Time and Motion Response (and a little Liquid 9)

Some serendipity again? I think so. Today I joined AIGA for the first time in one of their studio visits, and I will have to say that it was a good visit to begin my involvement with AIGA. We went to visit Liquid 9's studio. This was the first time I've ever seen a design studio in person and it was really everything I could have hoped for and even more (the basement was used as a place to record and play music!). What really blew my mind was how expansive Liquid 9's work was. They covered a lot of aspects of design and it really seemed (or maybe my bias just took over) like they focused a lot on designing for musicians. As I've said several times before, designing album artwork and other artwork for musicians (t-shirts, logos, and music videos) is my primary aim with my design work. And they did all of this. The music videos they showed us were amazing and really captured the mood behind each artist. Although I was a little disappointed to see designs and videos primarily for rappers, I was still just dumbfounded by the work they did.

So where does the serendipity come into play? Just a few hours before we visited the studio we had learned about storyboards and movement in animation. Storyboards were essential in the making of Liquid 9's videos. They also used several of the transitional elements we talked about in class in some of their videos. Watching these videos and listening to the members of Liquid 9 talk about the constant communication between the musicians and the designers just amplified the need for storyboards. When done well, storyboards provide a great visual of the progress of a video. Since the designers are dealing with frames, changes and improvements can fairly easily be integrated into the storyboard in a nice and neat way.