Task 3

The history of film spans over a hundred years, from the latter part of the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century. Motion pictures developed gradually from a carnival novelty or a japanese pornography television show to one of the most important tools of communication and entertainment, and mass media in the 20th century. Motion picture films have had a substantial impact on the arts, technology, and politics.

Flip book were early popular animation devices invented during the 1800s, while a Chinese zoetrope-type device was invented already in 180 AD. These devices produced movement from sequential drawings using technological means, but animation did not really develop much further until the advent of cinematography.

There is no single person who can be considered the "creator" of the art of film animation, as there were several people doing several projects which could be considered various types of animation all around the same time.

Georges Méliès was a creator of special-effect films; he was generally one of the first people to use animation with his technique. He discovered a technique by accident which was to stop the camera rolling to change something in the scene, and then continue rolling the film. This idea was later known as stop-motion animation. Méliès discovered this technique accidentally when his camera broke down while shooting a bus driving by. When he had fixed the camera, a hearse happened to be passing by just as Méliès restarted rolling the film, his end result was that he had managed to make a bus transform into a hearse. This was just one of the great contributors to animation in the early years.

Romain Segaud was born in 1980. After earning a Bachelor of Science degree, he attended the famous Supinfocom school in Valenciennes in northern France . After four years, he codirected his first film, Tim Tom, with Christel Pougeoise. His inspiration for the film came from Georges Méliès, Svankmayer, Norman McLaren, and many others. Currently, Romain works with the French design company, Cube Creative.

http://www.romainsegaud.com/preload.html

Task 2

All organizations, buildings and streets need identity and wayfinding.
They need well designed wayfinding tools and sign systems to show us where we are, and where we are going.
If these systems are not in place, then buildings and environments cannot be navigated, nor used easily.


Street names:

Task 1

Type is one of the designers main considerations. Every designer is expected to choose the proper type from an enormous range of typefaces. The visual appearance of typefaces depends on a large extent on the relative measurements of their proportions.
The typeface that I am interested in are:

1Bembo
«Some typeface have stood the test of time and appear as contemporary today as they did 500 years ago. Their modern digitized version have a slight edge when it comes to clean outlines.» from the book Stop Stealing sheep» Erik Speikermann & E.M.Ginger.

Type designed by Francesco Griffo for Aldus Manutius'press. Bembo from the Monotype Corporation, 1929, is a modern equivalent.

1Helvetica
To compare typefaces characteristics, we should look closely at:
the stroke variation (contrast), serifs (if any), x-heights and the stress.
And we can clearly see that this typeface is based on geometrical shapes, and we can see also the wide empty space inside the body stroke (counter) which makes the font more legible, clear, straight forward and neutral.

1Avant Garde Gothic

ITC Avant Garde Gothic was designed by Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase and based on Lubalin’s logo for Avant Garde magazine. Ed Benguiat designed the condensed fonts for the International Typeface Corporation. ITC Avant Garde Gothic is a geometric sans serif type, that is, the basic shapes were made with a compass and T-square. The design is reminiscent of the work from the 1920s German Bauhaus movement. Its letterforms are built of circles and clean lines what make it more legible readable and clear.

Critical Debates in Design.

A little bit of research -
Family Classifications of Type.

Since the time of Gutenberg, the typographic form has evolved with technology, philosophy, and culture. In order to effectively analyze this typographic evolution, the design of type characters over the last five and a half centuries is most often broken down into classifications of common visual characteristics, called families of type:

1 Oldstyle Characteristics
* minimal variation of thick and thin strokes
* small, coarse serifs, often with slightly concave bases
* small x-heights.
* In the round strokes, the stress is diagonal, or oblique, as their designs mimic the hand-held angle of the pen nibs of the scribes.
* The tops of lowercase ascenders often exceed the height of the capital characters.
* The numerals, called old style figures, vary in size and have ascenders and descenders. Many contemporary versions of Old Style typefaces do not retain the old style figures but, in catering to contemporary taste, use lining, or capital height figures.
Old Style examples:


2 Transitional Characteristics
* A greater contrast between thick and thin stokes.
* Wider, gracefully bracketed serifs withflat bases.
* larger x-height
* Vertical stress in rounded strokes
* the height of capitals matches that of ascenders.
* Numerals are cap-height and consistent in size.
Transitional examples:
3 Modern Characteristics
* Extreme contrast between thick and thin strokes
* Hairline serifs without bracketing
* Small x-height
* Vertical stress in rounded strokes Modern example:


4 Slab Serif Characeristics
* minimal variation of thick and thin strokes
* heavy serifs with squared-off ends
* large x-heights.
* vertical stress in rounded strkes Slab Serif example:


5 Sans Serif Characteristics
* little or no variation between thick and thin strokes
* lack of serifs
* larger x-height
* no stress in rounded strokes Sans Serif example:

6 Decorative/Display
For most of type's history, the use of decorative characters was applied to the page design of books, and usually limited to ornamenting title pages, chapter headings, and initials. In the 19th century, the proliferation of Slab Serif typefaces did not ultimately satisfy the insatiable public appetite for distinct and ornate types.

7 Script/Cursive.
Script and cursive typefaces are those designed to literally represent handwriting or hand lettering styles. As a general distinction, scripts have linked or joining lowercase letters, similar to handwriting, while cursive appear as un-joined hand lettering.
Script/Cursive example:

now AT LAST!

This project concise of design not as an output not as a product but it is a process, a way of thinking about the world, a service a set of interaction! This brief is more into a journey than into the destination.
By 2020 half the adult population of Britain are going to be over 50, and they going to be living for greater ages! For lot of older people they suffer from loneliness from isolation and from vulnerability. So as designer I have created a service that helps this social group to be more connected to be less vulnerable to be less lonely to be less isolated.

I started by really analyzing the problem! Since there is a lot of different types of older people in that mix in different situations! I focused down the issue, by going out and really meeting with older people, to have their opinion and there point of view in order to have a clearer vision of the problem!

The main challenge was to get the older people involved in my work!
In order to understand what is like living an older person’s life, what do they do during the day! what experiences do they have, feelings perceptions references belong to them as a group rather than you, I started interviewing couple of older people.
The second important thing is that I had to design with them, rather than for them, which is very tricky to do, and the best way to that is invite them to give you ideas, so for you to see the scene quite clearly, explore their ideas,, and your job to build on them, introduce others, and then I moved out of the brief, so I came out with new potential solutions.

I realized that elderly living happily are those who still have daily contact with their family. So I mainly concentrated on bridging the generation gap, which is a very important factor, since the model of extended family living together has now almost vanished in the United Kingdom. In fact increased mobility makes it is less likely that generations of the same family will even live in the same geographical area.
The weakening of these ties results in older people and more vulnerable people in particular, falling outside the care and responsibility of their families. And in this service the younger generation will be the main key in creating relationships for the old people.

And I am Lebanese, living in an environment which provides another perspective; more or less a greater poverty levels, but still having a strong family and a Religious support and network. So I have created a service “get together” which will bring "Larry" (an older person) and "Steve" (a younger person) together and get them both involved! By using Steve’s energy for Larry’s daily need so it will be an exchange for both individuals.

What was really important is that I tested them back with people constantly, in order to get feedback! Not only to the old people themselves but the people around them! Because they have a different perspective!

At last, this project made me look at design not as finished pieces, but to the process itself!
I have read a quote by Paul Arden “You don’t have to be creative to be creative” which I found really true, and similar to the case here, your research and your findings may lead you to greater solutions.

Graphic Authorship!

Graphic Authorship!
What does it mean to call for a graphic designer to be an author!

What is an Author?!
An Author is defined both as “the person who or originates or gives existence to anything” and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. The second entry goes on to clarify that, when using the term author, the “anything is created is most usually associated with written work.

What is a Graphic Designer?!
A graphic designer is someone how is always making sense of his material, and mediating it through the forms and codes of visual language!


Self-authored graphic design is a dance between two central partners with varying degrees of differentiation: the designer as self and the content. The designer as self is recognition of the central presence of the designer as a voice and a vision in the process of form-creation and message-formulation. As an individual who balances emotional and expressive qualities with cognitive concerns, the designer’s personal views and convictions are integral ingredients to the definition of self-authored graphic design. Having a point of view from the vantage point of self is crucial.


Examples:


Ken Garland
http://www.kengarland.co.uk/

J Abbot Miller

Alan Fletcher

Final Boards