s to download.
The add-on basically lets you browse image and video based websites such as Google and YouTube with a three-dimensional wall, and it works great!
Filed under: Internet | 4 Comments
Tags: Internet, Software
Making A Light Box
I recently made a light box for a poster I designed at university and thought why not share the process online for those about to do the same. Its not a complete guide, but it will head you into the right direction.
Building a light box yourself will save you about half the cost of buying a new one and you can easily build it any size. It takes less than a few hours depending on where you get the materials from and how you put it together. You will need someone to do the wiring for the lights, do not attempt it unless you know what you are doing.
What you need:
Milky white translucent perspex, about 4.5-5mm thick
16-18mm thick Melamine chip board to create the box
Beading or small amounts of wood to create a ledge for the perspex to sit on
Two fluorescent battens
A bunch of screws and nails
Power cord
Drill and screwdriver
Putting it together:
Cut the wood to size and put the box together.
Add the beading or rebate.
Drill a hole for the power cord.
Mount the lights and wire them.
Place the perspex inside.
Affix desired poster or image and you are finished.
You can also place a switch on the outside if you desire, but I chose not to which means you have to unplug the box to turn it off.
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Tags: Graphic Design, Light Box, Posters, University
Great Movie Posters
After reading through a list of the 100 Greatest Movie Posters, I thought I’d select some from that list that I actually liked and had also seen. I ended up with the following 9 posters, I think they all convey a good message that portrays a reasonably accurate message about the film. These are not necessarily good examples of graphic design in the way of layout and typography, but they fulfill there purpose in describing the movie.
When I come across more movie posters I appreciate, I’ll update this list.
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Tags: Graphic Design, Movies, Posters, Typography
My Workspace
I think a designers workspace is an integral part of their life. Not only is it a place where they generally spend huge amounts of time but it also curves the creativity process into certain directions. Therefor I shall share mine with you.
I currently primarily use a 17” MacBook Pro with a secondary 28” Viewsonic LCD. I have a couple of external hard drives for extra space as the MacBook is limited in that respect.
Another huge part of my workspace is the addition of some fantastic speakers, music plays a large role in the creative process for me and I cant live without it, I have a 5.1 Logitech setup.
Because I am currently flatting, my workspace is actually my bedroom. Therefore I’m also surrounded by bedroom objects such as a bed, clothing, snowboarding gear, music, movies and a large game collection.
Being a designer I am a visual person in most ways, and I surround myself with images which are all over my walls.
In theory I think a sense of order is needed in ones workspace, but not too much which could begin to restrict you, and not too little. Its all about finding that balance which suits you, right?
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Tags: Creative Process, Graphic Design, Music, Workspace
At Present
I currently study full time at Canterbury University towards a Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring in Graphic Design. In my weekends I work in a record store and have done for the last few years.
But, I think it is time for me to seriously look at getting some experience in the design industry. I’m currently on study break for upcoming exams and then have a number of weeks holiday. Once I return to university I am going to make a point of actively looking for some part-time work whether it be working at a printer or idealy an in house designer position.
I will keep my progress up to date on this blog in the mean time. I’m feeling quite confident and excited, as I am certainly ready for a change, and even better if I can begin my career as a designer before I finish university and graduate, just to get that extra little bit of experience.
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Tags: Graphic Design, University
Photoshop Brushes
I have spent a good portion of the day downloading and playing around with Photoshop brushes. There are a huge amount available for free on the internet but finding well made and high resolution ones can be tricky. These two websites are the best I’ve come across and have a large range of brushes, Noupe and Brusheezy.
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Tags: Photoshop, Photoshop Brushes, Plugins
A New Beginning
In this blog I will be voicing my inspirational outbursts and deepest concerns or questions towards the recent Graphic Design research I have jumped into. I study Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury, and have decided to delve into the depths of the internet with my work. I hope to create a positive response and look forward to sharing my work with the world.
And so it begins.
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Tags: Graphic Design, University
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