INFORMATION DESIGN - ASSIGNMENTS DOCUMENTATION
INFORMATION DESIGN - ASSIGNMENTS DOCUMENTATION
JAN 4TH - TBA (WEEK 1 - WEEK 7)
NG VEYHAN (0349223) / BACHELORS OF DESIGN (HONS) IN CREATIVE MEDIA
INFORMATION DESIGN
ASSIGNMENTS DOCUMENTATION
Instructions
Practical
Exercise 1
Initially, I wanted to find something that could cater to the first option of the exercise, which was to visualize a collection data made of a large number of similar items, but with differing variants.
Due to having just moved to a place living alone, I didn't have much on hand. Therefore I opted to go with the second option, which was the "emergency bug-out bag". Since I was living with quite minimal items with me, a lot of my belongings ended up in the picture, much to my amusement.
I organized the items in terms of importance, with essentials more towards the top right of the spread, and least relative importance at the bottom left.
(Fig 01, Exercise 1: Quantifying Data, 7/1/2022)
Exercise 02
For this exercise, we were supposed to pick a bestiary from a game and create an infographic from it. While I am personally not very familiar with the Pokemon series, I just turned to one of the games that I was playing at the time.
The game that I chose was one called "Noita". It is a roguelike dungeon crawler with deck building mechanics. Due to the Finnish origin of the game and it's enemies, I felt that it had an interesting lineup of creatures, The pixel art was also quite charming, with a fairly complex design.
Scrolling through the wiki for the game, I picked out some enemies that are in the same "class", which could be arranged in an evolution-type manner.
Initially, I sketched out a simple layout for the basic elements of the page.
(Fig 02, Basic Elements, 10/1/2022)
(Fig 03, Completed Poster, 12/1/2022)
WEEK 2 Exercise
This exercise centered around some simple parenting principles to animate large amounts of text for the kinetic typography assignment that would be graded. We just had to animate a very short length of audio and add the lyrics accordingly.
First was to just type out the entire line of lyrics that was to be displayed, which was in this case was an arrangement similar to a block. The words had to be separated in different layers to be animated individually. However, when working on a larger project, it could be pre-composed to give easier control.
(Fig 04, Adding Text, 17/1/2022)
After that was to just animate the text. We were expected to just use the simple animations that were already provided in After Effects. As it was a simple exercise, I didn't pay too much mind and just added a simple animation to each word. I had also timed for the words to appear a few frames earlier than when it is pronounced to give some time for the animation to occur.
(Fig 05, Animating Text, 17/1/2022)
After animating each phrase, I parented all the words to a null layer and transformed its position to create a panning effect between each word. Scale is then used to zoom out of the words.
(Fig 06, Completed Week 2 Exercise, 17/1/2022)
(Fig 04, Adding Text, 17/1/2022)
After that was to just animate the text. We were expected to just use the simple animations that were already provided in After Effects. As it was a simple exercise, I didn't pay too much mind and just added a simple animation to each word. I had also timed for the words to appear a few frames earlier than when it is pronounced to give some time for the animation to occur.
(Fig 05, Animating Text, 17/1/2022)
After animating each phrase, I parented all the words to a null layer and transformed its position to create a panning effect between each word. Scale is then used to zoom out of the words.
WEEK 3 Exercise
This exercise aimed to introduce a few different methods to transition in information that is presented in different visual forms. There were a few different types, but I was assigned to create a line chart for this particular exercise.Taking the information from the provided chart, I made a rough replication of it in After Effects. While I felt I could replicate it more accurately with the help of external software such as Photoshop, I felt it unnecessary in this case.
(Fig 07, After Effects Grid, 4/2/2022)
To create the effect of drawing the line stroke, a wipe transition was added. I duplicated the path of the stroke and applied the path on the text to make it travel along the lines.
(Fig 08, Completed Chart, 4/2/2022)
EXERCISE 3
This exercise was a group work assignment for our team. We were instructed to create a lyric music video for a song of our choosing. Our group decided upon the song "i'm so tired..." by Lauv and Troye Sivan.
(Fig 09, i'm so tired.... by Lauv, Troye Sivan, 24/1/2019)
Before the actual work began, we divided the portions that we would work on individually. I was assigned to handle the last chorus of the song, which had many background vocals and I thought it appropriate to be included in the displayed lyrics.
Adding the "foreground" vocals was not particularly difficult, as it normally just consisted of a block of text in the center. The trickier part was finding a way to include the repetitive background vocals into the composition.
I opted to convert the text layers to 3D objects to create some more interesting compositions and have the repeated text seem less repetitive and distracting by playing with the depth, shifting unnecessary text out of focus.
(Fig 10, Creating 3D text, 20/1/2021)
(Fig 11, Typography Music Video, 22/1/2022)
EXERCISE 4
This exercise was fairly short as there was not really much emphasis on it during class. I just had to look up the weather in each individual capital city that I selected.
Then I downloaded an AI file of weather icons. I created a simple composition to showcase the weather over the course of several days. The composition I then duplicated and altered the information accordingly.
(Fig 11.5, Weather Forecast, 15/2/2022)
PROJECT 1
For Project 1 of the module, we were instructed to create a poster based on the steps given by any particular video of our choosing in the Pasta Grannies channel on YouTube. I picked one at random as I felt there wasn't much bearing on the workflow.
(Fig 12, Pasta Grannies, 15/6/2021)
(Fig 13, Lollipop swatch, 25/1/2022)
I wanted to create the poster with a centered composition, therefore all the elements involved in the poster, from the title banner, text for the steps, were all placed on the center vertically down the poster.
For the font to be used in the poster, I went for a custom font called KG sketch, which looked akin to a chalkboard, which has that rustic appeal that one would expect in a small Italian themed restaurant. I also used a similar brush to begin drawing the elements of the poster as well.
(Fig 14, Drawing the Banner, 25/1/2022)
(Fig 15, Adding data, 26/1/2022)
There was a little awkward negative space beside the ingredients list on either side, so I drew up some simple clip art of the ingredients to fill it in. These also have the added benefit of being able to be used in the next Project.
(Fig 16, Finished Poster, 26/1/2022)
PROJECT 2
This is a continuation of the previous Project 1. Using the poster we had designed previously now, we have to animate it in video form.
One of the first things I thought about for the project was a background music track for the video. For no particular reason, a track from a game I had played when I was a kid popped in my head. As it fit the theme of the video, I decided to use that.
Now I had to create the assets that I needed to animate the video with. Taking note of the steps of the process, I recorded the equipment used in the video.
(Fig 17, Drawing Assets, 7/2/2022)
(Fig 18, Animating the Poster, 8/2/2022)
As this project was done in tandem with Project 3 at the same time, I actually picked up some tricks such as using the wiggle expression to create rapid shaking motions without having to individually keyframe each shake.
The assets were pre-composed with each shot to help make my workflow more efficient than having everything in one comp. I didn't use much 3D animations in this work as I felt it was difficult to incorporate here.
(Fig 19, Project 2, 20/2/2022)
PROJECT 3
This was the behemoth of a group project that spanned over the start to the end of the entire semester. At the beginning of the project, our group chose to create an educational video on the reproductive system of the human body during puberty.
The first step was to storyboard the entire video. Everyone was in charge of their own individual portion, which would then be compiled and standardized into a complete storyboard.
(Fig 20, Preliminary Storyboard, 10/1/2022)
After the storyboard was compiled by the members in charge of the art in the video, I was then going to do the animatic of the storyboard. Using After Effects and the assets cropped from each individual frame, I created a simple animatic of roughly how the final animation would flow.
(Fig 21, Sample Animatic, 7/2/2022)
It was then for the team in charge of art to begin working on illustrating the assets of the video. It was afterward, where I was in charge of animating the entire final video. Animating a full length video was quite labour intensive.
I used a lot of minor wiggling to give the character models some movement, as well as keyframes for more directed, sharper movements. 3D movements were used largely only when a subject was required to flip horizontally and had to be presented in the animation.
(Fig 22, Animating Process, 22/2/2022)
There was a really large amount of pre-comping used. With subjects having their own pre-comps within a shot that was itself another comp. I found it rather difficult to edit these comps when I could not hear the audio and sync it accordingly easily.
While the project was moderate in the amount of technical knowledge, I felt that the real challenge is in the sheer amount of work required.
(Fig 23, Final Video, 24/2/2022)
Feedback
WEEK 1 // No feedback yet as this was the first week of class.
WEEK 2 // There was still more of a focus on teaching about the lectures, therefore there wasn't any feedback given this week.
WEEK 3 // The FLIP presentation was good, with nothing of note.
WEEK 4 // Dr. Martin was very satisfied with our group work for the lyric music video. It was well synced and despite the slight lack of coordination in animation styles, was still well done.
WEEK 5 // No feedback for this week as it was Chinese New Year.
WEEK 6 // Dr. Martin pointed out that our group was fairly behind in terms of progress and to pick up the pace. We presented our work in the second session of the week, where he said that we were clear to proceed.
WEEK 7 // Dr. Martin said that the sex ed video was overall already quite well put together at this point, however he still pointed out some corrections that could be done, and to finish the rest by the next week.
Weekly Reflection
WEEK 1 // I wasn't really sure what to expect from this module in this semester, however there seems to be a large emphasis on group work. Therefore, I do hope that the work in this module proceeds smoothly.
WEEK 2 // There still seems to be a focus on the usage of After Effects for this module. I think that the level of this module would be around that of semester 1 as there are also newer students here. We did learn some new tricks though.
WEEK 3 // The music video was quite fun to create. I did use some settings that I normally don't when creating my personal projects. I think this would come in handy in the future when I need to incorporate After Effects graphics and 3D animation.
WEEK 4 // Much of my focus is now on the group sex ed video. The amount of work left does seem kind of daunting. I hope that our group can keep a steady pace and complete the work on time, despite having a missing member currently.
WEEK 5 // There wasn't much as it was Chinese New Year.
WEEK 6 // We were falling behind on schedule and frankly I'm a little concerned. However I think that with some extra work we should probably make it in time.
WEEK 7 // This is the final week and it is absolute crunch time right now. I am kind of swamped with all kinds of work, as well as some unfortunate circumstances currently, I am surprised that I'm holding together overall.
Semester Reflections
Observations
I think that this module has a larger focus on the conceptualization aspects of design rather than on the practical aspects. I also feel that there is a large test of working as a group in this semester, as evident by the nature of projects in both modules present. The scale of these projects are also much larger than what I have seen so far in this course. This might be due to being in more advanced semesters or just by nature of being group work. The individual work, however, doesn't seem as taxing by a large margin.
Findings
The things learned in this information design module could actually be traced back to the two typography modules from previous semesters, with a focus on compositions and colours to create appealing presentations of information, and the knowledge of this module adding functionality to said appeal. I also realized through the group work that was given over the course of this semester that I sometimes have trouble working in a team environment, where I can be difficult to contact as I don't check my phone often. This is a weakness that I should work to overcome before going out to a work environment.
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