Journal 13 // Larry Lessig

I really enjoyed the second half of this TED talk, not just because of the funny videos but he brought up a lot of issues that I thought were very interesting. One interesting point he made was that creativity was consumed in our culture but the consumer is not the creator. This went along with what he was saying about the "read write" culture, which also could translate to the idea of creating and recreating. This was all before he talked about the internet becoming the popular way to spread content.

The interenet was a new tool for this "read write" culture but now it was easier for amateur artists to broadcast what they were doing. It was a new idea that people wanted to share their new work because it was something that they loved, not to turn a profit. This user generated context was the beginning of the "remix" phenomena that younger generations are still contributing to.

This remix culture uses old and new elements to recreate; this is the way they learn about the past and interpret the present and future. The examples that Lessig included were not only entertaining, but also proved his point well. Lessig made it a point to mention that it was not a piracy to create these types of "remixes" because it is not using the whole work and are not distributing it for a profit. Recreating allows the artist to create a new message and to see things in a different light. It is a new tool for speech and literacy. This represents how youth think and speak. He talked about how the two extremes of this issue need to reach a neutral platform to satisfy each others needs.

It relation to our speeches in motion, Lessig mentioned that there were new laws and regulations against copyright and that it could potentially be that anything using something that has a copyright would be removed from places like youtube. Would this include our speeches since we use the real audio?

Journal 12 // Hillman Curtis Videos

I really enjoyed Paula Scher's talk and the points she was bringing up, especially that "type is making noise." It really hit home about how type really is "image." Her work with the public theatre is a great example. The way she presented it hit right on with her points of type being extreme, loud, visual, and urban; she made another point that type is really about the words and in relation the message that they send based on the way they are used and represented. This example of work was very urban and fit in well with the NYC culture; which resulted in the city "eating the public theaters identity." It was interesting to hear more about Scher's design process and how she doesn't consider herself a refiner and uses a very intuitive process. It seems that she knows right off the back if she has the ability to come off with a successful solution to the challenge at hand. Her citibank was an example that really demonstrated what she was talking about; she broke down the client's needs and used information from them to come to the "umbrella" being formed with the "t".

David Carson is a designer that I really had not heard much about and I really enjoyed his talk. It is interesting that he attributes some of his success to his lack of formal design training. He just went out and did what he thought was right and used his "self indulgence" to design. Because of this, you could tell her was very serious about his thoughts on how design to him needs to be more personal. He thinks it is important for your personality to show through in your work. If you pull from who you are as a person he thinks you will have more success; this makes sense in that your work should somehow show part of your identity not only as a designer but as the type of person you are as well. His work from the RayGun magazine was very interesting to look at. He talked about how he didn't have to report to anyone before printing so he took full advantage and went out on a limb for many of his designs. Carson's three big keys to this work was read, interpret, and draw attention to. He wanted his readers/viewers to really think about what they just read or listened to.

Milton Glaser is always interesting to listen to. I feel like he always has insight that is relevant and relatable. He seems to have reflected on his career a great deal and can say that designers cant understand their path until its over. This played into the question of where designers are on the spectrum between artists and businessmen/women. I think it is important to find a balance and it would be difficult to be on the end of either extreme. Glaser made a good point about how designers produce social commentary; the way they decide to present work is the way the rest of the world sees it. He made a good point about how they have access to people's minds which contributes to them being a good citizen. They can present ideas both good and bad so it is key to think about what your work would say to others. This is another reason why Glaser wanted to teach. He wants to project into the future to avoid being narcissistic but also to contribute to the way designers are being taught today and make sure that the ideals he has deemed important are still being stressed; his level of success and influence makes the things he say very believable and people respect his views. He really embraces the idea that "the possibility for learning never disappears."

Moon Landing Video Progess

Here is my video after a few more rounds of improvements; I got all of my type in and now just need to tune it up in addition to adding some more interesting elements to parts. I want to play more with using the light tool and may incorporate the camera tool as well. I also am going to try to find a song to play in the background.

If the quality isn't great, here is the same video on youtube.

Animation Experiments

This was my first time using aftereffects again so I have a lot to refresh my memory on. This is my first video (combined what I was doing into one video). I used text animations on each frame to see how they worked in the videos and I also tried to animate the text after each preset. It is takes about 23 seconds and it is just the "Its one small step for man..." quote so it was a good indication of how fast the text is going to be. I didn't put in my sound yet because I wanted to get familiar with the program before I got ahead of myself.

Here it is

Journal 11 // Debbie Millman

Debbie Millman the President of the design division at Sterling Brands, an international design consultancy. She has been there for fourteen years and in that time she has worked on the redesign of global brands for Pepsi, Procter & Gamble, Campbell’s, Colgate, Hershey and Hasbro. Debbie is President of the AIGA, the professional association for design. She is a contributing editor at Print Magazine and the chair of the new Masters in Branding program at the School of Visual Arts. In 2005, she began hosting “Design Matters with Debbie Millman,” the first weekly radio talk show about design on the Internet.

Design Matters is a opinionated and provocative internet talk radio show. The show combines a point of view about graphic design, branding and cultural anthropology. In a business world dependent on change, design is one of the few differentiators left. VoiceAmerica is now the industry leader in Internet talk radio, and Design Matters has over 150,000 listeners.

I listened to the radio show with Jonah Lehrer. The theme of this talk was really about our memories. Millman started by talking about being asked to try and remember her first memory. Once Lehrer got onto the show he made an interesting point about how our memories are things that had to biggest impact on us and what affected us the most. We "tweak" our memories to fundamentally change it. Lehrur studied Neuroscience and he talked about what drew him to the subject and how he was always interested in studying the brain and mind. He wrote in his book as the moral, "We are made of art and science." This is a very interesting view point; the book is about designers who embrace neuroscience.

I think this goes to show how broad design is and how it really has an impact in any field; whether neuroscience or graphic design. This is also shown with Lehrer himself. He studied neuroscience at Colombia and is now the editor at large for Seed Magazine (this incorporates the science and design, "art and science"). It also shows that maybe people aren't just a left brain/right brain person.

Neuromarketing was also brought up, in addition to neuroeconomist. They focus on brain research and testing. They discuss how different parts of the brain affect people. There was an interesting topic brought up about people drinking expensive wine compared to cheap wine. Scientists monitored brain activity and found that people that thought they were drinking more expensive wine enjoyed it more than people who thought they were drinking cheap wine. They have done similar testing with coke and pepsi.


What I got from this talk can be summed up with this quote from Lehrer:
"Collaboration at unexpected places."

Journal 10 // GOOD

This site revolves around creating a place for people to visit (whether online or by reading a magazine) to educate themselves on issues that they deem important. They want people who themselves want a good life to have a place to go to for a "unique editorial perspective." I really liked this site and found most of it interesting and "good." I definitely thought some videos and infographics were better than others but for the most part they were all pretty successful. One thing that most of the videos had in common, especially the State of the Planet in 2009, was professionalism; they don't overdo any of the motion in the videos and just do enough to make it visually interesting without complicating it too much for the viewer to follow. They focus in on making something work really well instead of trying to do too much. Their pacing is really nice – they leave things on screen long enough to read and that's it. They also find interesting ways to bring text in and out, I liked when it looked like they were zooming in on certain areas and they would go in and out. This was used a lot in the Hidden Cost video. I also liked how they used rotating text, they made it work really well

I watched some vidoes that were not the "Transparency" kind and they were okay not quite as successful; they incorporated interviews with graphics. They would have the person talking and when they were about to make an important point they would add in some graphics. Some I liked, especially about health tips and work out myths. They also had some interesting infographics. I thought the most valuable companies in the world was interesting along with the richest and poorest neighborhoods. I also looked at the NASA budget one and it used blinking images, I thought this was unnecessary and distracting.

Some of the graphics used seemed a little childish in some of the work that is on the site; this could be both good and bad depending on the content and audience. I don't think it is the best way to approach their audience though because I feel that most of the content is targeted towards adults and maybe a more sophisticated approach could be brought in. The magazine seems to cover some interesting and relevant issues. They definitely appeal to a wide audience.

Favorite video

Simple, gets point across without any distractions

Favorite Infographic

Very creative, sticks to theme and well executed

Print vs Motion... (4/12)

I think the audience persona of my speech (or any for that matter) will change drastically depending on the media they are viewing it with, i.e. print vs. motion. When someone sees the print for the text they will get out of it what the designer wanted them to; what they stress as the most important parts will most likely be what the viewer remembers. Whether they use bold, italics, letter spacing they are being taught about the speech from the designers perspective on what the most important pieces are. If they are watching the speech in motion the designer will still have an impact about how they view it, but they will also get to listen to the audio to see what the speaker stresses; this way the designer will be stressing what is already stressed in the tone and use of the speakers voice.

So, in print you are the one stressing the parts that you deem important from the speech. You have endless possibilities to show the flow and stresses of the speech. You get to make all of the decisions. Where as in motion the audio will serve as a guide to what is stressed and the most memorable parts. It would be extremely difficult to try to change or modify the message of the speech through motion because of the audio.

My speech has more than one person talking and is somewhat sporadic. I want the viewer of my printed piece and motion to get a sense of communication through space. Some parts are also somewhat hard to understand in the audio so I will stress that in my motion piece. Aftereffects is a great tool for animating text and the possibilities are endless; anything you want to happen can most likely be done.

Journal 8

Type Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry.

This article was about how the futura typeface is overused, in particular when the author went to a senior show and most of the projects were set in this font. I think the writer brought up a good point; it is easy to use a typeface and then when you see it successful you always have it to fall back on and reuse because you "know" it is a good font. I think avoiding this is something that designers learn to avoid. With more experience you would know that it is not okay to use the same typeface in projects with completely different moods, tone, and overall purpose. Another interesting point was how when students were asked about why they used futura then questioned again on their answer apologized. They didn't know how to defend their reasoning whether it was right or wrong. I think this logic could be applied to other fonts as well. It is crazy to think about how much helvetica is out in the world that you see everyday.

An alternative to futura could be frutiger it has similar structural elements to futura like sharp edges. Franklin Gothic could be another option, it has a tall x-height and large bowls.

I also read Designing Under the Influence. This article started by the writer talking about students show he attended and one piece of work that caught his eye. In one girl's portfolio she had one piece stand out amongst the rest and when asked about her Barbara "Krugeresque" in her work she had no idea who the designer was. Intentianally or not it may have never crossed the girls mind that her work resembled something that was already successful. Does that make it "copying?" This really gets at how important it is to have a general understanding and education of design history and present. A good point that writer brought up was can you "own" a graphic style? Technically, no. But if something is successful it is only a matter of time till it is reused in a different but very similar way.

"One Small Step For Man..."

_ Who is speaking?
_ Why was/is the speech important to society?
_ Why do you feel in is important or interesting?
_ What is the emotion, mood, tone, personality, feeling of the speech?
_ What is intonation, emphasis, what is loud, stressed, or soft. Where are there pauses...
_ What do you FEEL should be loud or soft, long pause or ruhed?
_ Is there a call to action? When listening to it what are key/emphasized words?
_ How does it make you feel?
_ How do imagine that the audience felt?
_ Could there be another interpretation of the speech?
_ Write/find a short bio, of the person giving the speech.

This "speech" consists of Neal Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin. This speech is important to society because it was the first time anyone had ever walked on the moon and he was an American. The timing was also important because of what was going on in the World with the Cuban Missile crisis and the space race. It is important for obvious reasons but I think it is interesting because I think it is amazing we are able to have this video considering technology at the time and the whole being literally in space, specifically the moon. The mens voices sound very determined. They also seem calm and ready to get their job done. There is also some anticipation in their voices. There are several pauses throughout the speech; also some loud beeps. Both of these elements have a lot of possibilities for adding motion. There are also some parts that are difficult to understand so having the text on screen will help the viewer know what is being said. I think the most important part is obviously when Armstrong says "One small step for man, and one giant leap for mankind." The audience probably felt pride, relief, happiness, amazement.

Neil Alden Armstrong (born August 5, 1930) is an American aviator and a former astronaut, test pilot, aerospace engineer,university professor, and United States Naval Aviator. He was the first person to set foot on the Moon. His first spaceflightwas aboard Gemini 8 in 1966, for which he was the command pilot, becoming the first U.S. civilian to fly in space. On this mission, he performed the first manned docking of two spacecraft together with pilot David Scott. Armstrong's second and last spaceflight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 moon landing mission on July 20, 1969. On this mission, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface and spent 2½ hours exploring while Michael Collins remained in orbit in the Command Module. Armstrong is a recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor

Sequence Reflection

After designing this flip book in class, it is obvious why sequence is so important. We used 5'' by 5'' squares cut out from a magazine to create a flip book that had a nice flow and sequence. I think this exemplified why pacing is so important. The sequence of anything you design needs variation; if it was all type followed by all images the reader would get bored and probably not even make it to the pictures. Or just skip all the text. Having this balance is what makes things readable. This is an important thing to understand no matter what you are designing.

Text in Motion

Text in Motion.

The adobe videos were awesome. They really showed that the possibilities are endless for motion as we know. I also liked how they had the captions telling what they were doing and also how they did a screen shot to show the viewer how to do the action themselves.

Without sound it is definitely harder to comprehend what is going on; the timing was confusing because we didn't know why they were speeding up, slowing down, etc. Some of the videos were a little crazy but definitely more logical with sound. It is interesting to me as to the different types of motion that work in different videos. How things work perfectly for a certain video but would be horrible in another; whether it be text on a straight line opposed to a curvy line. Timing also obviously affects this. The 6 different videos were somewhat similar to each other, I really liked the ones that had a lot of variation in the timing. Having this contrast with fast and slow allows for the viewer to get a sense of what the flow means and what is suppose to be the most important part. Flickermood was a good example of this because of the variation that it used. flickermood

On youtube I found several sequences that I really enjoyed. I liked the consistency in the North by Northwest title sequence. I thought it had really nice pacing; even though it was simple in that it used the same graphics throughout it was really successful at setting the mood and had a very distinct tone. It showed what you can do with only a few graphical elements. The music was also very dramatic.

I also really liked the Catch Me If You Can sequence. It fit the music perfectly and had an interesting pace. It had nice transitions and flowed extremely well. Again, I like using once a select color palette similar to that in North by Northwest.

This was an interesting example; it used just a block of text but used a lot of animations to make it look 3-D. I have never really done anything like it so I think it would be an interesting style to experiment with. The designer created a lot of depth with just the type.