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DB 4
Posted in: Design Brief by admin on December 09, 2008
Texthören.
The original page and documentation can be found here :
http://www.alexismorin.com/demos/texthoren
DB 3
Posted in: Design Brief by admin on November 03, 2008
3.1
Excuse my translations in the following comment. My Spanish is a tad rusty.
This is a video clip from the band “El Cuarto de Nos“, “The four of us”. The song is called âYa no sé hacer conmigoâ, âI still don’t know what to do with myselfâ. The conceptually, as much as what is being shown is very eye-pleasing, what is done with the type has been overdone. The reason I think this clip is set slightly apart is because of the vectorized video footage playing over the fonts.
The text in this video is actually following the story being told by the lyrics. So the show is not being run by the text as it were. Another element that piqued my interest is the extra attention that is payed to the sound of the voice. Where the notes are prolonged, the letterforms get deformed accordingly to the phoneme being pronounced at that very moment.
The words at times, see to integrate with the scenery of the band playing. Which introduces the notion of text as the environment and as a collective memory. Because what is memory? Is it the recollection of stimuli? Images, scents, textures? Or can it also be a a factual recollection of events neatly arranged in point form. In the latter case, the heavy integration of text documentation in our society can very well bring back the idea of text as a memory.
Supporting this idea of the memory, the sequence of âeeeticoâ ranging from 0:29 to 0:34 plays on the notion of rhyme. It must be remembered that during the oral tradition of the aboriginal Amerindians, it was easier to remember a story if it was sung because the sonority of the tale would act as a mnemonic engine.
This second video uses fonts as characters to enact a scene. This video utilizes the visual proprieties of different fonts to generate a personality from them. This video is quite contrasting from the previous as the fonts are used to evoke emotion and not to carry textual and graphical information.
Times New Roman is used as a moderator to the whole conference as it were. For the last few versions of Microsoft Word, which does happen to be the most popular word processor in the world, this font has been default. It is also used in many books and does well as a leader.
Later in the video, things get a tad complicated for the non-initiated as the later characters or fonts are not shown or detailed. For example, I have no clue whatsoever what the daughter of Courier is : Curls something. And Comic Sans saving the day seems just wrong, although his costume is cool.
3.2
This site introduces a way of working with letterforms that is actually quite useful. It allows users to be in complete control of different anatomical parts of different letters, all the while explaining what each and every part is. It allows the users to effectively move, scale and rotate the many parts. It also has a gallery feature that is great for inspiration. The most poignant aspect of this piece in my opinion might me its’ title. âType is artâ. This site is made for people who might not have noticed what is going on artistically in the world of type as a door for the non-initiated.
This website is comprised of 8 different treatments of type, all of which are presented in a very empirical manner. This site is not as hands on as the previous in that is allows for very little user creativity. The demonstrations of the use of type are nonetheless quite poignant. The âWeightâ section is interesting in that in compares the volume of different characters. The relative quantity of ink used to print a paper in different fonts can be estimated. Building a tool that allows just that would be helpful in saving ink when printing. Some pieces are of less interest, like the âVisual Composerâ, which uses boringly the keyboard of the computer as a musical keyboard. Overall, I believe that these two websites, although simplistic in their approach both help to describe typography as what it truly is : useful art. The ultimate Marcel Duchamp.
3.3
The third part of this assignement was designed by Emmanuel Lalande and myself. We call it Jailtext. Since it has its’ own webpage, here it is without further ado.
3.4
The fourth part of the assignement also has its’ own little blurb. Why don’t you go check it out.
DB 2
Posted in: Design Brief by admin on September 29, 2008
2.1
The opening animation for âKiss Kiss Bang Bangâ struck me as visually pleasing at first. It uses a more traditional visual style reminiscent of the sixties.
The font that was chosen is a sans serif all caps font. Usually using a font in all caps makes me angry. In this case, not so much. The graphics that go along with the visuals are so captivating that in order to receive any attention, all caps is required.
Another major point about this sequence is that the animations from the title tell a part of the story to come. Not so much that it will ruin the movie, but just enough to please the person who has seen it and can recognize the different scenes only by watching the titles.
2.2
The film title that I find does not reflect successfully the movie it precedes is “eXistenZ”. For having seen the movie, I think that the speed and feel of the titles almost go against what is represented in the film.
The titles sequence is predominated with stains of a brownish tint and a boring slightly serifed font. After a while, the stains become fully fledged brown background with images that are not at all relevant. (i.e. A fish skeleton).
This movie is a sci-fi action movie. The boring brown background and font are not welcome. Should be shown : allusions to the eXistenZ game, concept art of the multiple places or strange objects depicted in the movie. But I’ll get to that in 2.3.
2.3
2.4
The movie title I chose that I found visually pleasing, but that did not fit so well with the movie is for Equilibrium. It has a fast paced and 2D animation style. Link after the break.
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=5XuAIe9bX18
This movie which I found excellent deals of serious subject matter within a society that has gone over the edge in seriouseness. Though it is vibrant in its two-tone animation style, the overly emphatic graphics break the overall feel of the movie if one has already seen it. And sets the wrong mood for any newcomer to the picture. I believe this title should be more calm than it currently is. Set the mood in a very solemn and posed manner rather than show it as an action movie with its posing gunmen.
2.5
The title sequence I worked on is not for a particular piece of media. It is actually for a band, namely Born of Osiris.
I wanted to convey the multiple layers of instrumentation in their music. I therefore chose to use a technique of 3D layering to represent this. The progresive, organic and evolving of their sound is represented by the evolution/spastic fade-in of the logo.
More details will be added in the description on the real site.
Typographical montages
Posted in: Design Brief by admin on September 09, 2008
The first montage if purely for esthetics. The layout of the pages simply point out the repetitiveness of the poem in its stanzas. The variation of the ending empahizes the dramatic effect of the text.
The second montage is about the strictness of poetry, reffering to the coldness of the man in the poem. The structure is extrapolated from the structure of the French sonets. 4-4-3-3 and the rhyme structure ABAB-ABAB-CCD-EED.
The third poem is about mechanicality of the man from the poems and focuses on the programming nature of building poems. It loops the repetitions.
Next, the massacre
Posted in: Design Brief by admin on September 08, 2008
1.3
Take one of the examples and manipulate it visually to a point just before illegibility. Use only analogue methods. Document the stages of your manipulation.
My idea of destruction : the kitchen.
First, draw an “A”.
Draw it
Then, grab a knife. A big one.
Grab it
Cut it up. Medium size pieces are the best.
Already missing a few pieces
Add olive oil to a pan. Heat to HIGH.
See where im going?
Drop the pieces in the hot oil.
Already looks good.
Cook until browned.
Lay on a paper towel.
Lay on a paper towel to dry.
Good luck trying to find which goes where…ugh…
The final creation
And there we have it. Fried A. And in the end it only vaguely resembles the original.
The letterform of choice!
Posted in: Design Brief by admin on
I choose “A“.
The letter A is at the beginning of many things. Many alphabets use a variant of the letter A to start.
Greek uses alpha, Hebrew uses aleph. The phoenicians also used letterforms of a similar shape to represent the ox. The name of the first man started with “A”, and the AAAAA sound is just about the easiest phonem to produce vocally.
I have a personal affinity with the letterform A because I have written it innumerable times. It starts my name.
Here is a document I prepared on the letter A across the ages, taken from the book…
As we were asked to do, here are the results of my Hunt for the letterform A.
The weird chair
A weird chair I found around my appartment. Conviniently, it is shaped like a very straight A.
The ripped screen door
Maybe a little harder to see
This was also found near my appartment! The rip in the screen door was there before I took the picture. A very stylized A.
The overkill taxi ad
Must be pretty good.
This was found on the placemat of a bad restaurant I won’t even mention, in Drummondville. This shows how the letterform A is directly related to inspiring quality and trust.
Yes, even architechture
Even the Eiffel Tower has the shape of a vertically elongated A.
Hockey anyone?
Logo of the Colorado Avalanches.
Or Canadian Football?
The Montreal football team.
Logo of the Montreal Alouettes.
So that’s it for my short presentation of live and recorded appearences of the letterform A.