Yet another essay layout edit

essay layout again by ~holleighwood on deviantART

I swear I'll stop, but all this uploadings keeping me from actually doing something worthwhile..

Mock contents page

this is a non working mock up of my contents page. The background is real but the contents bar isn't. I've just done it to see if anyone can work out how I would go about achieving this! I want the line along the right side to slide down, then the background behind it to fade in, followed by each of the page names, then when it's highlighted for it to change colour like the example. If you know how to do this (or know which book/online resource will point me in the right direction) let me know! Also any comments on layout/design would be much appreciated! :)

Layout 1

 

This is my basic layout for my essay (I think, right now, at this moment, although it will 100% change ha!) I want a consistancy in my layouts, but I want alot of motion in there too, so I really dunno how I'm gonna go about this. I think I'm gonna buy i-D or something that's a bit more experimental with layouts to get some inspiration

Another essay idea

I keep looking into magazines to get inspiration for my essay layout, which has made me think, why not make it a magazine rather than a dictionary, although it will be displayed page by page. But it would allow me to be a bit more colourful in my work.

stresssssss

stress by ~holleighwood on deviantART

can't get the contents page to work properly, and it messes up the rest of the frames! soooooo frustrating!

Initial Essay layout

essay layout by ~holleighwood on deviantART

This is my first template for my essays layout. I've decided to go with a simple theme for now, which as I progress I will change. One edit I can see I need to make already is the size of the file, at the moment it is the same size as an A4 piece of paper, however when viewing it on a computer screen unless you shrink it to size in flash it will be too large for most screens, which is a shame cause I liked the larger size. Any criticism, ideas etc. feel free to comment, cause I'm not 100% on the design yet.

Quiz Ideas

Just thought to base my quiz on QI, which has a completely random scoring system with even more random questions. So in the end, you don't really know if you've won, you just get a score and its up to you to decide if you're happy with that. I'll include video and sound by if you answer the most obvious answer which is wrong, then the screen will switch to a clip of like... an explosion? I dunno something random that indicates its wrong. Then if you get it right the question will change. I'd like to be able to make the questions flick through randomly but I'm just thinking that if I get enough questions together then this will be possible.

For my title page I’d like to have the title plainly displayed over a background of falling (most probably black) glitter. The reason I’ve decided to use glitter is because it’s easy to get hold of, and with the right lighting and execution could look really strong. To do this I will book a studio and film glitter being poured on a white background. Hopefully I’ll be able to get the desired effect. I’ll then have a button appear which allow you to navigate to the next page which will contain the contents, and possibly the abstract. More than likely these will be on separate pages. I'll upload when I do actually film this and see how it looks, as I'm not going to use it if it doesn't look nice and not cheaptastic. I've thought about the fonts I want to use too. I want a script, bold font for my titles and a sans serif font for any body text. I will also use a all capital sans serif font for any miscellaneous texts/titles. I will keep the design generally consistant.
-this is one example of a possible layout, the grey areas will most likely contain some kind of illustration or background design.

More thought about display of visual essay

Thinking more about how I want to display my essay I've decided that a dictionary was a good starting point. I then thought again about The Stool Pigeon and the service you can use to read it online. If I could work a way of doing this using either pdf or flash then I could begin to look at layouts for each page etc. At first I wanted my design to be quite plain and understated, but maybe using colour and illustration in my work may further show my influences. Below are some scans to show how the paper is layed out and where I may get influence from.

Also looked at my sketchbook from my final project in college, so weird to look back, I didn't actually realise how far I've come - my old stuff makes me cringe a bit so I wont put it on here haha. But my influences have remained the same, although back then I did use artists and designers that I probably wouldn't use now. I did however find CODE magazine, a dutch lifestyle magazine, which I can't find online anywhere which is so annoying, their site is just an enter page. Although with the amazing power of my mind I thought to use google images and it's come up...

Essay notes

(I wrote this a couple of days ago so it's backwards but rather than fanny about with changing it I'm leaving it as it was..)

I really want to make a short film to conclude my essay, I've been making notes about how I can refer back to my influences, and also thought about how I am developing my own style. If I could sum my style in three words I would choose illustration, colour and glitchy.

Illustration
I like a lot of illustrated work, when I look through all the images I've saved over the years the majority have some form of illustration, be it a photograph, packaging or graphics. Some of my favourite videos use rotoscoping, a technique I'd love to try myself, maybe using it in a different way. As it is, it has simply been used to trace movements of people or objects. I'd love to think of another way to incorporate it

Colour
Colour, or lack of.. I love anything that uses colour to change how we see things. Colour to add mood - or to change mood completely. Make up that just shouldn't work yet does, blue lips, for example. Scenes in films that use colour to tell you something, like in schindlers list, the girl in the red coat. I like striking, bright colours too. Nabil Elderkin uses lots of blue and almost neon in his work. Pierre Debauscherre uses contrasting pinks, greens and black.

Glitchy
This is a bit of a hard one for me to describe. I keep seeing it alot lately, overlaying or replaying of imagery. It's seen in Lady Gaga - Telephone for example. Also when it gets played with more, the datamoshing effect Nabil Elderkin uses often.

also not really a word, but more of an interest. I really like the use of lighting when its used in an unusual way. To create shapes or contrast rather than simply to light up an area.

I keep thinking how I'm going to show these in a short film. So I'm trying to think of a subject. Music, fashion, I want to do something that's not going to look horrible and tacky though. I've also had a bit of an idea. I'd like to make my essay possibly like a dictionary, rather than just an essay maybe make it a bit different. I don't know, but since it is a visual essay and doesn't have to follow the general rules of an essay...does it?

Visual Essay Ideas

Thinking of how I want to display my visual essay, I would love to set it out like a dictionary, Listing a word, then using imagery and videos to illustrate what the word means to me. Although I don't know how I would do this cause I'm a bit fussy about presentation. Powerpoint is just gonna look old school so I don't want to go there, pdf might be a good idea though, I bought computer arts a few weeks ago and it had something in it about how you can just about do anything with a pdf, although I have no idea how I would start that. I really wanted to do some kind of short film to go in my essay, but kind of running out of time now so going to have to dismiss that idea its looking like. Hmmm!

--just thought could do sections instead of letters of the alphabet. In each section place images that 'go together'?

Lykke Li Artwork

♥

Bit of flash work

Click example start page by ~holleighwood on deviantART

This is my 2 second clip from messing around with flash for the best part of 93482938423 hours! Still not decided what my quiz will be about, but thought about how I can incorporate video into it. Possibly by having the questions asked in video format, or a clip which plays when you get the answer wrong/right. Or clips from music videos which you then have to identify the song (that is if I do choose music as a topic, which I'm kind of distancing from as of all the farting about with laws and stuff)

The Stool Pigeon

The Stool Pigeon is a free music newspaper, you can find it dotted about in loads of vintage shops and random bars, as I did. I originally picked it up because I liked the band on the front, but when I looked through it I just thought.."yes". The design is spot on, quirky with readability and playfulness. Music and writing are a big inspiration to me.. so if you have any kind of interest in music then I really recommend looking out for it. (you can also read it online, too, and its free, so no excuses)

Drake - Over

If you don't like hiphop/rap just mute and watch. I LOVE THIS VIDEO.

Quiz Example

I've just found this flash quiz, which uses film, sound and eventually determines what "type" you are. Its basically a personality test, but rather than give you a typical breakdown of your personality, it compares it to existing typefaces. I got rational, understated, progressive and disciplined, and my font was courier. It then tells you about the font and compares it to personality traits, then gives you a break down of what other people got. I thought it was a clever way of quizzing you about yourself rather than a subject, and I may do something like this in my own work. However, I can imagine something like that would be tricky to code and get the timing right.

Roses Gabor - Stupid

This video obviously had the same influences as Rihanna, MIA, Kanye. But I really like it. The styling is nice, aswell as the props. All work well together. I really like the scene at about 1.20, where the hands come out of the wall - this was my main reason for including it. I wasn't expecting it, as it looks like quite a low budget video.

Claire Pinegar

Plumbline - Once in a Lifetime from Claire Pinegar on Vimeo.

I really like the animation techniques used in this video, I'd love to learn how to do something like this...

& we're back...

So, we had the first lot of lessons today and I'm actually feeling really motivated this term. The lecture with students from next year kind of helped me in confirming I was making the right choice in my decision to take moving image, and so has encouraged me to look into what I want to include in my essay again. I'm hoping to get that started this week, and will hopefully go into the library tomorrow and see what I can find. Also started the 2nd Flash project today, which I'm finding a bit easier this time to get to grips with, I'm sure I'll be kicking myself for saying that later on, but yeah.. good times ahead?

MIA vs. Rihanna

When I saw Rihanna's video for Rude Boy there was something I didn't like about it. But I couldn't quite put my finger on it. But as I've seen it more it's actually really grown on me, so when I looked into it to put it on here I read about the controversy (if you can call it that) that the idea was stolen from a video from a few years back by MIA. Watching that video back made me realise what it was that I didn't like about Rihanna's video - its too polished. It just takes away from what the tribal colours and glitchy effects are all about. MIA's video however, I feel, nails it.
"We're paving the road so that other people can drive on it."  Diplo, producer of MIA - Boyz

Director M.I.A. / Jason "Jay Will" Williams

 Director Melina Matsoukas

Wiley ft. Emeli Sandé - I Could Never Be Your Woman

Miike Snow

Miike Snow... ♥ end of.

Spike Jonze - I'm Here

I've meant to write about this for a few weeks now. I'm Here is a short film directed and written by Spike Jonze. Its a sweet story about a destructive relationship, shown in a physical way aswell as emotional. I liked it alot. I read alot about it on different blogs and stuff and found that it was inspired by the book The Giving Tree looking at the influences in popular culture really makes me want that book. MGMT's Kidswas also influenced by the book, so if that isn't a good enough reason to want it I don't know what is. Anyway back to the film. The shots are beautiful, Jonze portrays the emotions of solitude, loneliness, insignificance so well. I actually could watch this over and over. Even though the story shows robots, you feel you can relate to the characters.