Final Statement

Final Evaluation:

For the final assignment of the semester, it's hard for me to think of this as anything else besides an accumulative learning process, in which it was important to revisit the earlier lessons in order to aid in the production of this latest project. A lot of the time, in a fast-paced class such as visual communications, it's easy to get caught up in the rush to produce adequate amounts of work and focus on meeting deadlines. Sometimes while pushing to complete all these things, I forgot the basic concepts from the beginning of the year, and because of it my work suffered.

¡ BUT !

About halfway through, I realized what I was forgetting, and from then on attempted to be mindful of what I had learned in regards to the haiku project. And even before that, there were a few things I did right, even if I hadn't realized it! :)

• Mind Mapping : I begin this project by mind mapping each individual line of the poem. This is something that we learned in the dot project, to help us dig deeper into the topic, and also come up with more surprising ideas that we might not have thought of otherwise. When it came to mind mapping the haiku lines though, I realized there is a point where the ideas are too far reaching. I will keep this in mind from now on.

• Iterating iterations of iterated iterations : Thank goodness for never using the first ideas that pop into our heads. Or at least, thank goodness for giving yourself something to compare them to. With all of the project this semester, and not only in visual communications, iterations saved my projects from being shallow and poorly developed. It's good to have choices, and it's good to try and consider other versions of an idea. For the dot book, we did countless amounts of thumbnails to refine and clarify our compositions. And also with the line studies, using the initial pairings as stepping-stones, I was able to learn from their critiques and make better compositions as I better understood the assignment. Time allows for more understanding to sink in, and our iterations are like a physical indication of this.

• Being Selective : This kind of goes with iterations, but I feel like it makes a more direction connection between the animation and the line studies. I could have done iterations of my haiku symbols all day, but being selective about them was a process in which I had to consider all the elements of the project in relation to the image I was choosing. In the line studies, the objective was to make photo/line pairings that not only matched, but also added to each other--completing a conversation--and were still visually pleasing. In the same manner, choosing the final icons was something that wasn't just about what looked good. Each symbol was chosen out of a group of icons (see the project evolution for examples) because it best reflected the meaning behind the line of the haiku.

• Just letting things happen : This was the most fun part of these assignments, for sure. The serendipitous nature of the projects was something that I was new to, and learned a lot from. Having line studies magically line up with photographs, and having unorthodox tools accidentally make better marks than I ever could have thought out on my own was a big learning experience, and something I'm going to try to incorporate as often as I can in the future. In general, getting away from mechanical tools like computers and their programs was a breath of fresh air.
  

As to the principles and practices, I've learn how to communicate...visually? No no, just kidding. I feel as thought I made a lot of progress in learning how to:

• problem solve
• focus on process as much as the final artifact
• better articulate concepts and ideas using a formal vocabulary
  
• recognize individual elements combining to make a cohesive whole

Along with these I've also developed a pretty clear understanding of many of the more formal principles such as the elements of design (proximity, layering, continuation), spatial relationships, and the workings of various analog and digital tools. I don't think I'm anywhere near mastering any of these practices yet. In order to keep these fresh in my mind in the next semester, and for the rest of my life, I plan on CONSTANTLY rereading notes, and reevaluating myself and my work to make sure I'm keeping in touch with all of these important elements. :)



Critique of older piece:

This is one of the earlier pairings for the line book. The reason I chose this one is because, looking back at all the works, this is one of the pieces that gave me the biggest "what was I thinking!?" feeling. When we initially began pairing the photographs with the line studies we had done, I tried making rather bland match-ups like this one. This pairing, to begin with, is visually very ugly. On top of that, the photograph and the line study do not add anything to each other. Even if I had gone along and digitally edited the line study, smoothing out the curves, it would still be a visually boring image that lends nothing to its partner. There's no conversation between these halves aside from the fact that they are similar in shape. This was an unsucessful attempt at creating a link between two incompatible images.

Haiku : Project Evolution

Here is the linear evolution and the final artifact for the haiku project! Hopefully the transition from sketches to mark making, then from the marks to the final animation is pretty clear. And this time the animation exported with *almost* no snags! :)

Crossing it alone
in cold moonlight...the brittle bridge
echoes my footsteps

Final Haiku from Kelsey Anderson on Vimeo.

Music credits: "The Windmill's Tale of the Music Box Floats Through the Air. Riding the Windmill" by Unwed Sailor

Animation Progress

Edited: it's up finally! :)

Haiku Progression from Kelsey Anderson on Vimeo.

But anyway, I feel like I'm making good process. I've sped up the whole thing, so it's not nearly as slow. Still haven't quite fixed the conveyor belt. Um yea, still working on it. But! The crumbling bridge transition is quite nice, and now I'm starting on phasing the last transition back out, so it can loop back to the first cleanly! :)

Final storyboard and text stills

Here are my final transitions for the haiku animation storyboard:
The arrows are not part of it, they're just to help see the movement of the little man across the page.

Bitmap vs. Vectors

Bitmaps

Bitmap images are pixel based, and can support hundreds and thousands of colors per image. This allows for a great amount of detail and tonal quality to be achieved. The millions of pixels create a very rich image, and cannot be detected unless you zoom in.

Pros:

• more colors available for each image
• details are greater
• each pixel can be manipulated, allowing for a lot of freedom when editing/altering an image.

Cons:

• an image cannot be enlarged past its original size, or the computer attempts to create the missing data where there are no pixels, resulting in a fuzzy/blurry image.
• pixelation of an image also occurs when you try to manipulate or warp it

Vectors

Vectors are shapes that consist of points, lines, and curves. They are mathematical images, allowing for more manipulations. These images are made in computer programs.

Pros:

• retains its quality, no matter how much the image is enlarged
• can be filled with solid colors, gradients, and even patterns
• ideal for things that need to be represented in multiple colors and sizes, such as logos
  

Cons:

• typically very simple in comparison to bitmaps
  
• look rather flat
  

*In their defense though, vectors have become increasingly photo-realistic lately. As it becomes easier and easier to make vectors with such high amounts of detail, artists can take the liberty of being hyper-realistic, and eliminating elements not wanted in the bitmap version while adding their own details. Not sure if this is a good thing, as it would make it hard to distinguish what is real and what is not, but the idea that artists can improve upon reality (ex: a bitmap photography) is not a new one, but now we can just scale it to fit any size we want.*

Final Marking Selection

Here are the two final versions that I am considering for my haiku:


Currently, I'm leaning toward the one on the right side. I feel like it's got more texture and completes a more cohesive set of images than the dense "nighttime" symbol on the left. I'll continue on with this second set of images for the animation storyboard.

Time and Motion notes

The most basic differences between having a flat image and having an animation is that animation allows a time-dependent exploration on changes in scale, transparency, color, and layering. Backgrounds and images can each move or remain fixed, allowing for different changes and interactions in the environment in the different layers over a given period of time.

The production of an animation begins with a storyboard, where the most important parts of the animation are laid out. This includes notes on the camera angles, soundtrack, movement, and transitions. Style frames are another essential element to the production or the animation, and contains information on the typography, colors, patterns, illustrations, and photographs to be used, along with the aesthetic tone and other formal elements.

Animation works due to the term "persistence of vision," which describes how the brain retains an image longer than it is actually shown, so when many images are shown in rapid succession, it appears to be moving. When making an animation, "key-frames" are the important frames that define the sequence, often located at the beginning and end. All of the in-between frames are called "tweens." Tweens can be automated by the computer programs, but doing tweens by hand allow for cleaner edges, better quality of motion, more accurate details, and greater control of the subtle elements.

Change in position, rotation, scale, shape, color, depth, and transparency over time are all elements of an animation that can be altered, and it's often some combination of those that make a successful sequence. It's important to note that when animating text, it is especially important that these elements to not remove the legibility or change the reading order of the text.

F+S Project 3

This is a cover for the album Sounds from the Alps made by Rudolph DeHarak in 1961. The three strokes signify the Swiss Alps, but they also have the dual purpose of representing sound waves. It's a pretty straightforward comparison to our mark making process, and a good example of using symbols as universally understood shapes.

Taxonomy Proposal

For my book of marks, I would like to do a Japanese binding to mirror the haiku, which I would like to incorporate into my book. For the dementions, I am kinda still stuck; I like the idea of having a smaller (more pocket-sized) book, like 6x6. But I'm afraid that with such a small format, the book would become rather thick, so maybe a large 9x9 size would be better?

As for the organizations, I would like to sort them first by the tool they were made with, in relation to the line of the haiku they're from.

Line 1: Crossing it Alone

• footprint
• eye dropper

Line 2: in cold moonlight...the brittle bridge

• ice
• wood
• lantern
• glass

Line 3: echoes my footsteps

• shoe 1
• shoe 2

In addition to sorting them by line, then by tool, I would like to arrange each section of marks in order of mark weight. I'd like to create some sort of flow or gradation on each page So it would go haiku line>tool used>density of mark.


The white outlines would not be in the actual book though, those were just to help me remember to stay away from the edge where it would be bound, since you tend to lose a lot of the page in Japanese page binding.

Here are a few things I'm not sure about; things I'd like to jot down so I don't forget them:

• Is 12 marks to a page too many?
• black background or white? I did the thumbnail in black but now I'm leaning towards white/ @_@
• still considering other book formats, perhaps O-binding that would allow for two-sided pages?
• paper weight thick vs thin
  

Denotative

1. density
2. dark
3. light
4. large
   
5. tiny
6. geometric shape (circular, box, triangle)
7. cleanliness
   
8. movement
   
9. tool used
10. clarity of tool
    

Connotative

1. haiku line mark corresponds with
2. loneliness
3. cold
4. brittle
5. movement
6. traveling
7. sadness
8. noise
9. strength
10. weathered
    

Urge to Make

The article "The Urge To Make Things" was a refreshing and interesting read, and I found myself agreeing with everything that Leo Lionni was saying in it. The simplicity of being able to use our hands to make something is a wonderful thing, and Lionni says it perfectly when he calls it "that magic moment of pure making, when suddenly all interface vanish, leaving the hands free to perform their assigned task swiftly, lightly..."

While working on the mark makings this week, I've been reminded of the line project a lot because of how we are looking for connections between our marks and our symbols the same way we tried to match our lines with photographs. But personally, the haiku project is more fun. Using unorthodox tools to make our stamps and smears and spots is an almost therapeutic process. Just allowing the tool to do it's own thing, then discovering serendipitous markings that are similar to our symbols is a "magical moment." I think I prefer the more hand-made projects over the ones where we have to spend lots of time in front of the computer.

List of Objects

1. Prisms (moonlight)
2. paper stars
3. earplugs
4. bark (wood)
5. eye dropper
6. shoes
7. feet
8. pressed flowers
9. lantern lights
10. ice

Hopefully some of these will work!

Anatomy of a Visual Message

The Primer of Visual Literacy by Donis was a really informative read, and helped to clarify the distinctive differences between the three ways that we express and receive visual images.

Representational • Vs • Abstract • Vs • Symbolic

Representational images are mostly images like photographs, which are most successful in recreating a picture with all of its details intact. Realistic drawings and paintings can also be representational, but often tend to lean more towards abstracts. The intended meaning behind a representational image is just supposed to be the image itself, nothing more. But meaning is left for the viewer to decide, so sometimes even photographs don't have only one meaning. Dondis uses the example of a photograph of a bird-one person may see the image as a representation of bird, while someone else might interpret as a representation of flight.

Abstraction begins as the extraneous details are removed from a picture, and all that is left is the emphasized distinguishing features. It's an abstraction only conveys the essential meaning in an image, whatever it is. The visual message in an abstracted image is left up to the viewer to decide, and as opposed to a representational image, the meaning of an abstract one is a little more versatile.

Sybolism is the most simplified of the bunch. "Less image, more meaning" would be the most succinct way of explaining it, even though it's not nearly as easy as that. The visual data that is represented by the a symbol is important to consider as a designer, because of the vastness of the data. One point that Dondis made that I found particularly interesting was the fact that in order for a person to understand a symbol, they have to have previous knowledge about it. Without the education of the meaning, the 'code' of symbolism is completely lost.

Lupton's review of Dondis further emphasies the importance of visual literacy when creating symbols. I'll keep all of this in mind when beginning to sketch my thumbnails for my haiku. It's a lot to remember, but the readings definitely helped with understanding the differences between representations, abstractions and symbols, and I'll try to avoid representational images in my drawings.

Haiku and words

Crossing it Alone
in cold moonlight...the brittle bridge
echoes my footsteps.

Taigi

Crossing it alone

1. crossing
   
2. travel
3. walking
4. path
5. passing
6. over
7. alone
   
8. old
9. lonely
10. sad
11. crying
12. tears
13. dark/night
14. cold
15. quiet
16. singular

in cold moonlight...the brittle bridge

1. blanket
2. ice
3. harvest
4. moon
5. brightness
6. candlelight
7. brittle/fragile
8. moon/moonlight
9. old
10. bridge
11. suspend
    
12. crumbling/crumbs
13. wooden
14. transition/change
15. water
16. moving
17. stability
    

echoes my footsteps

1. echoes
2. cave
3. vast
4. empty
5. hollow
6. noise
7. footsteps
8. feet
9. shoes
10. movement
11. walking
12. sound