Into Digital Arts

There are many aspects that must be considered when designing a magazine. The content is very important, but one aspect of the design that no one really thinks about is the layout of the magazine. The grid is how images and text are placed around the page. It can determine the size of objects and how much white space is between each element on the page.  Most text in magazines appears to be set out into 3 columns. However, one of the most common layouts utilizes 12 columns in order to appear to have 3 columns. This gives much more layout control over what is shown and how it is shown. Its very surprising that a 12 column layout results in 3 columns of main text. However, the goal of this is so that it is modular. In computer science, one of the most important things that you consider when coding is to try and make your code modular. When you can use the same layout on every page, it means that it is dynamic and interesting since each page will feel like it follows the same rules. T...

This is a chroma key exercise. This is my first attempt at keying anything out of a video utilizing premiere pro. I probably should have chosen a different color for the background.

This next assignment was to build the internals for the magazine cover that I designed. I wanted to have the magazine article be about animation in some way. So I chose to make my article about the history of computers in animation while focusing on the development of computer graphics. I am very facinated with computer hardware so I wanted to do my best to summerize the great advancements since 1960 that still have an impact on the technology that is currently in use in the animation industry.  I kept the same color scheme from the cover. I chose the subtitle colors and the colors of the circuit designs from the theme that I designed for the cover. The overall font and extra symbols I used for the title and the headers, are based upon a unix console interface. These things are all to help with the overall techie feel that I am aiming for in this magazine. 

This video is the first in a series, the other I will be finishing towards the end of the semester. Throughout my career as a musician, I have struggled with self confidence. The confidence to play loud and proudly for others, especially when I am playing alone. This leads me to not play at my best when playing with small groups or by myself. Even when others tell me I am a talented musician, I find difficulty in believing that when I often struggle with the basics. This is what I wish to tell through this animated series. This series is about a trumpet that is not confident in its playing abilities. For this reason, it has difficulties fitting in with the rest of the outgoing group. It must find a way to become more confident in its abilities in order to fit in with the group. 

I am finally done with my third assignment in graphic design 1. These are two possible covers for a zine that I will be producing in later assignments. I plan on having my magazine focus on computers in the field of animation. In particular, the history of animation and what computers brought to the medium. Or it might be about computer animated material I have produced. I am not sure yet, as I do not have enough high quality animations to fill a magazine, but we shall see.  For these two covers, one was photo based and the other was a more abstract design that I created in illustrator. I believe that my abstract design is much better than my photo based designs. For the abstract design, I was trying to give a techie feel with the repeating patterns of triangles and the little circuit design at the bottom. I am very proud of this design, as it took a lot of different attempts to get to it and the final idea.  The photo based one does not quite feel like a magazine co...

I was unaware that during the 2011 Oscars, the wrong winner for best picture was announced. This was a concatenation of two big problems: the announcer was handed the wrong card, and the cards typography was not designed in a way that made reading easy. I have been on stage during a performance multiple times in my life, both for musical and theatrical events. In all of these events, I knew exactly what I was going to do and when I was going to do it. This is not the case for the announcers of the winners as they do not know the winner before they walk out on the stage. For this reason, it is very important for them to be able to read the card they are handed. With the amount of stress that is present, especially with millions watching, the information that is important should be eye catching. The information rather than the Oscars logo should have been prioritized and given more typographic importance. Article:  The Oscars Showed Us Why Typography Matters

I am still struggling to come up with ideas for a couple of upcoming stop motion projects for my video art class. In order to hopefully find some inspiration, I went looking for some stop motion shorts. One of my favorites that I came across is called CREATE by Dan MacKenzie. I really enjoyed this short as it really explored the concept of imagination quite well. In a short 2 minutes it was also able to build character in the young boy who the short was about. CREATE is animated very well and manages to capture the charm and creativity inherent in stop motion animation. CREATE - A stop motion short by Dan MacKenzie from Dan MacKenzie on Vimeo . Another really awesome stop motion project I came across is called Gulp. This is a project completed by a studio hired by Nokia to advertise one of their cameras. However, I thought the animation was very charming and they did some very interesting things with perspective that really caught my eye. Gulp. The world's largest stop-m...