30xFrames

Here are the four sets of 30xframes for the four final videos. Along the bottom of each frame is a time line which indicates the frame number.

One




Two




Three



Four

The Final Four

Number One

Number Two

Number Three

Number Four

The Other Finals

A

B

C

D

The final version of Video Seven and the initial storyboard.

Final Version of video six.

Here the coming together click was far too fast, and didn't look natural and so I tried slowing it down. (see below)





After this I changed the end so that it looks like the word is clicking into shape.

Click Five

Test out's on how to create a hand drawn click using stop motion and the story boards for the animation.

To rectify this I made the "I" click and bring all the letters back to their start position.

Click Five - a

This animation deals with the idea of words clicking and being replaced,
until the end where the idea returns to letters clicking and reacting. Here
are the first two clicks.

I couldn't work out why I disliked the ending of this so much, but now I
realise it's because the last transformation lasts too long and doesn't keep
with the pace of the rest of it.

Click Four

The amended version.

Possible Animation

This version is what I had planned on my storyboard but now that I've seen it it just doesn't seem right. So I've meddled with it a bit and changed the way it ends.

Testing distance.

A test into how to make the word come towards the screen, rather than converting it to a 3D shape. This attempt uses just scale.

I wanted to be able to change the anchor point between different transitions but just a direct change and not a gradual one. I couldn't find a way of doing it and instead ended up with this.

I considered moving the anchor point to the middle of the word but it looks more like a squeeze than a click.

Finally worked out how to get the word to move forward, it was pretty simple. I just needed to increase the scale and change the position.

Testing how to click...

Here I cut the letters in two and hoped to compress them effectively, however it just looked as though it was being warped.

This time I altered just the vertical height and moved the anchor point to the bottom of the letters.

The anchor point was moved underneath the word for this attempt. I'm not sure whether I've imagined an improvement or if it is there but this is the click I have decided to carry on with.

Click Three

This animation tests out how a click can affect colour/fill. Continuing the theme of cause and effect.

The second animation. For some reason when I upload the quick time movie to youtube, the end cuts off. I'll try and sort this out or if I can then I'll upload the quick time movie.

The first animation, cut down to 5 seconds.

Here I have tried to animate the word click using the idea of cause and effect. By clicking one letter, something else happens to another.

Not sure how to change the screen to widescreen but if you want to see it properly it's on youtube.

link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gVPePbb_hw

Second Set

Here's the second set of 12 frames, although this new type of click made it a bit easier, I still found it difficult sticking to the 12 frames.









I ripped up photocopies of the first sheets and used postits to plan the 18 framer.

Types of Click

I think one of the main problems I was having was that I was restricting how the letter could be clicked, I was mainly focussing on compression. However, after a discussion with Fred I realised that there were lots of different ways the letter could be clicked, which in turn could cause many different results.



Here I used the letter K to think about different ways of clicking. As soon as I began doing this I started to enjoy the brief a lot more and so have decided to re-do the 12 frames with this new way of thinking.

Frames of 12

Today we had a workshop on storyboarding. The storyboards showed what happens to one the letters in our words. One storyboard focussed on a static letter, the second allowed the letter to move horizontally and vertically and the third became 3 dimensional. Above is the first storyboard. I found this task quite difficult. The "click" movement meant that I needed to use 2 or 3 frames just to communicate one click.



I used the idea of an initial click, becoming more impatient because nothing is happening. To communicate this effectively the actual movement and speed of the click is very important and so this became very difficult to show through frames.

After Effects Tutorial One

First attempt at animation using after effects, testing out position, rotation and opacity transformations.

First session

We picked 3 words out of the randomiser to base the start of this module on. My words were "organised", "lost" and "click". The first task was to produce 3 images on an A2 sheet of paper which represented these words, using the letters of the word within it. For "organised" I split the word into vowels and consonants, and then numbered each letter depending on their position in the word.



For the word lost, I considered a number of options but settled on the idea of "lost in numbers". For this I muddled the letters of lost up within the numbers 0-9.



I found click to be the most challenging of the words. I focussed on representing the movement of a mouse click. For this I compressed the letter C and then had the rest of the letters up in the air. I used arrows to try and demonstrate where the energy was.



The next task was to try and communicate the word in 5 frames. This was much easier, as it allowed me to demonstrate the movement of the letters. I tried 5 frames for the 3 different words and then another 3 for the word "click". Seeing as "click" was the most challenging of the words, I think that I may get more out of this word and have decided to develop this word for the brief.

Evaluation

The research I have undertaken for this project differed from past projects. To gather primary research I asked people to fill in surveys, posted questions on forums, emailed useful sources and photographed the environment. Forums proved particularly useful for my primary research, I believe this is because people discussing topics there have an actual interest instead of feeling obligated to fill in surveys and so the qualitative answers received are genuinely interesting.My downfall would be the lack of visual documentation. Although I took photographs, I think I could have explored this a lot further. The secondary research also proved very useful, and it was this that actually had most influence over the progress of my project.
I read a lot about the print process and production and feel I learnt a lot about it. However I only really experimented with printing on different stocks and using the vinyl cutter, I was hoping to experiment more into different types of finishes in particular foil blocking and embossing. These two method's weren't appropriate for my product or packaging which is why it wasn't necessary to try it but I do feel regretful that I didn't experiment anyway. The tutorials have proved to be very useful and my software skills have improved slightly which is one of my aims from last year, so that is positive.
My design development for this project has been the strongest in comparison to previous ones. I tried not to be too precious with initial ideas and if after evaluation they weren't working then instead of trying to force it new ideas were developed. I probably treated this module more as a design practice module instead of a chance to explore print, which was a mistake however I do feel I have benefited from it. Also I actually used some drawings for this module which is pleasing, as this was also one of my aims from last year.
The organisation of work throughout the module has improved a lot since last year, and doing this has made the design process a lot less stressful. However my big mistake was not keeping up to date with my blog's. Last year I used the blogs to my advantage and they were really useful as a place to evaluate what I was doing, this time though I avoided my blog. If I had kept up to date I think the ideas/concept/message and everything else would've been a lot clearer in my own head and would've really helped me. So this is my priority for next module.
I'm pleased my product and packaging, however it would probably be good to have the message more obvious on the stationery by using words from the story. This would re-enforce my concept and would perhaps make it more successful.
The 16 page booklet I am unsure about. The purpose of mine was to remind myself of all the things I always forget. The majority of that is technical stuff. Because of that, I don't think I made is as visually appealing as others have managed and I am disappointed. It would have been useful to look at more examples of work and perhaps include them, rather than the diagram approach I took. The layout is also something I'm not sure about. Some spreads work more than others, but hopefully after the type module I will be able to improve on my layout skills.

Things I need to do next time:

Keep up to date with my blog
Experiment more with different processes
Do more secondary research into pre-existing design
Make sure there are more examples of visual primary research
Not get stressed out as much and try to keep my head clear

16 page booklet

Summary of Project

5 presentation boards

In context

Examples of my product being used. Ideally I would've liked to have photographs of actual children using them, but because I don't know any locally and not feeling comfortable asking parents to take photo's of their children using it, I decided to just have a pair of hands demonstrating the use of the product.

Packaged

The packaging for my final product is complete.

Final Product

The final pencil case and it's contents.

Inside - Sticker sheet, Illustrated story, Sharpener, Pencil, Ruler and Eraser

I'm pretty pleased with how the prototype has turned out. Using the vinyl cutter for the stickers was pretty exciting and adds precision that I couldn't have achieved by hand.

Second Mock Up

The second mock up, here the stickers have been printed properly so the colours are much better. Also I've changed the distance between the fan and MicroMike. I also changed the design on the sharpener so that the sticker was inside. However due to the *frosted* appearance of the plastic the design doesn't successfully show through.

First Mock Up

Here is my first attempt at branding the stationery. I used transparent sticker paper to print the illustrations. I wanted to test how the designs would work on the objects and test how successful colour was on the transparent stock.

Packaging designs

Some of the rejected packaging designs mocked up

Sketches for a packaging design using vacuum forming onto cardboard



Net designs for a packaging design, using a sleeve which wraps around the pencil case



Sketches for an acetate box package



More sleeve designs



Design for cellophane wrapping.

The reasons for these types of design can all be found on my design context blog.