Hi-tech/Lo-tech

Here’s the results of my latest tinkering. i got given a Veho Muvi. it’s the wordls smallest digital camcorder. it’s rather nice!

(it’s not me in the photo by the way)

It’s got a rather grainy lo-tech charm to it, like video lomography. it’s a bit too saturated, shaky, but interesting.

it got me to thinking, lomography incorporates a lot of fisheye stuff. i’d heard of a fisheye lens for mobile phones, but it was LUDICROUSLY expensive, and not worth it really.

so i decided, i can probably make one myself for a lot less. i hit upon the idea of a door peephole, as it’s essentially a ready made fisheye lens.

purchased myself a 200 degree field of view door peephole, from crime prevention products for about £6 posted. when it turned up, it was a little too long, it placed the fisheye too far from the lens, so while the fisheye effect worked, it was on mch to small a portion of the image, losing detail and affecting the camera’s ability to meter light, so the centre was waaaaaaaaay overexposed. i trimmed off the exces with a hacksaw, and, using the conveniently perfect-sized hole in the front of the rubber case that comes with the optinal extreme sports pack, mounted it onto the camera.

homemade fisheye adapter made from door viewer

and the final result?

i’m pretty happy with that! good wide field of view, it’s not going to win any cinematography awards, but i like the result, it’s got a very lomo vibe to it, and it cost me less than £10. not too shabby.

i should also mention it works on my iphone quite well, version 2.0 is in the works.. thinking of using elements from old lenses and a disposable camera.. more soon.

Pressure=focus?

So, it’s been a big couple of weeks for me. at the last minute, on a wednesday with 5 working days remaining, my company decided to go to a big exhibition in Amsterdam. 49,000 people registered so potential audience of MANY times anything i’ve ever done before, and we had no media.  it had been relatively quiet up to that point, and things were, well, dragging is the wrong word, i had plenty to do, but itwas all in-house stuff, non urgent, and not really to be seen by the general public.

My immediate response was one of ‘ok, i CAN do this, but it’ll be tight.. ‘ i was not as right as i thought.

Initially i approached it logically, treated it as a new brief. what is the required media, IE what are the immediate things to prioritise, what cannot be left out? answer, some business cards, a cd label design, and some product posters. those things got pencilled in as first work order.

initially i found myself concerned more about the task ahead and it kinda clouded my vision. it may not seem a lot of work, but factor in this. each of the 100 cd’s was to be printed, one at a time, by hand in the little inkjet. the posters, were FAR bigger than i usully design for, and were to be printed on a rather geriatric 300dpi, slightly off calibrated plotter, so colour correction was a NIGHTMARE. plus there was a lot goign on that week, little artworkery jobs for me. i decided one particularly fruitless evening to work a bit at home, after hours. it really got me started on a roll, i finished the printed media and started to think about the media available to me at the show. mostly video screens, our demo rig is a veritable barrage of screens. if we can only hang 2 posters, why are we displaying outdated generic clips and old showreels on the screens? we had a dynamic advertising space, and we NEEDED to make it count.

we make digital signage software  and hardware with some really impressive features. i decided we needed product ads to go in the playlist, then started thinking about how we can really push our branding. i adapted some of my earlier designs for the product ads, then decided, we need motion graphics, we need video. unfortunately, up until this time i had done ONE, count it, ONE small simple video in after effects, and dabbled in premiere some 8 years ago. time for a crash course then!

the end result has given me SO many ideas for the branding. thankfully, while the logo isn’t particularly bold or inspiring, it happens to incorporate 4 colour blocks, red, yellow, green and blue. i decided on picking them out as colours and let the combination of colours speak for the branding.

by then end of the week, i got into a workflow with after effects, and started thinking. our software and hardware cn synch videos on multiple players across a network. this means, multiple screens, each attached to a different pc, playing in synch videos. i started working on idents that started out identical, then ended differently to show that it’s separate content being synched. then the boss threw me a curve ball, based on that, he wanted a car to pass from one side to the other of 4 adjacent screens, 4 different videos, 4 different pc’s. after some tinkering, i came up with an innovative solution to synchronising the clips so when the car left one screen, it entered another. i made one project, put the still image of the car on, animated it to move across the screen. i then copied the layer, including keyframes, pasted it on top, and moved it along the timeline so as the nose of the first one went off screen, the second one entered. i repeated this, and after a small amount of tinkering was ready. i switched layers on and off as required, rendered, repeated. in the end, i had two videos, perfectly seamlessly moving a car, and a plane from one side to the other of four screens, each it’s own clip on it’s own machine, even compensating for the gap between the screens where the edge of the monitor is. and the best part is, i can drop WHATEVER image i want into the clip with a FEW CLICKS  and it’s ready to go. i learned a lot about frame rates, about resolution and codecs, and i learned a basic but effective set of tools for making nice motion graphics. so not only did the excercise produce what the boss said is ‘the best media we’ve had to date, even including stuff we paid agencies for’ and spawn a bunch more ideas, but it taught me a new skill set, and gave me some really important pointers about designing moving graphics, like how long to make motions, how long to hold text on screen for legibility, and was a good excercise in designing for a limited size screen (about 19″) which is an interesting excercise in making the text readable but not too small, or not filling the screen and losing the space. i also learned a lot about larger format printing, and now i’m learning after effects, i’m like a kid with a new toy.

For all that, i’m still scared about the prospect of up to 49,000 strangers seeing my work… it’s new ground for me.

i must have made an impression though, because one of the chairmen of the entire conference, who’s an acquaintance/old colleague of my boss, came to my boss specifically and said ‘ look, our design people have not done this (a video slide show of the times of the talks being held, pic of the speaker, and synopsis) i notice you have a new designer, can you put something together? he sent me the slides, and i made it happen, even taking the initiative and making a nice intro based on the convention logo and a title, so people knew what the info was. this will be played on digital screens all over the conference centre.

i guess what i’m getting at, is that sometimes when you’re stale, all you need is the proper motivation, and a fresh brief, and it can get your creative juices flowing.. shit i needed a mop and bucket for mine, i was in danger of tripping the power with my creative juices this week, though i probably just looked like i was sweating profusely (which i was at times)

Comfort zones and how to break them

We all get complacent from time to time, it’s easy to do. you find yourself producing not identical, but similarly themed and constructed designs through use of a comfortable process. while you could be forgiven for thinking it’s just you developing your own style, IT’S NOT!! it’s one step away from the multitude of scumbag ‘web designers’ out there who drop content into a template and sell it as good design.
Start by thinkign about the problem/brief . what’s the solution likely to entail? take the first ideas and discard them. maybe use a technique you’re not familiar with, or would normally shy away from as it’s more labour intensive. design isn’t supposed to be easy or even fun it’s supposed to LOOK GOOD. if this means learning a new software tool or photographic technique or painting style, so be it. if you need to collect random litter and bake it in the oven on a tray then draw shapes in it, get your gloves on. if you need to edit video or create a 3d model, but don’t know how, TEACH yourself. there’s a million or more tutorials out there on the net, covering various levels of detail on ANYTHING you might possibly want to do on or off a computer. USE THEM!! Thomas Edison didn’t give up after the first lightbulb went pop, and opted to use candles instead. no i’m not comparing the leaflet design for your local butcher to a world changing invention like the lightbulb, i’m comparing the process. if you’re dedicated to what you do, you shouldn’t consider the limitations of your current skill set worthy of defining the final outcome of the project, you need to think BIG, then bring yourself up to a level where BIG becomes regular. in an industry as broad and competitive as design, where you can create almost anything you can imagine given the right techniques and media, it’s ridiculous to think the word ‘no’ is suitable when faced with the question ‘can you do X?’

so come on, dust off the project you’ve had on a back burner because you don’t know how to animate text, or make a three dimensional glass theodolite, or photoshop in that fake bruise, and make yourself learn a new skill. often, this will open up a whole wealth of ideas for other things, which by itself should highlight how important it is to constantly try and improve your skills and abilities so you can think on a higher plane.

The Importance of procrastinating.

We all get times when we’re stuck in a rut, and we can’t seem to generate an idea. times like this, usually, it’s the norm to trawl through some media, try some different techniques, visit a gallery maybe, do something to try and get inspired. lately, I’ve been trying out a different approach, and for me I’d say it’s working fairly well. i was thinking about the reason i usually get stuck. it’s normally the case that I’ve either been looking at the same problem for too long, or I’ve been doing non-stop design work all day and I’m fried. thinking from this, i was looking for something to distract me, specifically thinking that if i break my train of thought, i might come back to the issue from a different angle. so i was looking for something to do that not only occupies my mind, but that is TOTALLY unrelated to design in any way, something I’m doing not for any reason other than sheer enjoyment. for me, this takes the form of playing guitar, or mountain biking, or cooking. maybe even listening to some music or watching a film or tv show, reading a book & so on.
I find the change of focus and pace to be very good for me, it allows me to put aside my frustrations and resentments about the design work, to put myself in a good mood, and to break the negative downward spiral my mind goes into when faced with a problem i can’t solve.. i find when i go back to the work, it’s like a fresh start, and often, some good ideas come out of this. sometimes, i even end up having a sudden idea while in the middle of my procrastination. this made me think of my time at uni, when i would put off doing work to mince about on the internet or in front of the TV.. this was a much less productive way of procrastinating, as it often left me in the same space, surrounded by the problem item and reference materials, or sat at the same computer. i think a change of space is important to the process of mental diversion.

again, this illustrates to me how many and complex the factors affecting your creative process can be. next time, i’ll be musing on your workspace.

Process blue(s)

For years at college and uni I had trouble getting my ideas across. The finished piece was always sound, as were my reasons for doing it, it was documenting my process I had issues with. After a while, I began to almost rebel against the rigid institutional norms of mood board, sketchbook and thumbnails of endlesss variations on a theme. I began to view it as a restrictive and outdated method, reasoning that in the world of work, you don’t get six weeks for a brief,and you either have a good idea or you don’t. To a large extent for me I’m finding this to be true… However. There is always going to come a time when you get stuck and hit a slump. This is when the process comes in, often, the mere act of stepping back from the pallid glow of your screen and putting pen to paper shifts the mental blockage and allows your brain to shit it’s load of half digested fibrous dreck onto the page, and allow you to digest the inevitable good idea that’s brewing. I’m learning that process is a very personal thing, and that discarding any potential idea generation method is foolish, even clearing out the tedious obvious ideas visually is worthwhile, even if you don’t use what you scribble down, it’s all formative. I guess what I’m saying is there’s isno straight definable path to your goal, and as such process however boring, is avital part of the creative endeavour. It’s a shame i didn’t have this realisation while at uni! Onwards and upwards.

Unsung heroes of design

I have been musing of late about mundane design. things we use daily and take for granted, toilet roll holders, milk cartons, ticket machines, etc. they are usually boring, rarely efficient or functional as they could be, and often, ugly. but there’s light in the darkness! the difficulty here is, these things aren’t exciting, they don’t have wow factor, and they get overlooked. we soldier on with things that seem to have been ergonomically designed for another species, things that have never ever been done right. but there’s exceptions. designers as a whole go for the high profile stuff, the big ideas.

personally speaking, i find the details whooly more engrossing. the lovely minimal coatpegs in the hotel i stayed in in sweden- spring loaded wafers of brushed aluminium encased in sublte beech. flush when not in use, sturdy, and roomy. the little pod of milk on the plane (see pic) and the chopping board/drainer that stops me dropping errant bits of pepper and mushroms into the hob every time i cook, and allowed me to bin the shitty bulky old colander.

chopper/drainer

Unsung heroes, these people are redesigning the boring essentials with love and an attention to detail some people can’t muster when faced with a blue sky university brief. i raise my ergonomically atrocious heat-losing desk scratching handle-too-small-for-my-pudgy-mitts coffee mug to you!

good design should apply to EVERYTHING. imagine a wordl where every single thing was sleek, worked well, and lasted? now THAT’s utopia.

Flash kit that isnt flash

Today it’s all gone a bit blue peter, I needed a softbox for some product shots, didn’t have one and no budget. One bastardised cardboard box,some parcel tape and layout paper later …. Tadaaaa! Works a treat too. Take that capitalism!!!

Inspiration- musings on a theme

Isn’t it weird where inspiration comes from?  inspiration is the keystone of good design. this morning for example i was thinking of ways to present a media department’s services and skills, along the theme of engaging, compelling media.. a package arrives, gets opened.. BINGO! bubblewrap… everyone loves bubblewrap, it’s simple, classic, and i defy you not to have a sneaky pop or two.  the important thing is not to be closed to sources of inspiration. something being mundane and ordinary doesn’t preclude it from being a potential weapon in the war against bad design.

SO! today is the day.

this is a HUGE fuckin milestone in my life. today represents the day i escape from the thrall of this crazy shift pattern, this dull job in a dull, windowless grey room doing something that interests me less than the colour and consistency of your bellybutton lint, or the origin of the odd stain on the carpet by my desk. this is a fucking MOMENT right here.

the sun is shining. it’s beautiful morning. there are, in all probability, birds singing. i know this is simply an indication that birds are attempting to get some sexytime, but hell, lets not ruin a perfectly good metaphor with crude innuendo.

today represents the day that for the first time in my life, with the help of a certain someone, i am actually taking the reins and dragging this runaway mule my life has been onto the road, and bending it to my will.

in a mere 72 hours i shall be happily employed as a graphic designer. i’ve been working, albeit in a roundabout and often unproductive route, towards this moment since i was 16 years old. ten years. ten fucking years.

so anyway

birds are singing

the sun is, in time honoured fashion, shining.

there are daisies on the grass

and i

am

FREE.

*takes a deep breath*

*smiles*

today really is a new day.

pete.

so i guess this is something and nothing.

this is the start of the beginning of my daring escape form the world of grey cubicles and 12 hour shifts in windowless rooms, into the world of colour and light and creativity i missed so damn much.
i fully expect a few months of money-related whingeing to ensue, please do not adjust your sets.
more soon
peteloaf