contact phone call with flame digital

Due to not going on the trip to London i knew that i had to make sure that i got my second portfolio crit and i didn't want to go through the long process of e-mails as this would put me much further behind than the rest of the group, so i decided to call flamedigital in Manchester to see if this would have better results.

FlameDigital:0845 226 0766

I contacted Flame on Thursday march 12th.

When i got through I introduced myself and explained that I am a 3rd year multimedia design student at Stockport college and that i am looking for feedback on my work and trying to visit some company's and get an insight into the working world and see how things work in the professional design industry, an asked if it would be possible for me to bring my portfolio into flame and show someone there my work, to which the woman i spoke to replied saying it might be possible and to hold while she would ask some of the designers there and so i waited and she returned to tell me that there head of design would be willing to see me if i was available on march 16th to which i replied that i was and so the meeting was arranged for 2pm and i thanked her for taking the time to speak to me and ask the designers to see me.

motion graphics inspiration

www.motionspire.com

motionspire is a website that showcases the latest in motion graphics making hte rounds in the design community and also offers designers a chance to showcase there own work adn uploads videos stating "its OK to show off".

The website is extremely simple to use due to the fact it is very nicely designed with a very clean layout that makes it easy to navigate, on the home page you get a selection of video thumbnails of what are the most current.
there is also a list of catagories down one side of the page that let you narrow down your selection to such subjects as 2d, 3d, typography and idents to name a few and while this is not a new feature to a website but the fact that this site is dedicated purely to motion graphics the catagories are specific to video so you get much more specialized catagories than you would find on other websites, so you get options such as stop motion, short film and commerical work. there is also a list of back dated material that goes back 7 months.

One downside to the website is that they dont provide any information about the videos that you are watching like the brief but you do get a link to the creaters of the piece of works company or personal website which is helpful as soemtime on video hosting sites you find a video someone has posted but then ahve no idea who was behind creating it so this feature really helps to discover more companys, and also to research into more videos from that company.

Simone Legno

Simone Legno is a Italian artist and illustrator who i found out about in computer arts magazines special on character and toy design when asked to describe his work he uses one word 'japanisme' due to him originally being from Rome but having an fascination with all things Japanese, he works under the name 'tokidoki' which means 'sometimes' in Japanese and this represents his belief in hope and the hidden strength in everybody.

His work is extremely popular and since his illustrations became so well known he has started the hugely popular vinyl toys 'cactus Friends' done, worked on countless collaborations and has also branched into a clothing line and skateboard decks amongst other products turning tokidoki from a personal blog and portfolio into a world wide business.
What i like about his work is that is is a take on Japanese art through the eyes of an Italian, i really like the Japanese style of art but the subject matter has always seemed aimed at the Japanese and is something i have never been able to relate to and not found interesting, the fact that his art is looking in from the outside makes it more rateable he gives the strange characteristics of Japanese art characteristics that make allot of sense and relate to real feelings we all have for example his cactus friends series are based on the cute Japanese characters but he has dressed them in cactus suits to protect them from the world, which i think is a really nice view on how to voice opinions on the world around us that can be quite taboo subjects to talk about of do a piece of art work around.


Other than his ideas about his subjects i love his style of illustration, like most work that catches my eye it is very clean using strong lines and strong block colours to create simple characters that all have a personality of there own using a limited colour palette that can be quite contrasting but they also work together to create something that stands out, and not because it is a huge mess of colour and shapes but because his compositions are all balanced perfectly, there is always so much going on but everything sits on the canvas perfectly where as some illustrators throw a huge amount of elements and different colours on a page and it just looks like a busy mess where someone has tried to throw everything on a page to grab your attention which it probably will be then when you really look there is just to much going on, where as in Simone's work he balances a piece by using different sizes of elements on the page for example there will be one large character surrounded by 10 smaller characters and the way they are positioned makes it all balanced so when the full own attack of imagery and colour catches your eye you look deeper to find a perfect composition and i think this is what makes his work appeal to me, the fact that he creates these mad compositions that still give of the feeling of simplicity and balance.

Nick Veasey X-ray photographer

Nick Veasey uses x-rays to take photographs and his work is like nothing else, the way he describes the ideas behind his work is a cliche we here alot but he has put his ideas into a working practice, he says "we live in a world obsessed with image. what we look like what our clothes look like, houses, cars... i like to counter this superficial appearence by stripping back the layers and showing what it is like under the surface" and while this sounds like the plot to a hollywood movie his work truly shows the inner beauty in anything the idea that there is so much more to be seen thatn what is on the outside is obvious but when you actually see the results of his work it is quite impressive to see what is actually there and how the inticity of of a flower or an insect, one of the things that i think looks particularly cool is an x-ray of a shirt which looks really nice with the all of the thread patterns and the way the creases in the materials are emphasised and its not just how it looks, the idea of x-raying a shirt is something i thought wasnt really possible so i decided to find out exactly how he creates these x-ray photos, and the way he does it is so much more that pointing a camera and shooting.

First of all he doesnt have a normal studio, he has a solid structure built in the middle of no where that to people just looks like a big black box, but it is actually specially constructed to hold in the radiation from the x-ray machines, the most incredable thing about his work is that all his photographs are life size becasue of the way that they are taken, subjects are placed against a lead floor with shets of film placed behind them in front of x-ray head units, he then goes outside his studio to where the controls for the x-ray machines are and he then sets the exposure settings depending on the subject and once this is set the head units send x-rays through the subjects which then leaves an image on a film strips.

Honda advert

Let it shine

Honda Insight - Let It Shine from Honda on Vimeo.

I recently came across this advert from Honda who are constantly innovative with there add campaigns and once again it is the same high standard and quality we have come to expect from Honda whether its a elaborate domino effect sequence of car parts or a amazing cgi animation with a catchy tune.
The advert is a part of Honda's going green initiative and this advert is for there latest hybrid car and was created by the company Wieden+Kennedy, the idea is that we see an animation that is showing the good in everyone, and we are supposed to be seeing feel good images, now what is amazing about this advert is the way it has been made, what we see is a series of moving images that are constantly changing and animating and seem to be made by either a car fully set up series of lights and l.e.d's or possibly made in a program such as after effects, but actually what you are looking at is hundreds of cars carefully lined up in a grid pattern that have been set up so that that each cars headlights can be individually flashed from a computer that is 60ft in the air with a camera mounted to it and the computer has been programed so that the right cars flash at the same time to not only create a static image in the lit and unlit headlights but to flash on and off in sequences to animate the images and i personally think the concept is brilliant, i watched the making of video and they said how it had never been done before, i would have loved to see more into how they programed the computers and the planning of the sequences because to think about how to choreograph something like this is incredible and i would love to know the process for that part of the animation.

The making of:

Honda Insight - The Making of "Let it Shine” from Honda on Vimeo.

I'm a mac

I have always been a huge fan of the mac vs PC viral adverts from apple both the U.S version and U.K version starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb and I have noticed something about these adverts while doing my research into virals and that is that these adverts have sparked of a series of copycat adverts and homages whether there series of just home made by fans putting there own spin on the concept and i have been wondering how has apple done this in these virals what is it about them that makes everyone want to make there own version, even Microsoft themselves launched a advertising campaign titled "I'm a pc" which seems awfully familiar, in which we see lots of people introducing them selves as "a pc" and they explain about all the fun and creative things they do with there pc's adn by hiring a huge list of celebrites and an appearence by bill gates himself to hit back at the macs advert where they poke fun at the pc's lack of creative programs, operating problems and how much better a mac but in a humorous way.



So what is about these adverts that has prompted all these imitations form south park cartoon style versions, " I'm a ps3 and I'm a wii" adn strangest of all a religious adaptation titled "i'm a Christ follower" which copies every detail down to the clothes the two wear in the advert, and the reason they are so successful is that they are exactly what a viral was created to be, a short inexpensive simple video, the fact that they arnt impressive with cgi or camera effects makes them extremely personable the fact that they look like something anyone can make with whatever equipment they have to hand just pick up a video camera and go, and that is why they work and this is what makes a succesful viral is that its not a huge budget video that when people watch it they might be put of by the over the top thing that they are watching, so the trick seem sot be to make the viral something that the viwere can assosiate with and not have a warning or message thrown at them in huge red flashing letters.

Ray-ban viral advert

Catch

While doing research for my viral idea for pro-tec safety equipment so i decided to look online into successful viral adverts to find out more about them and how company's use them, while doing this i came across a list of the ten best Internet virals that someone had put together and this list included a video that i somehow had never seen but 2.7 million other people had and this lead me too a video on YouTube titled "guy catches glasses with face" and this is the viral for Ry-Ban sunglasses and i absolutely loved the video, it consists of two guys playing catch using a pair of sunglasses and only their faces in a series of bizarre situations for example one guy throws the sunglasses down of a roof and the other guy catches them on his face in a kind of sport.
As the advert goes on the situations in the game the two play get even more impossible whereas the first few look as though they could have been done in about 100 tries but you still know there fake but the video is so intriguing to watch that even on the most insane throw where one guy drives past in a car and the other guys throws the glasses through the window onto his face which is impossible you forget that its fake and are just amazed and this is what works well about the advert its a original take on the many faked basketball and football trick shot videos.

One thing i noticed about the the viral is that there is no in your face strap or logo to say ray-ban or to ruin the illusion that someone has gone to the trouble to make this and that its just an advertisement, until i did more research into the company and i found out ray-bans company slogan of "never-hide" and i noticed that it is written in dust on the car window in the end shot which i hadn't noticed first time because i read it but didn't know it had anything to do with the company, and i really like this idea of putting logos and slogans in other advert instead of just adding them later.