2022-504chloeharrington

[2022-504chloeharrington]

Rationale

Throughout the second half of this semester, I learnt a range of new skills that have helped me develop as a designer to create frame x frame and video timeline animations. In all four of my animations, I wanted to create a fun aspect of informing my viewers about the typeface. I took this approach as the typeface was intended for magazine purposes and to be used with bold striking colours so I thought this would be a great way of incorporating it together. 

I had issues when it came to exporting my GIF files as my laptop's scratch disk became full so this became extremely stressful for me. I decided to transfer them off my laptop and use the desktops in the design rooms as they could export my files correctly. Changing from working on my small screen laptop to a large desktop also allowed me to fix critical issues I was struggling with changing. 

In my first GIF animation, I included images that were sourced from Pexels. For the second image, I decided to lower the opacity and raise the luminosity to make it become more of a background rather than a stand-out image. This allowed the image to flow with its surrounding colours. I also played with overlapping my typography to give it a rotating effect. I liked how this enabled the words to move around the art-board. For my second GIF animation, I spent a lot of time tweening sequences to make them flow from frame to frame. This was something I originally struggled with as my animations looked glitchy. Colour was a huge factor so I ensured they all contrasted with one another to give a hierarchy of the right assets. 

I found the MP4 animations easier to construct as I was able to alter each asset easier when it came to scaling, opacity and transforming the assets around. I learnt new skills on changing layers to ‘smart objects as well as how to compose the animation as a whole. It was helpful how you could also split layers in half allowing it to be altered further.

Overall the skills we learnt in class were incredibly helpful and it was great that we were able to re-watch skills on Canvas. I have learnt a range of skills from tweening to position and the setup and exporting of animations. 

[2022-504chloeharrington]

Reflection

Throughout this project, I have learnt various new skills and design styles that have helped me gain more confidence and knowledge when creating animations. Animations were a new concept, as I'd never made one before this project. 

“Grenze’ was my allocated typeface that was designed by Renata Polastri in 2018. The typeface was originally intended for magazines and was inspired by a mix of Blackletter style typeface and roman style typefaces.  The Grenze typeface has 9 different weights in its font family with matching italics for each weight. 

During the class activities, I learnt a whole range of new skills and knowledge about creating animations. This was quite overwhelming at stages as it was very fast-paced and dint has a lot of time to comprehend what I was actually doing. In the final few weeks when our classes became more focused on our animations this was where I went over some skills that I wasn't that confident in and made sure they became more familiar to me so that I was able to try to apply them to my animations to improve them. 

The first few animations I created were really glitchy and fast. I had to strip back the content I put in each animation and remember that they were only 15 seconds long and a viewer can only see so much in 15 seconds. I then continued to refine my animations to make them flow and communicate the information clearly without being overwhelming.

I found that I preferred making the video timeline animations compares to the frame x frame animations as they were easier to create more eye-catching segments. I always thought animations were super complex and tedious to make so when I learnt how they are made and the different ways you can create them it really surprised me.  

Overall I feel like I worked to the best of my capability as I really struggled with creating these animations for the first half of the project even with extra practice. Although I found it difficult I'm really proud of myself to see how far I've come since the beginning of this project when I had no previous knowledge of how animations worked or were created. I am going to continue to practice these skills I have learnt over the past few weeks, as I know I need to improve on certain skills that I was not fully satisfied with the work I handed in, however, I'm still proud of what I have achieved.

[2022-504chloeharrington]

Final MP4 Animation #2

Here is my final mp4 animation i’ve created. Im really proud of myself looking back to how i started. This project has helped me understand as an overall more about typefaces and the importance of each aspect behind each one. It’s really interesting how one single typeface can be interpreted so many different ways based on its font family weights and italics. Creating these animations have really shown me this.

[2022-504chloeharrington]

Final MP4 Animation #1

Here is my first final MP4 animation that I have been re working over the past few weeks. Ive found the video animations so much easier to work with as they are so much smoother and easier to seperate each component of the animation. It showcases the 9 typefaces in the font family as well as the designer and when the typeface was created. I decided to get rid of the original red colour as it didn't work with the rest of the animation. 

[2022-504chloeharrington]

Final GIF Animation #2 Frame x Frame

The colours in this GIF all bounce off one another. I was inspired to do bright colours with these animations as the Grenze typeface was originally intended for magazine they wanted it to be used with colours and them being bold. I spent a lot of time working on tweening each frame to have it flow softer rather than quick jolty animations which is where i started from.

[2022-504chloeharrington]

Final GIF #1 frame x frame

I decided to place an image into my GIF animation. I sourced these free images from Pexels. They are images of well known German landmarks/architecture which i decided to include as the word ‘Grenze’ is a german word as the designer is also german. I am really happy with how far i have come with this GIF animation as I was struggling a lot at the start with getting it all to flow as one.

https://www.pexels.com/photo/flag-near-building-1128416/

https://www.pexels.com/photo/the-brandenburg-gate-in-berlin-11953671/

[2022-504chloeharrington]

Re working concepts

I have carried on trying to improve this frame x frame animation and feel like its slowly progressing. Im still not satisfied with it but its slowly getting somewhere, I think theres too many colours going on which i intend to strip back on. I also think the start has too much information in it that it becomes overwhelming to the viewer.

[2022-504chloeharrington]

Colour Pallete

Ive decided to use bold sticking colours and tones for my animations as the Grenze typeface is intended to perform rich colours well due to it originally being designed for the use in magazines. The main colours I will stick to are Blue tones (Dark and light) bright pink and bright orange.  It took me a while to figure out which colours work with my typeface without it becoming too overwhelming for the viewer. 

[2022-504chloeharrington]

Applying changes

I applied some changed to this frame x frame animation and feel as though i am starting to get close to finishing it. I want to continue to make it flow nicer so i’m going to work on that over the next few days then hopefully have a final finished.

[2022-504chloeharrington]

Weekly update

This week I have continued to work on re working my animations to perfect errors I had noticed. A common issue i seem to keep on having is that my animations are moving too fast. I think i need to look at them from a new perspective and slow them down and strip them back.  I also need to restrict some of my colours as they are clashing or starting to look a bit tacky. 

[2022-504chloeharrington]

Frame x Frame animation Concept

I really liked the components of this animation and the colours contrasted well off one another. However its way too fast as i have put too many frames in it. I will strip back on the frames. I also don’t like the end of this animation with the 2018 segment. It doesn't flow with the rest of the animation so i might swap this for something else.

[2022-504chloeharrington]

I was not happy with the outcome of this initial animation concept. It has too many colours going on as well as too much information being shown in such a small time span. The start of this animation also appeared messy and just didn't flow as a whole. I am intending on taking components from this animation and re working and refining it till i’m satisfied with the outcome. 

[2022-504chloeharrington]

I was actually really happy with this animation as one of my starting creations. However there are aspects that need to be changed like the speed of some segments and the ‘&’ segment is a bit random and too fast. I do like the colours together as they all contrast well

[2022-504chloeharrington]

Here is my first video animation Ive created for my assessment. Something i’ve noticed is that while working on it it appears slower that when played in real time. This is something i will take into more consideration while going on which making and improving my animations. I think Ive also tried to cram too much information into such a short timeframe. Im planning on stripping it back so its easier for the viewer to read and understand the information being portrayed across the animation.  The ‘abc’ on the type designer segment is too random and doesn’t really serve a purpose so i’m considering removing it.

Things to change:

Too many colours 

2018 is too big and overpowering

Designer name segment too fast and simple

[2022-504chloeharrington]

Here is another activity we made in class today. These class activities have helped me gain a range of new skills that i hope to apply in making my final animations. 

[2022-504chloeharrington]

This was an activity we made in class helped me gain more skills. I never knew how to make this painted effect on an image with the typeface so that was exciting. 

[2022-504chloeharrington]

Week 9 in class

In class today we completed tasks showcasing new skills we could incorporate in our animations.

Video timeline Animations

We also learnt more on video timeline animations. They are a more smooth animation style compared to a frame by frame style. The painting task was a simple yet extremely effective was of making something simple just appear more unique.