CONCRETE - London Company Report

Posted by Jenn | Posted in | Posted on Tuesday, December 09, 2008

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I have been looking at this company's website (www.concretepost.co.uk) and was quite impressed with the range of facilities and different styles the company looks into. For example:
Visual Effects - Finishing & Visual FX
Graphic Design
3D Animation
5.1 Audio
Offline Editing
Stereoscopic & D.I
All of these areas have been explored by the company to create Broadcasts, Web Design, Commercials, Corporates and Music videos etc.
Some of their projects i am drawn to because of either the kind of style i'd like to work in, or just due to how successful the finished designs come across.
The style i'd like to wok in is using film combined with graphic design and moving image, one project of Concrete's really stood out to me -
New Indie 2005 - Factory Commercial: 30 sec ad to promote indie CD. Edited and composited at Concrete.



I really like the style of this commercial for a new Indie music record, the scratchy, old, dirty, marks which run throughout the whole piece - i especially like the torn edges to give the feel of old photographs, but instead of a static image within the frame, the image is in motion which shows that particular bands music video - i think it is a clever way to promote a CD and the rustic design helps give it that edge.
The other designs that i am drawn to are based around Visual Effects, which i am not too sure i want to get into - I think the ideas along with the designs of the commercials are very successful, and i enjoyed watching them.
RAC


Ford Ka Viral


The website also gives the viewer an insight in how some of these projects were created just by looking at certain showreels.
I also think the site is a good design and is easy on the eye.
My next step in this process is going to get in contact with the company to ask for just some more facts about them and a bit of simple advice with some projects that i am also working on at the moment.

Grant Gilbert - Lecture 3

Posted by Jenn | Posted in | Posted on Friday, November 28, 2008

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Grant Gilbert was taught by Rick when he was learning at Stockport College, so i immediately made the connection in my head that it is possible to 
get somewhere stemming from this multimedia course. The idea that someone who was once local has designed channel indents and has worked in the industry that i was originally interested in working in.
Grant Gilbert is a free-lance designer and has his own company called 'Double G Studios'. The first thing we were shown by him was his ad for channel 4 Music Festival which i have included at the top of this post. I think it is a really successful piece, i am especially drawn to the neon lights wrapped around bodies it creates a nice effect.
Grant Gilbert was approached and was asked to come up with a brand new design for the launch of a new channel within the channel 4 series. More 4. A company in London called 'Spin' produced the More 4 logo, so Grant Gilbert already had that as a base to work with. I like how within the design you can see that he has experimented and played around with the original shapes given to him in the logo. For the animation development he worked with the movement of the logo, there is a flat feel to the design but he designed it all using 3D.
The promotion for the channel was controversial as it played on the theme that it was going to be an adult entertainment channel, and they had recieved a lot of complaints. But thats what makes a good promotion in Grant Gilberts words!

After he had the experience of working with Channel 4, he started working with the BBC which is a lot bigger organisation. Grant was asked to re-brand the BBC 1 logo, so his first initial thoughts were that of the 1953 BBC logo, he has pulled influence from that and set it as his own theme for the new brand. He felt the square shape was too cold and just sat there in the corner, whereas the 1953 circular design had a lot more going for it. i like the fact that he hasn't just placed the logo within a circle which would have been the most easiest thing to do, he has given it a fresh, classy style which gives the design a contemporary feel. I like the fact that he hasn't gone overboard with the design, he's kept it simple, soft and readable.
The difference between the BBc and Channel 4, was that the BBC was 'scared' of its public, they dont want complaints whereas Channel 4 thrived off getting a reaction out of its public. So Grant Gilberts design work for the BBC had to be a bit less playful and just focus on the contemporary aspect of it.
Overall i think Grant Gilberts design work varies and ranges deciding on what kind of brief he gets, for me personally i like the more playful and experimental designs such as the Channel 4 stuff for More 4, E4, and the Big Brother eye etc.

Tal Rosner - Lecture 2

Posted by Jenn | Posted in | Posted on Friday, November 28, 2008

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Most of the work created by Tal Rosner came across as extremely experimental, looking at split screens, shapes, movement and sound. In the lecture, he mentioned a lot about working with orchestras and being involved in live shows, producing pieces of graphic movement according to the feel of the music. This lecture came smack bang right in the middle of our Rhythm brief at the time, which i thought was lucky. Whilst i was experimenting with my pieces, although i did have a little influence from Tal Rosners work, i didnt want to start coming up with stuff that looked exactly like what he had done. For example, the 'concerto for two pianos' piece showed footage from a train mirrored to create expressive shapes in time to the music, it was that kind of symmetrical design that i wanted to steer clear from. I was more influenced by the way he designed the splitting of the screens - especially in both the 'Skins' title sequences, using the typography as the main way of splitting up the screen, i thought it was a clever idea. I also liked it when he mentioned that each of the title sequences at the end section changed depending on which character the programme was focusing on that particular week.
It was quite daunting when he mentioned there were around 72 versions that he had gone through to get to the final edit of the piece for the 1st series of Skins, and around 51 versions for the 2nd series. It made me realise it must be a long process, and a lot of hard work to develop each of the versions to get to the end piece.
One example of his work which i was drawn to was '7 days of creation' working with the London Southbank orchestra. The show had 6 screens above the orchestra showing visuals that Tal Rosner had designed to go with the music they played. But also in this particular piece Tal helped to write the music and designed the visuals at the same time to make sure it all fit in together, and the visuals complimented with the rhythm of the music.
The final piece he showed us in the lecture was called 'Without you' which was an experimental animation, but this piece was different because unlike the other pieces of work he had shown us, this one represented natural sounds instead of techno type music or piano music. This piece was edited by using the sounds created at the time he was filming. This piece in my opinion was the most experimental as he had no proper rhythm to go off, he had to bring it all together in his head to create his own rhythm, and with using natural sound that just makes it more experimental.
Overall it was an interesting lecture, with a good sense of rhythm and visual design in all the pieces he showed us, starting out as a graphic designer proves that with any graphic design experience, it can take you anywhere, and in this case he went into moving image.

Gillian Blease: Illustrator - Lecture 1

Posted by Jenn | Posted in | Posted on Sunday, November 16, 2008

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www.gillianblease.co.uk
This was the first lecture we saw, and although i did like some aspects of Gillian Blease's design work, there were other aspects which i couldn't quite grasp.
When she was showing us examples of her work, i was drawn to the use of patterns and materials more than the imagery she uses.
The image of the fork with spaghetti looped around
it with a yellow background is one of the examples of imagery that i didn't really like. during the lecture Gillian was showing us a range of her work and the image of the
fork and spaghetti cropped up a few times,
maybe with a different colour scheme, but still the same sort of style.
The pattern of the different types of leaves i think is a really nice design, and was one of the patterns in Gillian's lecture that i was drawn to. i like the combination of colours and i think the line work within the different types of leaf compliment each other well. Most of her design work is based around composition, shape, colour and line.

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