Adaptation: Infographic - Brand Research

Here's some popular dog food brands that I've found to inspire my title font. They are all with bold and friendly lettering with thick lines and rounded edges, soft like a dog would be. IAMS has the dog's paw print and Pedigree has the rosette from a dog show. Now I have some good inspiration to create a typeface.

Character: Olympigs - Character Development

Pig characters refined in Photoshop and why I've chosen certain colours for each character:

Standard Pig - Pretty generic pink pig.
Swim Pig - Orange colour disguises him like the goldfish, blue snorkel like the water.
Demon Pig - Twice the size of the other pigs, intimidating and coloured red because he's angry and dangerous. Upright pointy ears, angular face, snout and eyes, angry eyebrows and fangs.
PigWings - Glows yellow from halo, flies slowly and gracefully like and angel. Halo attached to tail.
Skinny Pig - Half the size of other pigs, can fit through narrow tunnels and can dodge the Demon Pigs easier.
InvisiPig - Like Standard Pig but very low transparency so can hide from Demon Pigs.
Jet Pack Pig - Colours of Superman as character flies like a superhero over obstacles.

Will work on some environments/levels for Tuesday :)

Narrative: Inspiration, Logorama

 
In our tutorial Alan showed us this animation 'Logorama' which is about a world made from well known logos. I couldn't find the English one but it's more about the visuals anyway. He suggested that maybe we could make our factory environment from the shapes of icons that are found on cardboard boxes. This would mean that it would have a really unique style and that Will's cardboard box characters would fit in really well with that environment.

Here's some icons that I've found that may be helpful:

 

Character Class: Mini Task - Street Fighter Vs. Connect 4

Yesterday with Justin we were all given two cards with opposite kinds of games written on them which we then had to think of a game which is a combination of the two. The two games I got were Street Fighter (Video Game) and Connect 4 (Physical Strategy Game).

I made some notes for my idea and came up with a game where two opponents fight (like in street fighter) but with softer weaponry or just kicking and punching. As Connect 4 is a kids strategy game I didn't want anything too violent. The player that wins the fight gets to place a bomb in the grid-like setup of that in Connect 4 and once 4 bombs of the same colour are connected in any direction, the other opponent is blown up. Also if you win, you can choose some sort of upgrade. I made a quick idea for a logo for the game which I decided to call 'Connect Gore!' which incorporates both fun and violence as in Connect 4 the counters are red and yellow and the structure that holds them is blue. I used these same primary colours in my logo where the bombs are blue and yellow and the dripping blood and the letters are red. Although the bombs and blood are very violent, I used the primary colours, a rounded font for the 'CG' game initials and put fun faces on the bombs.

Narrative - Group Project, Initial Ideas...

For the narrative project I was grouped with Scarlett and Gemma. We haven't managed to speak to each other much in person but across social networks we have put a few ideas here and there. At the briefing, we found out that our animation will be based upon the quote "Actions speak louder than words" and it will take place "In the Factory". My first thoughts being that it can be about love as this is what the quote is most commonly known for, and the factory part just made me think of scrap metal parts and machines that can come alive like humans, similar to that in Beauty and the Beast, but more 'Steam-punk'. So a quick animated short that is like the product of 'Paperman meets Wall-e'.

We have also decided on the name of 'Cogworks Studios' for our group as we have a Factory theme for our animation and we are working together (like cogworks or cogwheels would). Here is my first design for a logo...  

 

Work Experience Week (01-05/09/14) at Navigator Productions

To get back into the 'work mindset' after having so long off from uni, I arranged myself some work experience for the first week of September at Navigator Productions in Strood. A small company with 4 or 5 people working in the office each day, they provide a range of comprehensive media production services to companies worldwide. In the first year, I didn't touch upon After Effects as much I would of liked and wanted to learn more skills in this program, creating interesting designs and effects. Unfortunately at this time, they didn't have any particular projects that I could get involved with but on the first day I did go up to the Blackwall trading estate in London to help with the filming of some new training videos and even appear in some of the footage. It was about health and safety checks when using hop-ups and platforms in the workplace so it involved lots of different camera shots and interesting angles. For the other days the director, Terry, showed me some basic learning tutorials I could follow on Lynda and some more advanced and exciting ones on Video CoPilot, which were really handy and I could learn a lot of new transferable skills. I had two desktop computers which worked together as one, really useful when doing tutorials as I could have the tutorial running on one screen and then follow along on the other without the trouble of having to close windows all the time. Here's some of what I created in my time there :)


                                                                           Monday:

                                                                  Office Work-space:

                                                                         Tuesday:
Wednesday: Thursday: Friday:

Adobe Illustrator Lesson 2