Narrative Project Goals

For this project I am addressing the question how can typography be captured and manipulated with live action film? I will answer this question by exploring the creation, use, and form of my Geronimo typefaces in experimental live action typographic explorations. The series of typographic studies will inform and enhance the use of this typeface. This video will be embedded in my .pdf specimen for the Geronimo typeface to support the typeface.

Logo Build Motion and Sound Tests

three different sound and motion tests

near final production

Logo Build Process Storyboards

Storyboards

reference mirage/slowly comes into focus

the oasis logotype in a desert

using Ray's graphic elements to show a path leading to the logotype

beginning in the middle the logotype builds outward to reference inner healing

from the center the logo ripples into focus as if created by a water drop (chosen direction)

alternate version to water drop idea/logotype moves in and out of focus like a mirage being seen

Oasis Logo Build (FINAL)

FINAL VIDEO


FINAL STORYBOARD

In this project, I learned the importance of attributes that can describe the design task. The attributes of the rebranding of Stone Spirit Lodge were established by Ray Alvarez as quality, simplicity, and quirky sophistication. These attributes act as the basis of the design challenge. My logo build was meant to satisfy all of the attributes. I also learned the necessity of a quick and concise build as well as a quicker and more concise sound mark. They had to be integrated and related, but I pushed a little farther to attempt to convey different moods or ideas from both. The visual offers a relief from chaos when the water ripples calm to a still logo. The sound offers an ambience surrounding the drop of the water. Since it is a logo the build has to be concise so that it reads easily and quickly. I also learned that using a tagline in branding can really help establish the brand. I wasn't going to include the tagline, but I found a way to integrate it and it really helped reinforce the ambience of the piece.

Oasis Logo Build Concepting

The attributes of the Oasis rebrand (branding done by Ray Alvarez) are simplicity, quality, and quirky sophistication. The definition of an oasis is a patch of vegetation in a desert. In a very general sense, an oasis is a place of refreshment or comfort amidst harsh conditions. This was the concept used for the rebranding. Oasis is a place of relaxation. A place where one can separate themselves from the hardships of life.

In the logo build, the logo appears on screen as a water drop splashes on screen, causing the logo to ripple into focus. This references a moment of turmoil or hardship followed by a calm and relaxed surface tension.

LOGAN Find & Share

LOGAN 2008 Reel from takmas on Vimeo.

Union Station Timeline (FINAL)

From this project I learned a few things about motion, but dominantly I was schooled in the art of User Experience. Eli and I struggled throughout the project to limit the media and options we were trying to throw at our viewers. We started out wanting to allow the viewer to search through the different media we had to offer, check out a graph of train travel and usage, represent this usage with moving elements on the screen, and other things that just weren't necessary. Really it would have created  a chaotic mess for the viewer to navigate through. So we stripped it down and left it as a swiping timeline that offered two sets of "stories" per decade. Then these stories could be expanded and viewed. Simple and clear. Really easy to navigate, which we needed to be aware of. We didn't want to overwhelm the viewer, we wanted to make their experience more accessible and in doing so (with the media filter, and the graph and such) we would have made the experience more difficult and probably overwhelming.

In animating the tutorial of the timeline, we also had to really think about what needed to be shown in order to show off the function of the timeline. We had to write a script, use the script to base the animation on, and then record the script in a clear and concise and steady way that didn't run together. Basically the timing had to be precise in order to show off the functionality. 

Finally, when it came down to our narrative, we really had to rack our brains and search the Union Station book we had in order to find a story that people were engaged with, could relate to, and would remember. So we picked a testimonial from the book, a real live story that did occur at Union Station and was told from a particular person's point of view. Also with our narrative story we learned (after the first critique) that showcasing one image and revealing aspects of the one image over time, helped move the narration of the testimonial better than having one or two images sit still on the screen. 

Overall, I learned a lot. User experience, understanding the importance of a compelling story when conveying information, planning (when it came down to narration), and learning how to convey clarity in a sequence of information and narration.

Union Station Renovated (first digital look)

 my aesthetic

Eli's aesthetic

Here are two aesthetic ideas for the Union Station interactive timeline. Eli and I worked back and forth but allowed each other to work on each direction by ourselves. With Eli's direction we had looked at the current branding of Union Station and referenced the colors. We also went for a little more classical feel with the type and using the station photo as the background. In my version, I went for a stripped down more modern feeling aesthetic. The simple gridded layout and left to right movement of the timeline is meant to suggest the nature of a train. With mine I hint at the train movement with the the tracks stripped down and abstracted into thin lines. I also use dots in the background to reference people walking around Union Station. These dots will act as a representation of the increasing bustle and burst of train use during the war years. As the viewer scrolls along each narrative on the timeline the amount of dots moving on and off screen increases as the war progresses and then decrease after the war and going toward the 50s.

Wireframes for Union Station

Two layout ideas for the interactive Union Station timeline. 

Gertrude Stein Kinetic Poetry (FINAL)

Asparagus

Orange In

Moving Poem: First Few Seconds and Concepts

When researching to generate concepts for the representation of Gertrude Steins poetry, I realized I needed to find out what category her poetry fell under. I soon found that her "Tender Buttons" series was one of hermetic works. I also found that her most popular works fell under the hermetic category. Now I needed to know what hermeticism is. The first definition I came across claimed that hermetic poetry was austere and difficult poetry. This didn't help, seeing that I had already realized the poetry was austere, so I read on and found that in a broad sense the term is defined as poetry in which the sounds and suggestive powers of words are more important than or equally important to the meaning of the words.

Next I came across the so-called creator of hermetic poetry, Giuseppe Ungaretti. Ungaretti was a fan of the symbolist and futurist movement and greatly believed in the simplifying of things and the abstraction of things to a core essence. I believe this core essence of an idea is what helped Ungaretti develop hermetic poetry. He looked at the words he used in his poetry as sounds. It did not matter what the poems meant but how they sound.

Considering the auditory form of the poetry over the meaning is precisely what I need to express in my rendering of Gertrude's poems into moving typography. In these videos I would like to focus on the formal aspects of her poetry. Repetition, the flow of the words, syllables and similar sounds will all be exemplified to stress the sound of the poetry over the meaning of the words. I will also reference ideas of cubism in the video to express Gertrude's interest and influence of Cubist painting.

So far this video is only an introduction of the title of one of my poems, "Asparagus". The animating of the word onto the screen is done to stress each syllable of the word. This draws more attention to the way the word sounds. Also, the syllable by syllable appearances of the letters suggest a defragmentation of the word. This defragmentation and seeing the word on multiple levels creates the suggestion of a cubist nature in the video

Narrative Type Find + Share

 A narrative on the development of the Trixie typewriter typeface. The video explains some of the technical tactics employed in creating the ever changing Trixie typeface. It also gives some of the statistics and traits incorporated in the typefaces construction. The moving type is implemented to reference the letter by letter typing of a typewriter while a typewriter in action acts as the backdrop for the text throughout the video.

 
Sleepyhead from melissa gorman on Vimeo.

This is a motion graphic final for Gail Anderson's Just Type class at the School of Visual Arts. It's the narrative of a solitary "z" emitted from a sleepyhead. Apparently our "z's" get down when we're asleep.