Daily Create #1

Plastic object that I used today

Logo Design

The bp logo incredibly well designed. It meets all 5 essential characteristics of a logo. At first glance it might seem like a complex design but in reality is actually quite simple. It uses very few shapes and a simple colour pallet. It also utilizes simple typography. The "bp" in the lowercase sans serif font is minimal, yet leaves a big impact because of how easily recognizable it is. All these simple components have a great deal to do with the memorability of the logo. If a logo is overcomplicated and convoluted, it makes it much harder for the logo to leave an impact on the audience. Of course it is impossible to tell if a logo will stand the test of time, as most do not. This logo however, I believe has staying power. Most of the logos of the past went out of style because they were overcomplicated and had tacky typography, while this logo has simple as well as elegant form and typography. This logo is also versatile because it can easily work in grayscale at any size and it is compact enough to fit on anything. The logo is appropriate for what the company is trying to communicate, however ironic that may be. The company is trying to trick the audience into thinking they are environmentally conscious even if obviously they are not. You can tell this is their objective due to their colour and form choices.

This logo is also shows the elements and principles of graphic design quite well. Its use of shape simple and elegant, as it repeats the same simple shapes. The balance is a little interesting. The pictorial portion of the logo is perfectly balanced while the text is placed almost as an after thought. This in my opinion puts the logo off balance which is a shame because I am a fan of the typography. If a little more thought was put in I believe it would bring up the quality of the logo. The rhythm of the piece is also a little confused and the flow goes from in to out in all directions. It does not flow in a particular direction. I would have maybe changed the form of the shapes to flow more in the direction of the bp text. This would fix the issue of balance and rhythm and would add emphasis to the text.

This logo for "Smooth Festival" a Polish Jazz festival is a very interesting logo. This is another logo that perfectly executes the 5 essential characteristics of a effective logo.  It is very simple only using a few key overlapping shapes, as well as simple sans serif typography. It is memorable because of the interesting affect that is created with the overlapping colours. It's originality really carries this logo. Like the bp logo, the simplicity of the shapes and the simple typography also help with memorability. I feel like this logo will stand the test of time as it doesn't have the complex typography that tends to date logos. Maybe the art will be seen as cheesy in a few years but I enjoy it. The logo is not versatile due to the fact that it would not work in grayscale. It wouldn't have the same colour effect that makes it so memorable. I do however believe this logo is very appropriate for a music festival, as the smooth shapes and colour effect makes me think of art; more specifically music.

It uses the elements and principles of graphic design in many ways. It uses colour to create an interesting effect which adds to the memorability of the logo. It uses simple organic shapes which adds to the art feel. It's almost perfectly balanced without being symmetrical, and there is a strong sense of unity because of this balance. The dark contrast between the centre and the outside colours put emphasis on the typography as well because it is placed in the dark centre. 

Overall both logos do a great job summing up their brand and design wise they are very effective.

Self Portrait

PERPECTIVE by Cyrus Fonseca

My self-portrait “PERSPECTIVE” is an attempt to communicate a day in my life, in the medium of video in one minute or less. I used all point-of-view shots to make the experience look like it's coming through their own eyes, in an effort to have a more personal experience for the viewer.  I filmed everything slightly shaky to show a sense of confusion, and movement.

I utilize a different lens that let me focus in and out of things quickly, because I wanted to mimic the way the eye focuses on one thing at a time, and add to the feeling of confusion and tiredness. I don't sleep a lot before school a lot of the time (it's 5am as I'm writing this) So showing this tiredness and confusion is important, due to it being a school day from my perspective. A lot of the clips in the morning contain my friends, because CyberARTS is where most of my friends are during the day, and where I’m most communicative.

I use quick jump cuts to show a fast passage of time. I do this, because I feel like school days go by very fast. I put them along the beat to “The Ocean Breathes Salty” by Modest Mouse, because I spend a lot of the day with my headphones in accompanied by Modest Mouse songs, and this one in particular I identify with greatly on a lyrical basis. It's a song about someone being sceptical, and even sarcastic about the “afterlife” and religion in general. I Identify with the opinions and ideas of the speaker in the song.

I had difficulty communicating everything I wanted to in such a short time period. If there was no time limit, this project would be 3 times as long. I ended up adapting to my time frame, and got what I needed to across in the end. I am very happy with my final result. I had a lot of fun during the filming and editing process and I feel I have learned a lot. 

Kinetic Typography Assignment

The title of my kinetic typography is “I don’t wanna be alone tonight”. It  uses the song “I don’t wanna be alone tonight” by Masked Intruder, and I used Adobe After to animate.

I am very happy about the final product. I put in a lot of work, and didn’t stop working until I was positive it was the best it could be. I had a lot of fun learning different techniques and learning the program itself. The only thing I might change about it would be finishing the entire song, or implementing some of the techniques I learned later on.

I used the “Century Gothic” font because it was a nice clean modern font that in my opinion matched the tone of the song. I used quick pans, and fast rotations of the text; speed depending on tempo, because the song was energetic, and fast.

The thing I had most difficulty working with was the 3d camera. I used 3d camera rotations for transitioning many times, and learning to create and manipulate the camera was difficult. I had to work within an imaginary 3d room and in the beginning that threw me off a bit, but I eventually got good at working within the 3d room.

The most satisfying and successful solutions I implement in my kinetic typography were also my work using the 3d camera tool. I was quite happy with the effect it created.  The fast transitions with the camera perfectly matched the tone of my kinetic typography and without  them, the project wouldn’t nearly have turned out as well as it did.

Downtown Photography.

We had some time after the OCADU trip to take some shots.

OCADU Areas of Interest.

Well the trip was certainly interesting. When I graduate I will be definitely looking at OCADU as a possible university. So many interesting things were going on in that building. It was truly a worth while experience. I was surprised that the area of the facility I actually found most interesting was the drawing and painting section, due to the fact I had gone mostly looking forward to the Graphic Design section. Here are 2 of the paintings that stood out to me the most during the visit.

Inverted
By, Nazli Nahidi

This painting initially caught my eye due to the flawless fading of inverted light/dark colours, back to regular. Another thing that caught my attention is the slightly off-putting colour palette. The intensity of the colours on the right side of the face contrasting with the dark inverted purple/black colours on the right make for an interesting experience.

Stuck
By, Elis Tarelli

This painting caught my attention for reasons I feel are obvious. The image of a man contorted in all these strange ways is in my opinion, quite shocking. It's beautifully done. I feel like it shows how an artists mind can get when they're suffering a bad case of creativity block, due to the how "stuck" the figure is. Immobile, not able to create. That's just my take on it though.


-Discord

OCADU Trip

I'm very excited with my upcoming trip to explore OCADU's areas of interest. Since i'm interested in exploring a career in design, it's great to be able to explore somewhere I might be interested in going.

The first and main area I wish to explore would be the Graphic design department. Graphic Design at this moment is the career that interests me the most. I think it'd be great to learn about things covered in the class such as branding, editorial and publication design, interactive communication, motion graphics, and typeface design.

Another area I wanted to explore is the Digital Futures program. It seems like a well rounded program  for someone going into the field of graphic design. It takes into account how things will change over the years, and stresses collaboration with industries and institutions.

The last area I wish to explore is Illustration. Illustration has always interested me. I'd love to learn different areas of illustration taught in this department such as: Merchandise, CDs, websites, etc.

Overall, I'm very excited for the OCADU trip tomorrow.