Movie Season: Robots = <3

So i've decided to look at Robot's for my movie season. I've always had an interest in robotics whether they be nuts and bolts or made of more electrical substances.

A list of my favourite robots:

• Warlock (New Mutants) :

Who, unfortunately, he isn't in a movie yet. Though the next five years looks promising. But knowing my luck, they'll mess up the franchise one again.

• Marvin The Paranoid Android (The Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy):

I love both versions from the new film to the old series. (As well as the book.) He's not so much paranoid as depressed.

• Roy Batty (Blade Runner):

Who doesn't like murderous blonde robots with the mental age of a toddler?

• Officer Alex J Murphy (Robocop):

I was obsessed with these films when I was little, I think that's what started my fondness for robots.

Movie Season Ideas

I've had several Idea's for the Christmas brief, mostly revolving around the 5 ten second idents rather than the 50 second clip. I think overall this will be easier for me.

Ideas:

• Stop Motion such as 'Dougal and the blue cat' from 1970 - to Coraline from last year.
• Straight to DVD films that where actually good. (Which as of this moment, off the top of my head I can't think of any)
• Horror Movies...Hmmm blood and gore.
• Robots/cybernetics/artificial intelligence
• Books to Film. There are tones of really decent and really bad adaptation of films.

Story Boards: Bio Shock Style

So I've been looking into different types of story boards for this module. The great thing about story boards is that they have a really strong link with comic books. These are some from upcoming bio shock 2K games. ...It's already been pre ordered and I can't wait to get the Deco Devolution Art Book for it.

Story Boards~

Gorillaz El Manana:



Hello Kitty:


I think I prefer the story boards to the actual 3d rendered animation. There's just something about that style of animation that I find a little "tacky". If you're going to 3d animate, make sure it looks right. But then again, it's Hello Kitty.

Kinetic Type

Some of my favourite Kinetic Typography animations from across the internet.



(The Dexter Tribute we used for the group work just before christmas: Am I Good, Am I Evil? )





You can see with the progression with this one. As stated, the student spent a long time on the animation, learning the program as they went much like we're doing. Unfortunately I don't think I have enough patience to spend this long on After Effects.



I like the textured feel of this one and the way the camera isn't stationary or controlled.

Those Crazy 50's People

So I came across The Imaginary World that has a full archive and galleries of various products from the 1950's and that general era. I found some old advert illustrations from the 50's that reminded me of my little Einstein for the Dyslexia Depot's logo.





I don't know what their products for or what they where advertising but I find them simple yet affective at the same time. They where all drawn by different artists but you can tell straight away which ear they are from. Lot's of curved lines, big heads and car's that you couldn't possibly drive. (But I want one any way.)

Retro-GO!

So I've been looking at retro/vintage packaging from the 50's and 60's to help get a feel for this retro dyslexia store front. (I bet no ones ever said that before).

Here are a few thing's I've found browsing the internet.

1950's :

1960's:

(Yes, you too can be just as camp as Steve Rogers. Marvel's best kept secret? Oh I think so.)

General Retro/Vintage:

I like the idea of using only 2 colours or maybe even one if I pick the right one. This makes it cheaper for printing costs (If it was on a large scale production.) Many of these old packaging designs have used simple designs that are easily recognised. They're not cluttered in advertisement that has nothing to do with the product inside.

A good example of over populating a package is cereal boxes:

I've never eaten Trix cereal. There are so many E numbers that my hyper would become hyper. However, I think the retro box design is far more affective than the splash of colour on the modern box. Maybe I'm biased, maybe I just like rabbits on roller skates but the 2nd box screams hyperactivity too me and the first feels calmer. If I was a parent I wouldn't buy either box for the cereal. No cereal should be blue but if I was buying it for the design, retro wins hand's down.

I've looked more into retro font over on my Design Practice blog.

Stefan G. Bucher

Since finding out about the other store fronts that the 826 writing company have, I came across this guy: Stefan G Bucher who designed the 826LA Echo Park Time Travel Mart. He's also the creator of the online animation series; 100 monsters. (Something I came across long before finding out he was a graphic designer.)

A few of his designs for the shop:

(It was fully working and then decided to break on the opening day.)

Knowing about these store fronts gave me a great leap up with my "what is good" work. As stated before I decided to go with Dyslexia is good because it allows us to be creative in non conventional ways. My idea is a store front for a Dyslexia support drop in centre.

Sam Potts Inc

Since finding out about the Super Hero store I've been looking into the sole designer for the project.

Sam Potts Inc. was an independent graphic design company in New York City that was in operation from June 2002 through August 2009. Clients ranged from publishing/art world/restaurants/the music industry.

As founder and sole employee, he served on the 2007-2009 board of AIGA New York and on the advisory board of 826NYC. Potts also taught graphic design at the School of Visual Arts.

I find his work easy on the eye's with a good mixture of type and stock imagery. I would highly recommend his work to people on our course who use a mixture of collage and paper stock. It's hard to explain because I'm not good at putting stuff ike this into words so I'll show you an example instead:



See? It's clean, easy on the eye's and not too overly cluttered with detail. It's taken me a while to come around to finding this type of design appealing. I've always been set in my ways in what I liked as to opposed what was actually good. I think a few people on the course will also appreciate Potts Work.

Some examples of his best work:

(The Bible)

(The clumsiest people in Europe)

(They Might Be Giants CD and Book)

(Book Redesign for classic books.)

(The Area of my expertise)

826NYC - Concept Research

826NYC
A non-profit organization (located in Park Slope, Brooklyn) dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.

Brooklyn Superhero Supply
826NYC is located in a "secret lair" behind The Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company, which sells capes, grappling hooks, utility belts (new and vintage), masks, tights, deflector bracelets, bottles of chaos and anti-gravity, secret identity kits, and more.

Visitors to the store can try out capes for free in a cape-testing wind tunnel. (The store sells new and back issues of Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, The Believer,Wholphin, and other McSweeney's publications.

The Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co. also carries a complete stock of publications written and edited by students at 826NYC including Trapped: The Encyclopaedia of Escape, Sonny Paine, and issues 1 and 2 of The 826NYC Review. The store front is literally a front for the charitable organization, with all sales going to the organization.

The design of the store features many tongue-in-cheek signs and features, and the staff treat their products as real super-hero supplies, and visitors as real super-heroes. The secret lair to the student learning and activity centre lies behind a swinging bookcase.

Flexography

This print process is used for printing thingd that are generally quite difficult to print on, such as foils and plastics, mostly food packaging.

A rubber sheet is made using a mirror image and then wrapped around a cylinder where is prints ink directly onto the substrait. A flexography press has it's advantages over other rotary printing methods as a wider range of inks can be used with it.

Rotogravure

The images are etched onto copper sheets instead of aluminium like offset litho and then wrapped around a cylinder. It works upside down in comparison to offset litho, with the impression cylinder on the top instead of the bottom. There is also one less cylinder involved, cutting out the 'blanket' cylinder all together. Because this cylinder is missing, the image etched onto the copper plate is a mirror image to ensure that it prints the right way up on the paper/plastic/fabric.

The vast majority of rotogravure printers are web fed, and the few sheet fed ones that exist are classed as a 'speciality market'. One example of roto printing would be newspapers. Rotogravure presses are the fastest printing process and can print onto very wide substraits, such as vinyl flooring.