Week 7B

3/2/2016

  Today we critiqued the show openers and end tag assignment. People said:

• It was a little too fast in the beginning.
• It needed more sound, and maybe better syncing.
• The sound could probably be recorded from strait the games using another device.
• Maybe the animation could be zoomed out, event though it was suggested to stay zoomed in.
• Maybe don't use all the letters, or the whole letter, just use key parts.
• Maybe use a vectorized, or modern, image of Sonic so it doesn't clash with the vector background.
• They liked the SEGA typography and the use of Sonic and the actual SEGA sound, all of which I knew from the beginning would be necessary for success.

Week 7A

2/29/2016

Today I finished the SEGA show opener.




     One thing that upset me was that I had trouble finding trusted sources for free sounds. That is why there is a lack of sound until the end. Whenever i would try to find sound effects from the Sonic games and would try to download them it would ask me to download some software I was not aware of. This is often a sign of malware so I decided not to download many sounds. Luckily the one I wanted the most was easily obtainable for free.
     The masking was done by making a simple shape, usually a circle, and transforming it to fit my needs. Sometimes it required multiple masks on one layer. A lot of the masking was done frame by frame.

Week 6A

02/22/2016

Today we made our storyboards better, here is mine. I think the comments within the storyboard are pretty self explanatory. A lot of the nonsense of the last storyboard is not present here.

Week 5B

02/17/2016

Today we learned about storyboards, heres one of mine.

I forgot to add comments and time codes to some of these. The idea for one of them is to have SEGA's mascot, Sonic the hedgehog, come through in his ball form and draw out the logo. The other was to have sonic roll into the letters forcing them to change directions, and then have him come around again to nock the letters back in place. After both of these the famous SEGA chime would play.

Week 5A

2/15/2016

Today we had our rhythm assignment critiqued. They seemed to like my type choice. They liked how the letters enter and exit the same directions. They said it seems like they are leaving and coming back. They also liked how they shank in the direction of the anchor point. They suggested to have the project loop a little more. They also suggested to compress the layers to have them repeat more.

Then we were assigned to find 3 adds and think of a show opener or end tag to animate.

1 SEGA
I chose the video game company SEGA. I was thinking of making my own show opener for a video game, much like they did in the 80's and 90's. They would do these iconic show openers in the 80's and 90's but they don't do them anymore, maybe because of the lack of quality they put out now of days.

2 CBS
I chose the television studio CBS. I was thinking of doing a show opener that involves the eye looking logo blinking and another smaller eye appearing inside the larger eye an zooming in revealing the CBS. It would be a show open for a television show.

3 Nabisco
I chose the snack food company famous for Oreo cookies. I was thinking of doing a end tag for a cookie commercial were the logo will be pulled revealing a cookie which will have a bite taken out in a single frame.

Day of Design 2

2/10/2016

    During the Day of Design we had the privilege to hear about the work of professional designers. The second speaker I witnessed was Joel Beukelman, an interactive designer at Google, with his speech called Your Bias is Bullshit. He used to work for Netflix which he got his experience.

    He began to talk about the online community at Google. They can very emotional and get very angry. These feeling arise from the fan base of competing brands. They have a bias. Design is about mindset, and it shouldn’t be based on biased. He talked about when he worked at Netflix and he had been working with Android operating system. He would defend Android saying it was user friendly and worked well with other phone sizes and he would constantly argue with a coworker about what OS is better. It is better to be humble and stop talking when designing.

    He said that is important to be aware of other’s opinions. He suggested trying to talk to the people next to you when you’re at an event in order to find people that are not like you. It is best to design for simple people.

    He then discussed Mark Markhula, who used to work for Apple but doesn’t get the proper recognition, and how he designed with empathy. Empathy is greater than apathy when designing. Then he discussed 3 rules for design. The first rule was to do good research. The second rule is to eat your own “dogfood”, or use your own inventions. The last is to know your enemies. He left the speech saying that ignorance is not bliss, but it is irresponsible. It is an absolute necessity to learn to problem solve, communicate, and listen.

Day of Design 1

2/10/2016

   
During the Day of Design we had the privilege to hear about the work of professional designers. The first speaker was Josh Goldblum, the CEO of Bluecadet in Philadelphia and New York. He first discussed how he and his company try to use a wide arrange of technology and try to remain agnostic when choosing platforms to design for. They try to integrate with touch screens and social media as much as possible. All of this seems important, especially if they intend to stay up to date with technology.

After that he showed us a lot of projects he worked on. The first thing was a website for science fair Friday, and a game called chem crafters. Then he showed off an app that gave a tour of the the Monticello museum which had 3 touch screens to customize typography. Another app which seemed incredibly useful was called Anthi, I think, and it translated english names into korean and vice versa. Probably my favorite piece of work were these museum pillars with touch screens that could be moved up and down in order to get all the content of the exhibit. It apparently cost over 100 grand. Then he showed off a wall dedicated to the pope's travels in the papal museum. Then he told us about a mobile museum experience that allows people to sync their phones to the screens in the museum and share content. Then he showed off an experience which used 2 Xbox Kinects that were used to take a picture of their bodies and place them into landscapes. Then he talked about wood cuts of Ben Franklin that were animated in AfterEffects with scripts. It was actually very interesting to see just how integrative they can be, even though it can be expensive. 

  Then he talked about the process needed for each project. He said project management and communication are the most important part of the process. He used to work for a museum which is why he loves the cultural aspects of each project. He discussed how brainstorming can be such a struggle. They usually look at the content of the project in order to come up with a design. For example he talked about how he was working on a piece for a Van Gogh exhibit and they asked themselves, what do people like about Van Gogh. He said that a lot of work comes from experiments and prototypes. To be a successful designer you must have the tenacity to solve problems and be willing to experiment.