Pieces of advice, moments of insight

These are a few tidbits of knowledge I picked up from the senior reviews today. Putting them here so I can use them in the future.

Package Design
-how many can you fit on a pallet? shipping is just as important as the individual
-user guide- new way to make packages less of a carbon-footprint-leave behind vs packaging one thing

"Edu-tainment"- education and entertainment

Retail space
-can be an experience
-stores with nothing for sale

Through living your life you can better create
-more fun, less stress, better design

Car Free Cities
-"Be an advocate for social causes"

The homeless use graphic design to ask for money
Questions have power- why do you do anything you do? Why not?

fin. <- will become important later.

NA: Show Opener, Final

I used moving video because I have never really done so for any particular purpose. This allowed me to capture real textures and forms of the printing world but also gave me a more engaging opener than something such as photos would have. This was pretty difficult for me since I was not used to editing moving footage. This helped me grow as a designer by introducing me to a new media.

I don't know if this was a success or a failure. It's pretty interesting to look at, but I don't think it ended up being something that I wanted it to be.

I enjoyed the ability to choose what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. I don't know what I would have done differently if I had to change things. I'd definitely start over if I had the same amount of time, if for no other purpose than to simply see what else I could have come up with.

Less text would have been nice. I know it's already minimalist but less would still have been better or else I just needed to rework it.


Show opener from Abby Gallagher on Vimeo.

Favorite quotes of winter09- comment please?

"boiled eggs and bleu cheese on waffles with bananas and syrup. great way to start your morning. high five. back flip. crawl through a tunnel and get out your brayer. over and out." -Lance


"No, no balls and tape needed." -Jamie


"You need a big bus!" -Kidwell


"Stop doing that shit." -Kidwell


"Get out your brayer and just..." -Lance


"Look at me, I'm Sandradee." -Lance (sung of course) 


"She was just waffling some rubbish." -Tom


Kidwell: That's a cute little car. It's blue! Me: Is it yours? Kidwell: No. I spilled yogurt on my shirt earlier and I'm not too happy about it.


Sean: It'd be cool to be a jet pilot since they don't have dog fights anymore.
Mo: Yeah they do, in the south...


Digital Kitchen guy: Well I guess that one didn't really matter- BWAH-HA-HA-HA!


Lance- You remind me of the Cheshire Cat
me- Why?
Lance- because of yoouurrrr jack-at!
______________________________________________________________________________________
Lance added:


"That would be zippy!... yeah..." -Kidwell


"Take a little nugget... or nip out of it... yeah...." -Kidwell


"Well what do you carve wood with? Oh I dunno, termites?" -Kidwell


"This could be an opportunity to go half to wonkin..." -Kidwell
______________________________________________________________________________________

Please add your favorites in the comment section. I know I'm forgetting some good ones, help me out!

Vislang: Communication Model vol 5.0 Final Statement and artifact

This was a great project for me. Experimentally, I decided to render my entire animation using cut paper and minimal digital effects which is a style I had never attempted before. After learning about the communication models general principal I decided my view of it became something that was very hands-on for all participants. The cut paper reflected the hands-on nature and physicality of the process. I decided to take a very linear approach in order to form a narrative. This allows for a more engaging and entertaining learning experience for the viewer of my animation. This project really drove home all aspects of the communication model and I realize that it is something that I need to focus on every day I work as a designer. Even while making the video, I constantly thought about clarity and tried like hell to minimize noise. 


Narration: Written by myself, read by Jason Gongaware
Song: Edited and looped by myself, from the original riff of Xoxo, Panda's "The Boys and Girls (Good Morning)." 



Untitled from Abby Gallagher on Vimeo.



This year really helped me step out of my box. I experimented and opened myself to failure with the expectation of self-improvement and gain. Though I may not have always acted receptive in critiques, I really took each comment to heart and will use those small utterances to shape my design-mind and my work process and ethic. Every failure was a success. Every mistake was (eventually) a blessing. This year it has become my new-found goal to continue pushing myself beyond my own limits and find my own brand of greatness. 

Typo3: The Portfolio- in progress

Above left is my mailing address, Sagmeister Inc. was just a convenient address to place.

Above right is my thank you letter (on my letterhead.)

The upside down type speaks to my quirks as an individual and as a designer. The PDF will no include upside down elements since it's too big of a pain in the ass to turn your laptop upside down to get all the info (let alone if you were on a desktop.)

More progress to come as I finish up the photos I'm taking for my actual portfolio.

VisLang: Communication Model vol 4.0 Video

With a Chance of Rain: An Illustration of a Communication Model from Abby Gallagher on Vimeo.



This is the first round of an actual video. I've since made a few changes. I'll post the final piece in the next day or two.

Best episode ever.

Vislang: Group discussion

• abby, cameron, bryan, jonathan

1. As a group, what is your common denominator, or shared critical approach, to the problem?
          Screen based- almost narrative, Brian isn't doing a movie but it's still screen based unless he focuses more on the 
          idea of a commercial for the program he is building in flash- then it still remains a narrative and the "final" piece 
          is still something the viewer has to watch. 3-4 of the 4 are movies or will be movies as a final basis.

2. Considering the project scope/objectives, what should be added, altered or eliminated from individual solutions?
          Jon still needs text 
          Cam needs the bar that Jamie talked to him about, denoting what specific part of the com. model is going on    
          during individual parts of the video. He's also thinking about a voice over instead of music. 
          Brian needs to add an opening page/home page and a voice over (tutorial or commercial) that further clarifies his
          program and receiver/sender. 
          Mine seems to be good as long as the execution of the actual movie works out. 

VisLang: Communication Model vol 3.75

The top image and the very last shows the hand cut/placed type used to denote the title of my movie, "With a Chance of Rain: An illustration of a communication model"

The next three images are just a bit of a teaser of my movie. Jill's hair has changed.

Fifth image down is some furniture made for Jack and Jill's studies.

Second to last image is a shot of the rooftop of Jill's apartment building, where she will send off the pigeon (who has no name.)

The New (new and edited) Dialogue

___________________

This is Jill. In this illustration of how a communication model works, Jill represents the Sender. The Sender is in charge of distributing a message that he or she wants others to receive. A Message does not deal only with saying something, but how it is said and the treatment of the actual content. The Receiver in this context is Jill's brother Jack.

After writing her letter, she will attach it to the pigeon and send him off to deliver the message. A channel is how a message gets from a Sender to a Receiver. The pigeon is the channel.

If there are any problems with the delivery of the message, the problem is called Noise. Noise alters how the Receiver perceives the message. Since the paper got wet and the ink smeared, the rain acts as noise. Jack now has to fill in the blank based on his personal knowledge and cultural background. His response to Jill will act as Feedback to let her know how her message was received.

Minimal noise will allow for a clearer communication of the message and keep everyone happy and unconfused. The End.

VisLang: Communication Model vol 3.5 Further character/prop/scene set up

Per Jamie's suggestion, I decided to add a bit more to the faces of Jack and Jill. Jill's lips are gone again. They seemed too wrong for my type of character design. Jack's mustache and the twins eyebrows stay. 

I needed to make a larger version of Dmitri for his solo flying scene. I created the larger version like I created everything else- sketch to cut out to tracing onto new paper to cut to tracing out rest of the parts. 

The very bottom photo is of the individual rain drops I cut out for the sake of the big storm that will be the cause of  noise in the communication model.

Two random visual inspirations

These are two random posters that I found online recently. I really automatically agree with the rendering styles. Stylistically these are very appealing to me. They both have dark colors and a general macabre undertone. These definitely speak to the artist in me. This is what I hope to create one day by one means or another. Enjoy.

NA: Show opener notes and non-story story board.

This is generally how I go about making a project. I doodle and jot down notes in order to get my thoughts on paper, I then set about eliminating stupid ideas or things that are wrong for what I'm trying to go for overall.

For Narrative, I've decided that my show will be called "On The Drying Rack," hosted by Sloan Peterson.

On the Drying Rack
profiling printmakers on the go

I took a bunch of movie clips over the weekend. They consist mostly of ink/printing textures and motion clips of old prints I have in a very old book. I figured the printers my show interviews will want to talk about their process some, most of the time that means there is a historical context to what they do and how they do it (hence the old prints). The "new" textures of the inks that I shot will speak to the current/to-date printers and that this is something on going.

Below are a few of the clips I have edited, not in any particular order or for any set duration. Edited in the raw... so to speak.


Video Clips for the show opener from Abby Gallagher on Vimeo.

VisLang: Communication Model vol 3.1 furniture

I met with Johnna today for a crit. I asked her if the new characters were working better than the old, she agreed that they were. I also asked if a narrative-style voice over to explain my communication model worked better or if I should switch to visible text on the screen with the rest of the animation. She said that the voice over was more interesting and continued the consistency of my animation.

The rest of the class was spent building furniture. To start all of these little things, I generally draw out a pattern on white paper. I then cut out the white paper version and transfer via tracing to the correct colored paper. Then I cut out the correct colored paper versions and glue everything together. Behold, the two tables and two chairs that will act as props/scenery in my movie. I enjoy the small size in relationship to my characters. They look so cheap and tiny.

VisLang: Communication Model vol 3.0 new characters

This is the new storyboard. There was a major disconnect between Lucy the sender and Fargo the message in the last character set. Now that I have Jack, Jill and the pigeon (tentatively named Dmitri), there is a greater relativity between them. The pigeon will now act as one of the channels in the model, carrying the messages between Jill and Jack.




This is Jill and Jack. And Dmitri, the pigeon.











This image is just showing scale of my hand-cut characters.








This is a close up of Jill's pencil. The dime showing size again.

Inspirations, Inspirational, The content of a content Abby

I generally get innate compulsions to have strange thoughts the more tired I become as a night progresses. Having finished writing a paper, taking me approximately four hours to complete, and after barreling through a very long day or semi-small amounts of sleep, I have decided to verbalize my list of life-long obsessions. They are as follows: 

Batman

Houdini

Dr. Seuss

Al Capone

Sagmeister

magic

animals- zebras, wolves, panthers, hyenas, hawks, dogs

mobsters in general

quirky, odd, old things

toys, especially action figures or things that are smaller than their general counter part (for example, my tic-tac cars vs    

          micro-machines vs hot wheels)

shark teeth

old keys

old paper dolls

small glass jars and vials

buttons

oddly shaped or colored candles

old perfume bottles

old portraits

Albrect Durer

vampires

Anselm Kieffer

jars full of things

metal binders

the concept of a Marry Poppins bag

random quotes from my mother

stickers
hat pins

foreign currency

old nintendo controllers

sewing/repairing things badly
stickers
dreams
watches as necklaces
playing cards

cages

small notebooks
leather jacket scented crayons

recipes

old pieces of paper

new pieces of paper

random spices in their raw/dried form

$.25- .50 animal toys in little plastic bubbles from one of those cheap, jank-ass machines

The Sundance Kid

pockets

pockets in shoes

pockets on the insides of coats
loose tea leaves

fish- especially when they are placed in containers that don't constitute as a "tank"

why certain words start appearing in everyday conversation more often than others, happening in phases, for example, the

          word "innate"

secret passages

The Brothers Grimm

My green folder of strange stories clipped from an old newspaper magazine.

Chunks of safety glass after a car crash
the differences and similarities between Profanity, Profane and Profound
E.A. Poe
music boxes
weird pieces of wood

I compulsively collect pens and fine-tipped markers... I don't know if that should have made the list or not

interesting that all humans appearing on my list are men.

NA: the Show opener

Show opener

• the purpose of the work. why does this piece of graphic design exist? what is it supposed to do?

Introduce a show in an interesting way to captivate the audience. The show will be a how-to show for a young-adult/teenage audience- college level.

• context for the work. what surrounds it? where or when does it appear? is it stand-alone or does it require a presenter, what else is on that channel? etc.

KCPT- bringing back a younger audience. after Eating Healthy, afternoon/early evening

it is definitely stand alone

• audience description. who are they and why are they watching?

Young adult (22-35), artists, possibly in school still, non artists with a creative side. They watch to learn new techniques, become inspired, find cool ways to do something exciting.

• your chosen project and why. how will this project work better in your portfolio than the other option?

show opener- My whole idea has been based around "something fun and exciting" showing people how fun something as "mundane" as printing can be

Research:

It's all boring

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dIn5hEIHuU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF4iwaPt-cE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDGP1Ja-uHI&feature=related

Visuals

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsOwEKuyQpM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4VHei6qGeQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1u43KDiWD0&feature=fvw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVvlVHdLCx0

VisLang: Communication Model vol 2.0 character development

These past few days have been spent organizing the scenes I want to include, as well as actually creating my sets, props and characters.

I have broken my movie down into 5 scenes.
1- Lucy is walking (intro, this is Lucy)
2- Fargo walks/escapes (this is Fargo)
3- Fargo is wandering- finds noise (is distracted by many things)
4- Joe finds Fargo
5- Joe Lucy and Fargo, all united (Feedback, restart cycle)

Typo3: Russel Wright final spreads and dust jacket

In crit today we decided the red blurbs (no pun intended, even though they are screw ups too) were a mistake. Thus, I brought the red color into the images and justified the captions.



















I feel that the colophon of any book is a side note (about the piece as a whole) and thus, I chose to illustrate it where the notations in the body paragraphs appear. Plus, this way, the colophon fills the empty space of the selected bibliography spreads. A good note to end on.






I felt the dust jacket should represent the retro/classical aspects of Wright's work and era. He is his work, so I felt it was important to show him on the cover.

VisLang: Communication Model vol 1.5 feedback

I met with Micah and Brian about my choice of annotation. After conferring with the two of them, they both agreed that this was a good way to annotate my animation. They agreed that it was clear and easy to follow, as well as interesting. Brian suggested I add in a line about the channel.

Originally I simply stated: Whatever path the message takes is called a channel.
I believe I will change it slightly, possibly into: The path the message takes from the Sender to the Receiver is called a "channel." A channel is generally constructed by smell, sight, taste, touch and sound. 

VisLang: Communication Model vol 1.0

Narration from Abby Gallagher on Vimeo.



This is the first round of annotation that I'm trying out. My animation is going to tell a story of the communication model, and thus I thought a narrative approach for annotating my story would be an appropriate approach. I put the first iteration of the narration on vimeo, which is above. Below is the monologue. You can see where it is broken up and sort of how it will "appear" in my animation.

1-This is Lucy. In this ridiculous illustration of a communication model, Lucy represents (what we in the business like to refer to as) the Sender. The sender is in charge of having a  message that he or she wants to distribute to someone else.

2-This is Fargo. Fargo is a dog, that is true, but for this purpose fargo represents Lucy's message.

3- Now that he is free of Lucy, Fargo is going to start looking for that "someone else" I mentioned earlier. From here on out, let's call him the Receiver.

4-Whatever path the message takes is called a channel.

Between The Sender and the Receiver, Fargo (as dogs often are) is going to be distracted by many things. Any thing that causes the message to run astray of it's original purpose is known as Noise.

6-The message has been found by Joe, the Receiver. After looking at Fargo's tag, Joe decides to look for lucy and return Fargo to her. Since Fargo is now traveling from Joe to Lucy, he acts as feedback. Feedback is the way the receiver communicates with the sender, generally in order to improve the sender's original message.

7-Now that Lucy and Fargo are reunited, Lucy can train Fargo to avoid distractions so he reaches people like Joe in a more timely fashion, and the circuit starts all over again.

8-The end.

Vislang: Presentation notes/feedback

 she's typically smitten by dangerous types

gun control, buy cookies, gay marriage

BRYAN

you spent a lot of time thinking about factors. How are they applied? They all determine how you perceive a message, they all create or discuss noise... but what is your point? There is nothing engaging, there is no connection with your postcard beyond the idea of a discussion.

the last graphic red/yellow was pretty, but it almost gets muddled. why is the white sender hogging the message. The only thing physically shared between the two is the feed back, and seemingly, the noise. The message needs to connect the two.

DMITRI

organic growth:

"define experience" - hi-lighted words makes me think of online (wiki), make me think text, makes me not want to read it, needs more objects to make me interested in continuing. Is there an end in sight? ((LEAST successful and interesting)) The more text there is, especially when it seems endless, makes me fall asleep and stop caring. people shy away from things that are too text heavy. command Q.

casual conversation:

love the idea of hand illustration- very visually interesting

book form for this concept is good, brings in interest, makes me want to follow the conversation- be careful that it doesn't start looking too comic-book (cliche)

has the possibility of continuing on the back, looping back to the start, an endless circuit

-don't introduce too many characters, maybe a max of 3. I want to know more about the characters and what they do and how they interact than how many characters you can draw and cram into a book.

stop motion:

also a good idea, very interesting, could still include lots of humor, less interactive but still very fun- try having physical letters/type on a wall- don't make the text computer generated. Your photo quality will have to be very high. The worse the photos look the less interested I will be in what you have to say. You have a chance to include your personal style with how the people look, how the photos look, etc.

LANCE

Your little book is the most interesting idea

- don't add too much information, keep it simple, get away from the "sharing" idea or make that your key note and main point

-think about making many books- several versions, different characters/messages? (probably about 4-5 would be nice)

the balls are a good way to show the metaphor of progression, but its fairly boring and would get too repetitive

luke

connect the dots is a very interesting idea, could be a flash, click 2, line appears, fact appears- click three, line appears between 2 and 3... etc. That could be very fun and definitely is interactive and entertaining.

or could be a physical, with overlays bringing in the information, something dry-erase style. Bottom page has the numbers, info builds up on itself

bottom page has the numbers, next page (transparency is connected to it, hi-lighted first to points to connect?

NA: Statement for Nonlinear Project

This is the interactive screen the user sees when they first pull it up.

As the cursor moves around, the user discovers certain things change as they roll over them. The seaweed turns green if it will play a movie when you click it.

The bubbles will play a sound when you click on it.

These last two are just screen shots of the actual video playing after you click the appropriate seaweed. 

• what music, voice, and sound effects bring to a narrative that is different from visual communication channels
• All of the above make the videos played more entertaining as well as bring new depth and understanding to the videos. Serious sounds or songs could have cast a depressing/downer tone on the videos, but upbeat "happy" sounds bring the sense of playfulness in that I wanted to portray with my original movies. 
• the different communicative qualities of music, voice, and sound effects (compare and contrast)
• Music generally denotes a beat or rhythm. Fast for a fast-paced movie, slow for a slow paced movie, or a contrast of the two in order to bring new understanding to the video. Sound effects can either reinforce or jumble the users experience and bring new levels of complexity to the piece. Voices are very personal. The user will interpret a piece differently no matter who says it. Man/woman, screaming/whispering, singing/ben-stein happy/sad all effect the viewers experience. 
• the differences between simultaneous and sequential communication
• sequences generally keep the experience less confused and less jumbled. Simultaneous- the more you have going on the more complicated something becomes with a potential of creating chaos. Certain levels of chaos can bring entertainment to some. Sequences can get boring/"lame"
• user vs designer control of your project
• as a designer I had to decide what I wanted the user to have control over. I decided to give the user many options. All of the sounds can overlap and play at the same time, but the user can only see one movie playing at a time. I decided too many movies at once would be annoying. Sounds can be annoying too if they are all playing at once, but there is a chance to include different sounds into different parts of the single movie. 
• participants’ ability to discover relationships through interactive play
• certain sounds work better with certain movies. Certain sounds work well together, some end up jumbled. It is up to the user to decide what makes sense and what works for them. They have a chance to create whatever experience that they want. What are you in the mood for? Order? Chaos? Diversion? Systematic?

VisLang: Communication Model ideas

I feel like this whole concept is very linear and thus I am going to take the information and form it into a narrative. My rendering style will be based on my 3rd round postcard, cut paper. I want to use very bright colors. Between the rendering style and the bold colors, I believe this will speak to the younger graphic designer (as opposed to older, more seasoned, who probably already knows this information). 

As of right now I have two animations and 1 book idea in mind.

In this storyboard, (animation one), the sender sends a message, wild animals maim the message (noise), the receiver gets the message and sends back feedback, which is also maimed by an animal.

In my second animation idea, the dog becomes the message and it is distracted by many things (which is the noise), then the dog is found by the receiver and is eventually given back to the owner/sender as feedback. 

The book idea would have very simplistic illustrations with probably one key word. any additional information would become secondary.

NA: Interface sketches and thought

The sketches shown here were my main inspiration for the images below. I originally wanted to include several clickable menus that would give the user more options the further into the interface they went. Since discovering the complexity of that level of thought, I have decided to give the user, from the get-go, all the options at once. There will be one row of selections on the left of the screen that will then show and play in the "screen" on the right. I have chosen colors from my original still frames in the animation as the main background colors (I lean towards the brown for it's neutrality). The pattern I chose was used to show the repetitiveness of the act of printing, and also the complexity and refinement that printing requires.