OUGD603 - Brief 3 - Internal Collaborative - YCN Competition Brief - Art Fund - Production

Production

The paper backgrounds were created using pastel coloured papers with these colours influenced by existing colours within Art Funds branding. Lasercutting the designs allowed all the bits to be cut precisely and was useful for the smaller more detailed elements. Using the correct settings on the lasercutter meant there were no burn marks on the top of the paper and only some marks on the back, however these would not be seen within the design. The different elements for each design were then layered up using sticky pads, which when put together allowed depth and shadows to be created within the designs. 

The final images were photographed in a room with an LED light which gave more even lighting. Layering the designs created subtle shadowing which created depth within the photographs. It was quickly found that it would be difficult to capture the vibrancy of the papers in camera and that Photoshop would be needed, so there was a focus on getting the shadows right within the images. 

The photographs were edited in Photoshop by adjusting the hue, contrast and saturation however this highlighted the inconsistencies in lighting in some of the images, with these areas then having to be further edited which made them look over edited. Stripping the initial photographs of colour and using the multiply feature on Photoshop allowed block colour to be applied over the image however the  shadows were not as strong as previous experiments so the contrast had to be adjusted. This however led to the shadows becoming alot darker and made the images look like digital illustrations, with the images not retaining the quality of the layered paper which defeated the purpose of physically making them.The images were all retaken in a room with LED ceiling lights which created more even lighting and made the photographs easier to edit. The aim of the second batch of photographs was to get the correct shadowing rather than capture the colour of the paper as the images would be greyscaled and the multiply feature in Photoshop would be used. 

The clipping mask tool in Illustrator was used to crop the images to their circular format. The images were rotated and scaled to fit in with the positioning of the clock hands in each design.

The design was animated in After Effects using a technique where Meg would pan around a large image of all the clocks. To help Meg do this a master document was created with the order and layout of the clocks. On another layer the line that ran through all of the clocks and created the clock hands was overlaid onto the clock images so they matched up. Meg used this document to pan along the line and move through the images. The arrangement of the clocks meant that their were some gaps between the clocks where the line was really long so adding information along these bits of line filled the time and provided details about the Student Art Pass. Meg used a mask within the animation to allow the line to create itself through the  animation, creating a sense of the line being the journey through the different places.  This mask also revealed the words as the animation progressed. Music was added over the top of the animation, with our choice having a good sense of relaxation and energy, to reflect a journey.

GIFs were created in a square format to make them suitable for Instagram. The images for the animation were used as frames to create the GIF. Slowing the speed of the GIF allowed the information to be read more easily.