Motion Graphics : Artist - Norman McLaren

Motion Graphics

Motion graphics are graphics that use video and/or animation technology to create the illusion of motion or a transforming appearance. These motion graphics are usually combined with audio for use in multimedia projects. Motion graphics are usually displayed via electronic media technology, but may be displayed via manual powered technology as well. The term is useful for distinguishing still graphics from graphics with a transforming appearance over time without over-specifying the form.

Motion Graphics include animations, movies etc. The term "motion graphics" has the potential for less ambiguity than the term "film" to describe moving pictures in the 21st century. "Film" is also used to describe photographic film (the 20th century medium of choice for recording motion), the process of recording footage, and the industry it most serves. However, digital video recording and digital projection to display motion graphics have the potential to make photographic film obsolete. "To capture" is often used instead of "to film" to describe the process of recording footage, perhaps due to the term's compatibility with digital video and motion capture technology. "The motion picture industry" is the formal term for what used to be called the "film industry".

Motion Grapher

Norman McLaren

Biography

Norman McLaren, (11 April 1914 – 27 January 1987) was a Scottish-born Canadiananimator and film director known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada.

After making a few films for the GPO in London, McLaren moved to New York City in 1939, just as World War II was about to begin in Europe.At the invitation of Grierson, he moved to Canada in 1941 to work for the National Film Board, to open an animation studio and to train Canadian animators. During his work for the NFB, McLaren created his most famous film, Neighbours (1952), which has won various awards around the world, including the Canadian Film Award and the Academy Award. Besides the brilliant combination of visuals and sound, the film has a very strong social message against violence and war. In addition to film, McLaren worked with UNESCO in the 1950s and 1960s on programs to teach film and animation techniques in China and India. His five part "Animated Motion" shorts, produced in the late 1970s, are an excellent example of instruction on the basics of film animation.

 

Awards for McLaren's films

Academy Awards (USA)

• (1953) Oscar - Best Documentary, Short Subjects for Neighbours (1952)

Annie Awards (USA)

• (1975) Annie Award: Winsor McCay Award

BAFTA Awards (England)

• (1969) BAFTA Film Award Best Animated Film for Pas de Deux (1968)

Berlin International Film Festival

• (1951) Silver Medal (Culture Films and Documentaries) award for Begone Dull Care
• (1956) Silver Bear (Short Film) award for Rythmetic

Canadian Film Awards (Canada)

• (1949) Special Award for Dots
• (1950) Special Award for Begone Dull Care
• (1952) Special Award for Around is Around
• (1952) Special Award for Now is the Time
• (1952) Special Award for After the Storm
• (1953) Special Award for A Phantasy
• (1953) Special Award for Neighbours
• (1958) Arts and Experimental for A Chairy Tale
  • Shared with Claude Jutra
• (1962) Arts and Experimental for Lines Horizontal
• (1965) Arts and Experimental for Canon
  • Shared with Grant Munro
• (1968) Special Award for Pas de Deux

 

Digital Illustration : Artist - Yuko Shimizu

Digital Illustration

Computer illustration or digital illustration is the use of digital tools to produce images under the direct manipulation of the artist, usually through a pointing device such as a tablet or a mouse. It is distinguished from computer-generated art, which is produced by a computer using mathematical models created by the artist. It is also distinct from digital manipulation of photographs, in that it is an original construction "from scratch". (Photographic elements may be incorporated into such works, but they are not the primary basis or source for them.)

Before the digital revolution, life as an illustrator was fairly straightforward, or so it seemed – there was no Bill Gates, no Apple, no Photoshop, no Google, no internet, no email, no hassle. Looking back at life before the revolution, albeit through rose-tinted specs, the working day for your lone illustrator was a fairly simple affair. In fact, depending on just how far back you wish to peer, it’s clear to see just how much has changed.

Back in the land-that-time-forgot, a common-or-garden commission for a freelance illustrator would come about with a phone call made by an art director to an illustrator’s land-line – mobiles only came into everyday use just over a decade ago. If you were out of the studio when the call came, chances are you could miss the job – answer phones even 15 years ago were not the norm. The brief itself would have to be posted or collected – fax machines were huge, cumbersome and expensive items even just a decade and a half ago. How the freelance illustrator, just ten years ago, maintained a professional profile, informed clients of new work and displayed their portfolios has altered beyond recognition. Without websites and email, illustrators would utilize the humble postcard as their calling card to the creative world, designing, printing, addressing and posting hundreds of these mailshots on a regular basis.

Digital Illustrator

Yuko Shimizu

Biography

YUKO SHIMIZU is a freelance illustrator based in New York City and an illustration instructor at School of Visual Arts. Newsweek Japan has chosen her as one of "100 Japanese People The World Respects" in 2009.

Drawing had been Yuko's hobby ever since she could remember. However, growing up in a traditional Japanese family, pursuing a path in art was just not an option. After receiving BA in advertising and marketing – the most creative of the practical field – from Waseda University she landed on a position in PR for a big corporation in Tokyo. It never made her quite happy, and she was in a mid-life crisis at age of 22.

It still took Yuko more than 10 years of office job before she figured out what she really wanted to do and to save just enough so she could go back to school full time for 4 more years. his is how Yuko came back to New York in 1999, where she briefly spent her childhood, and enrolled in School of Visual Arts (SVA).

Yuko graduated with MFA from Illustration as Visual Essay Program in 2003 and has been illustrating since. She also teaches a BFA Illustration course and occasionally advises MFA students at SVA. he works in a studio in Manhattan, a space she shares with two artists whom she considers as her 'New York family'. Yuko has not gotten into mid-life crisis since she became an artist.

Whenever she has time, Yuko loves to travel to different cities and countries to lectures at art schools and events, and to meet with other artists, professors and young aspiring illustrators to get inspired.

Some of the Works

 

Digital Visual Art : Artist - Ray Caesar

Visual Arts

The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts (photography, video, and filmmaking) and architecture. These definitions should not be taken too strictly as many artistic disciplines (performing arts, conceptual art, textile arts) involve aspects of the visual arts as well as arts of other types. Also included within the visual arts are the applied arts such as industrial design, graphic design, fashion design, interior design and decorative art.

A “work of visual art” is —

• a painting, drawing, print or sculpture, existing in a single copy, in a limited edition of 200 copies or fewer that are signed and consecutively numbered by the author, or, in the case of a sculpture, in multiple cast, carved, or fabricated sculptures of 200 or fewer that are consecutively numbered by the author and bear the signature or other identifying mark of the author; or

• a still photographic image produced for exhibition purposes only, existing in a single copy that is signed by the author, or in a limited edition of 200 copies or fewer that are signed and consecutively numbered by the author.

A work of visual art does not include —

• any poster, map, globe, chart, technical drawing, diagram, model, applied art, motion picture or other audiovisual work, book, magazine, newspaper, periodical, data base, electronic information service, electronic publication, or similar publication;

• any merchandising item or advertising, promotional, descriptive, covering, or packaging material or container;

• any work made for hire; or

• any work not subject to copyright protection under this title.

Digital Visual Artists

Ray Caesar

Biography

I was born in London, England on October 26 1958, the youngest of four and much to my parent's surprise, I was born a dog. This unfortunate turn of events was soon accepted within my family and was never again mentioned in the presence of polite company. I was a rambunctious youth as was natural to my breed but showed a fine interest in the arts as I drew pictures incessantly on anything including the walls and floors of every room of our tiny house. After some trouble with intolerant neighbors, my family was convinced to move to Canada and it was not long before the burgeoning town of Toronto became our new home.

Unfortunately the drawing continued to become somewhat atypical and aberrant and it was  impressed upon me that such images might not be suitable for public viewing. In the summer of 69, there was a valiant attempt to stop me from doodling infamous contemptible fascist dictators upside down on my stomach with a ballpoint pen. I was consoled however by the encouragement to continue penciling in faces of flamboyant cowboys such as Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger and Tonto on my toenails but was expressly forbidden to talk to them at night.

It can be said that there are defining moments in a dogs life that can only be described as pivotal. Mine came when I received a gift of a flesh toned 12 inch plastic movable human doll attired in cheaply made military fatigues called "GI Joseph". I however named him "Stanley Mulver" and immediately resigned his commission from the light infantry. My Mother helped in this by sewing small business suits and leisure wear out of leftover Christmas fabric embroidered with holly and snowmen, tinfoil shoes and one tasteful Safari suit made of tight fitting powder blue rayon that proudly shone cobalt in the summer sunlight. It wasn't long before I had begun making enlarged wigs out of gray plasticine. These wigs soon became huge pompadours for Stanley and looked even more grand when I meticulously embedded small hairs from my daily body and face shavings. This hirsute practice along with walking upright allowed me to fit in with other children even though my father considered it a waste of time. In short, Stanley had become a visage of the Man I could never be, of that elusive self one sometimes glimpses down the tunnel of infinite reflected mirrors. Although ridiculed by my peers, I proudly wore Stanley around my neck at all times as if to say "SEE! This is the man I will be, a good man, a kind man".

I have worked in many fields over the years, attended obedience classes and art colleges, jobs designing horrible buildings in architectural studios, medical art facilities, digital service bureaus, suspicious casino computer game companies, eventually working at computer modeling, digital animation and visual effects for television and film. Some award nominations have been attained and I have been driven in long black liquor filled limousines and walked on hind legs down red carpets in Pasadena while wearing strange smelling rented tuxedos.

Some of the Works 

 

Precedent Studies (abstract)

3 Chosen Emotions

Love

Love is the emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection.

The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure to intense interpersonal attraction. "Love" can also refer specifically to the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love, to the sexual love of eros, to the emotional closeness of familial love, or to the platonic love that defines friendship, to the profound oneness or devotion of religious love.

(Source : Wikipedia)

Happiness

Happiness is a state of mind or feeling characterized by contentment, love, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy. A variety of biological, psychological, religious, and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources.

Philosophers and religious thinkers often define happiness in terms of living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion. Happiness in this older sense was used to translate the Greek Eudaimonia, and is still used in virtue ethics. Happiness economics suggests that measures of public happiness should be used to supplement more traditional economic measures when evaluating the success of public policy.

(Source : Wikipedia)

Sadness

Sadness is an emotion characterized by feelings of disadvantage, loss, helplessness, sorrow, and rage. When sad, people often become outspoken, less energetic, and emotional.

Sadness can be viewed as a temporary lowering of mood, whereas depression is characterized by a persistent and intense lowered mood, as well as disruption to one's ability to function in day to day matters.

The emotion of sadness arises and is felt by almost everyone, once in a while. It is normal for human beings to grief and cry when they lose someone they care about or something that means a lot to them. People also tend to feel unhappy when they experience a helpless situation. 

Sadness is a natural feeling which, if unfeeling, just stays in our array of unresolved trauma knots. As with other emotions, feel it and it will go away. Resist feeling it and it hangs around forever, periodically erupting inappropriately in our body's attempt to rid itself of associated trauma knots.

(Source : Wikipedia)

Final Project Media Art 2

Target Audience

Kids (age 7-10 years old)

Reason

Easy to communicate and doing researches and also surveys

Final Screen Design

 Kids Screen Design

Title

Kids: Reading Habits

Idea/Concept

This screen design is design just for kids as the color used is brighter and the text used is less. Thus, the font and also the color of the text are also just for kids’ purpose. I use the ladybird as the icons for kids because I feel the nice character of the ladybird is suitable for kids. I use cartoon design as kids really love cartoons and this will make them excited to go though this. The navigation button is put on the left side. This is because it is easier for the kids to find the menu bar and make them easy to navigate them. Less words is used as kids love more pictures then words.

Audience 

Kids (7-9 years old)

Purpose 

To give an input on children mind to practice reading habits in their daily life.

Context 

Most probably at home.

 Teenagers Screen Design

Title

Reading: Teenager Approach

Idea/Concept

This screen design is design for the teenagers purpose. Black color is choose as teenage prefer the black color as the background. Next, teenagers also prefer to be simple but stylish. I use a model of a teens holding a book while reading something. This is the way to promote reading habits among teenagers nowadays as the love-reading in the teenagers body have become lesser and lesser. So, this is the way to make them feel reading is one of the important elements of success.

Audience 

Teenagers (19-25 years old)

Purpose 

To give a pathway for teenagers to love reading as most of them do not like reading nowadays.

Context 

Most probably at the institution or at the hostel.

Adults Screen Design

Title

Reading: Adult Perception

Idea/Concept

This screen design is design for the adults purpose. Dull color is chosen as to show the veteran of the adults and the old-school style. The font used is simple font that each adult can easily read the text. The navigation button is put on the top of the screen because adult prefer to place at top to make them easily to find it. Next, I used less pictures but more words as adults prefer a tidy design, not the messy one. The text used is quite big font to make adult read easily as some of their eyes do not fully-function as the normal human eyes. Last but not least, adult prefer simple design compared to stylish and dark color design.

Audience 

Adults (40-50 years old)

Purpose 

To give them a new medium of reading that they can use either in the office or at home.

Context 

Most probably at the office or at home.

Persona

Kids

The survey shows that nearly most of the kids loves reading very much and make reading as their hobby. They also prefer to have a reading material with colorful design and fully-pictured materials. From the survey, we also can see that kids prefer comics very much, love computer very much and also addicted to cartoons. That is why most of them prefer to watch television compared to read in books. This is due to the powerful of technologies. And also all of them are able to use computer.

Here is the persona based on the survey :

Name	Muhammad Irfan
Age	7
School	SK Dato Wan Mohd Saman
Hobby	Reading and play computer
Addicted	Cartoons and Games
Activities	Watch Television, Play Games, Watch Cartoons
Computer Capability	Beginner

Teenagers

The survey on teenagers shows that most of them are still single and still studying. In addition, the also love reading as to absorb knowledge. Some of them prefer to read magazines and newspaper more compared to read other reading materials. In reading newspaper, Half of them love, but another half no. The most popular issue is current issue as teenagers always updated this types of news. Next, most of them have experiences in reading inside blog or websites and the also agree that reading in web can conserve the amount of paper produce everyday.

Here is the persona based on the survey :

 

Name	Ayuni
Age	19
Status	Single
Career	Studying
Hobby	Reading
Reason	As a knowledge
Computer Capability	Intermediate
Newspaper	Star, Metro, Berita Harian
Current Issue	Health, Disaster

Adults

Based on the survey, I found that most of them are married and have at least 2 children. All of them enjoy reading very much and most of them also prefer the type of book for their reading activity. Next, most of them read newspaper everyday and they always read for information and updated matter like economy, politics and many more. Lastly, they also read in front of the television or computer

Here is the persona based on the survey :

Name	Salmiah bt Ayob
Age	42
Status	Married
Career	Teacher
Hobby	Reading
Reason	As a knowledge
Computer Capability	Intermediate
Newspaper	Metro, Berita Harian
Current Issue	Economy, Politics, Health