AM Cassandre
A.M Cassandre, whose real name is Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron, was a French poster designer who was prolific during the Art Deco era of poster design due to his simple yet enticing posters which usually were based on landmarks and traits from Paris where he resided, such as Nord Express, L'atlantique, and Dubonnet.
For the experience, I picked out this image because when I saw this one compared to the others I could've chosen, I instantly thought of a vision that could be perfect for both learning Illustrator and creating an alternate take on a poster.
I think what I adore about this poster is that despite it being plain and simple, it makes up for it by having surrealistic visuals that entice you more because of how beautifully crafted it is. This was something Cassandre took advantage of, where he had a love for both surrealism and cubism and so integrated these techniques into his photo, and it shows how he took the time and effort to integrate them and use them to make a more visually appealing poster than if it were just normal.
The image was suitable for the exercise because of both my clear vision for the type of different approach I wanted to take and how that approach was perfect for using the tools I had some level of basic understanding going into this.
My version of the image was created using the Pen and Curvature tool to re-colour the head for the bird, I then copied the head and then re-shaped it to make it look like the bird had 2 heads, which I then got the idea to make it look like the colour of the birds are different shades of blue and how they sort of connect to one another, where I used the Gradient tool to achieve the approach.
My opinion on the whole exercise is mostly okay because I did like the approach of using the colours to make it fuse together on how it's like a path of different shades of blue that connects throughout the head. I also liked how it was like a beginner's lesson on how to use Illustrator and what you can do with it.
Michael Batory
Michael Batory is a Polish graphic and poster designer, he is best known for his surrealistic posters that combine both objects and body parts (sometimes can be only objects combined into one).
What I like about the posters I chose is that the concept behind the posters is very unique, because it allows for endless imagination, and his posters are no exception to a creative imagination. What works about his posters is that he knows which ones will work well and ones which will go perfectly together, the scissor legs poster is a big example of this, as the legs act as the blade of the scissors, this works because oftentimes, blades for scissors can be compared to the legs of a scissor since you can open and close them, so this approach to make the legs the blades of a scissor look is perfectly executed.
This was my version of his posters. I created this image by combining both a crutch with arms and legs, It was created by finding PNGs for the arms and legs, then I erased parts of it to put in place for the arms and legs, then I distorted and resized the PNG's to make them fit seamlessly.
The benefit to using masks to me is that it allows you to focus on only one part of the image and not worry about the others since they're unaltered. This was especially helpful for erasing the parts where the arms were, as they remained perfectly fine while I was erasing the parts that made them stick
Social Media Header Design
Photographic Design Poster
Twitter Header Design
Conducting Primary and Secondary Research
Differences between Primary and Secondary Research
The main difference between Primary and Secondary Research is Primary Research consists of data that is fresh and new and has never been collected before, while Secondary Research is pre-existing data that has existed for a long time.
One advantage of Primary Research is that the data collected is up-to-date and may reflect on people's views more than Secondary. Another advantage is that the person who collects this information has both full access and ownership of it and no one else does.
However, one disadvantage to Primary Research is despite it being more useful, it is more time-consuming to obtain the information, in both the time it takes, the amount it costs, and how easy or hard it will be to fully collect it all, which is why most companies use Secondary Research.
One advantage to Secondary Research is that it is easier and cheaper to collect than Primary Research, as it usually takes reading both a website and newspaper to obtain this type of research.
One disadvantage to Secondary Research is that because the data has already been collected, it may not be up-to-date or be accurate to people's opinions, either due to the data being old or maybe the information provided may be false.
Primary Research
Different types of Primary Research include interviews (whether over the phone or face-to-face), surveys, questionnaires both online or physical, and focus groups.
Difference between Quantitative and Qualitative Research
Types of questions that relate to Quantitative Research involve a lot of questions that relate to the consumers, where the people collecting the data may ask themselves questions like "How often does someone do this or that?" or "What do people prefer the most?" These questions can be helpful to businesses that want to appeal to a specific type of people.
Qualitative Research usually involves questions that involve how people perceive a product, as it is research conducted to understand people's beliefs and attitudes. Questions that usually follow this type of research include "What gives a reason to make people buy a product more?", "How do people perceive us compared to our competitors?" and "What makes a product good for them?".
Secondary Research
Different types of Secondary Research include articles from both websites and newspapers, encyclopedias, and meta-analyses.
What is a tagline?
A tagline is a brief phrase used in advertising/marketing for a brand or business. They are used to relay the brand's value and stand out from the market. Usually, a good tagline will sometimes be key to a business' success, as an enticing tagline that is short and simple yet catchy and memorable may attract new customers because if a tagline both stands out from the crowd while being enticing, it may lead to people giving the brand a try.Event Ideas
Event ideas
https://studentstanmoreac-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/r/personal/duf23001155_student_stanmore_ac_uk/Documents/Presentation%20of%20Research,%20Planning%20and%20ideas.pptx?d=wb54b433a3c2d47ae876ff7656310e61c&csf=1&web=1&e=IfPNP5
Sketches
Colour and Legibility Systems
With coloured backgrounds, legibility is an important factor to consider. This is because some colour mixtures can cause the text to become illegible due to light and also how the brain perceives it. For example, if we were to make the yellow text on a green background, due to these colours being very bright, it would cause the yellow text to be unreal because of how the light behaves and also how our eyes perceive it, which it has a hard time doing.
The RGB colour system is a colour system that consists of the three main primary colours in physics (red, blue, and green) being mixed together to make other colours (magenta, yellow, cyan, and white). This colour system is used predominantly in digital media like computer monitors, smart TVs, phones/tablets, digital cameras, etc. The system was created by scientists who needed a way to represent colours electronically, the colours were chosen due to them being very recognisable to the human eye, which is what scientists wanted to happen during the creation of this system.
The CMYK colour system is a colour system that uses three main colours (cyan, yellow, magenta) that form different colours (green, black, red, blue) depending on the mixture used. This is the opposite of what the RGB system is, as the main colours on this system are the other colour mixtures in the RGB system and vice versa. This colour system is most used for printers and other printing materials, this is due to the printing recognising duller colours easier than brighter colours, and they can achieve a better colour image than the RGB system.
The CMYK colour system is a colour system that uses three main colours (cyan, yellow, magenta) that form different colours (green, black, red, blue) depending on the mixture used. This is the opposite of what the RGB system is, as the main colours on this system are the other colour mixtures in the RGB system and vice versa. This colour system is most used for printers and other printing materials, this is due to the printing recognising duller colours easier than brighter colours, and they can achieve a better colour image than the RGB system.
Camera License Test
The question I found the hardest was identifying buttons on the camera, which was to point out which button did which action. The most challenging part about it was actually identifying the first one, as there was already a menu button on the back, but I was doubting whether I should put it as the answer or not.
One thing I would want to learn and improve on is autofocus, while I do know how to manage manual focus, I don't use autofocus that much which means I don't know how to use it properly.
Audience Theory
The Hypodermic Syringe is a theory that proposes that someone writes/makes something that would be responded to by receivers the exact way the person wants them to respond as. An example of this theory is things like clickbait and rage-bait, where the person who creates these types of posts/videos creates it with the sole purpose of taking advantage of someone's naivety/gullibility, which would lead to it spreading like wildfire where more people would see it and would instantly believe it. The people who make it know that the people who don't look further into it and just blindly read it will eat it up and increase its publicity to others, who the original poster would assume they're as naive as the person who finds it.
The Cultivation Theory is a theory that applies to people who consume a lot of media, where repeated viewings of a specific type change their perspective of reality. The main idea is the more someone watches or plays things like movies/TV shows and games and sees a repeated theme, location, text, etc. they're likely to believe the theme the media portrays aligns with how reality is, which is not the case in most outcomes. An example is a piece of media that may portray a country either looking clean and sophisticated or run-down and dirty, this may change the perspectives of people who live in different countries, so they might automatically assume countries based on what they see on TV.
The Two-Step Flow Theory refers to a theory on how some people form their opinions only because someone who formed that opinion said it. The theory suggests the type of people who fall into this theory are ones who can't form opinions on their own and only say what other people are saying because they don't want to feel left out. A popular example is social media influencers, especially ones with a huge following online, who have fans that will align their opinions with the influencer no matter what the opinion is or if it's right or wrong.
The Uses and Gratification Theory refers to an approach/understanding of why people seek out a specific type of media to satisfy their needs, this can apply to things like movies, shows, games, plays, etc. The question that usually follows this theory are questions that link what people do with media and why they take this approach to media. Some answers to these questions are that media often provides an escape from reality for some people, where they can put aside their problems and instead immerse themselves into the setting/world in the media they are watching. Another answer to this is that people who seek out genres like biopics, documentaries, or historical, they usually do this to gain more knowledge about a certain someone/something that is the main topic in the movie/show.
Different Digital Image Types
Resolution affects image quality and size in two ways. One is by image quality, where the resolution is usually measured by pixels, and the less amount of pixels means a higher quality image and vice versa. The other way is through size, where usually when the image is zoomed in or out, the pixels will become more obvious depending on the size, whether it be big or small.
JPEG is a commonly used file format used for lossy compression in digital photography, when an image is converted into a JPEG, it loses parts of the data during the change and results in the image looking slightly pixelated. Another version of this image type is called a JPG, where the only difference is the number of characters in an image.
PNG is a file format that supports lossless data compression, which allows data from the original image to not be lost and be perfectly constructed, unlike JPEG. PNGs also allow the image to be transparent, which allows it to not have a background, which is useful to graphic designers as it removes the need to remove the background before using it.
GIF is a file format that allows both static and animated images, they are like videos but have no sound and don't have a pause or skip button, they loop endlessly. The file also has lossy compression, as it only supports 256 colours, this is apparent when converting a video to a GIF, where the lossy compression will be obvious.
SVG is a file format that doesn't use pixels to render an image, instead, it uses vectors and HTML to do it, this file is useful because it reduces a lot of scalability issues JPEGs have when adjusting the size.
Composition in Photography
This is meant to use line photography, where the stairs going upward to a dark area are meant to evoke some sense of unease.
This photo utilises depth-of-field photography, as the object is shown to be in focus, while the background is out of focus.
This photo uses the Bird's Eye technique since the camera is facing downwards on the desk with a book and pen.
This is the opposite of the Bird's Eye technique, where this technique is known as a Worm's Eye, where the camera is facing upwards on a subject.
Lighting and Photography
The Key light is the main source of lighting for a photo, the main purpose of it is to highlight the subject and make it either more visible or half-visible (depending on where the lighting is supposed to go).
The Fill light is the secondary source of lighting, it is used alongside the Key light to help fill in the shadows and reduce the contrast in the photo, making it easier to distinguish between the background and subject.
The Hair light is a source of lighting that is used to focus on the hair of the person in the photo, this lighting is mainly used to make the hair more defined and glossy and separate it from the background.
Background lighting is the final source of lighting next to Key and Fill, the purpose is self-explanatory, it is used to illuminate backgrounds that appear too dark to see the subject, so by using this type of lighting, it can help eliminate shadow casts onto the subject.
Camera-mounted flash is a flash that is not built into the camera body. This allows it to be more mobile than light stands, allowing for more movement with the camera.
Split lighting is a lighting technique where one side of the subject's face is lit up and visible, while the other half is not lit up and is invisible, this style is used to create an ominous appearance to the subject, as it leads the audience to believe the photo is hiding something from them.
Rembrandt lighting is a technique that involves either using a single light and a reflector or using two lights at once. It serves as a way to make it the image look dramatic in a way that pulls you in since you only see the subject on a black background and nothing else.
Loop lighting is a lighting pattern that places the key light around 30 to 45 degrees from the opposite side of the subject, with a reflector in front of the key light to bounce it back onto the subject's face. Using this creates an effect where the nose shadow loops down onto their chin.
Butterfly lighting is a lighting pattern that is achieved by placing the Key light above to shine on the subject while they are facing the camera. This pattern creates an effect under the nose which resembles a butterfly, hence the name.
Broad lighting is a technique used by photographers where a portion of the subject's face that is facing the area is lit mostly while the other part is obscured from the shot, it is called that because the light is illuminating from the board side of the subject's face as the subject has their head usually tilted sideways to look at the camera.
Group Work
Split lighting is a lighting technique where one side of the face is visible, while the other half is not.
Broad Lighting
Loop Lighting
Rembrandt Lighting
Broad lighting is a technique similar to Split, where one side of the face is shown, and the other half is not. The main difference is the visible side is the broad side of a face, hence the name 'Broad lighting'
Loop lighting is a lighting technique that creates a circular shadow under the subject's nose.
Rembrandt lighting is a technique that uses either one light and a receiver or two lights to make a photo that looks ominous yet compelling. This technique is named after the Dutch painter of the same name, who used this lighting for some of his work.
Formal Photography
Photography Research
Cindy Sherman is an American photographer, she is most known for her series of self-portraits, which portray herself in different identities with different contexts.
This photo is part of a series of photos called Untitled Film Shots, this is the 21st in the series and also the most popular out of the bunch.
In this photo, Cindy portrays a working woman alone in a big city, which is inspired by Alfred Hitchcock. She is also shown with an expression that usually relates to fear and anxiety or something bad is going to happen. The photo uses a low-angle shot, presumably to invoke some sort of unanimity.
What I like about the photo and the series of photos is not only for the great composition but more for the deeper elements in the photo. The series of photos portrays her as the stereotype that was present in Hollywood movies around the mid-1900s, so one could see some form of critique on the stereotypes, but by dressing up as these stereotypes, she deceives the people by stripping her identity in terms of what we see in the photo to the point we may not recognise her in real life because of how many costumes she had for those photos.
Ansel Adams was a photographer born in 1902 and died in 1984 at 82, when he was a kid, Adams was a troublesome kid, having been known as hyperactive and also prone to frequent sickness. At 12, his father removed him from school because he was not performing well in them.
Adams originally played the piano and quickly grew fond of it, setting a potential career option, but in 1916, he received his first camera. This, combined with his love for nature, set a new career path for him as he became known for his environmental photos.
I very much like this photo because of how expansive the scope is, since you don’t just have a river, you also have the trees and mountains and clouds which all fit very seamlessly and give the photo more personality and pleasing.
Another thing I could mention is photos like these are why nature is seen as cool to people because with the right location and weather, you can take a photo that may look unreal to someone, almost like it was digitally created.
Paul Strand was an American photographer born in 1890 and died in 1976. He was known to influence photography as an art form, since he often used the technique sculptors used to create their work, but applied it to photography, combined with his attention to detail and prolific use of different styles, and he quickly became influential with others who wanted to create what he was creating.
The photo is meant to represent the everyday lives of the photo, as seen by the people walking past a building all in the same direction, which could represent rush hour, as people are walking may be walking to their jobs and trying to get there in time.
What I like about this photo is both how it looks and how influential it is. It is perfectly composed to me, as everything is crystal clear and it is a simple image, where you know it's about Wall Street and the people who pass or reside by it, it only gives you an image and yet it gets its message clearly.
For its influence, this photo would set an example for photographers on a new technique they may not have considered. Without this, we may not have realised that taking a photo of something you think is interesting would be just as interesting as a photo that was manipulated or like a painting with dedicated craft.
Different Typefaces
Serif: Times New Roman, Georgia, Rockwell, and Copperplate Gothic.
Slab Serif: Roboto Slab, Crete Round, and Ultra.
Script Faces: Amithen, Calorie
Fashion Photography
Editorial photography is a style that aims to tell a story or narrative with just a photo. They are most common in things like books, magazines, and websites, where the photo would be used to give the reader more context if the thing is trying to teach you about a particular event or person.
Advertising photography is photography that a brand creates in order to advertise its products and services to the general public. The main purpose of these images is to attract people to buy the product featured on the image, since alongside having a catchy tagline, an image can be as successful in convincing people to buy it with the advent of social media, where images can get sent around the web for others to see and be aware.
Beauty photography is photography shot in close-ups of a particular subject, whether that be a person or an object. Brands that specialise in makeup, skincare, hair accessories or jewellery use beauty photography as a way to advertise their products, it is usually worn or showcased on a person in order to make the average person more intrigued to wear it or use it.
One property of Hard light that differentiates it from Soft light as seen in the photo is that Hard light has visible shadows reflecting off the subject, while Soft light doesn't have any shadows on the subject. This is due to the light source in the hard light photo being farther away, which causes it to be cast harder than the photo with soft light.
Another property that differentiates hard from soft light is the photo with Hard light, the image has a plastic and saccharine look to it, while the photo with Soft light has a more natural and realistic look to it, which makes it more appealing depending on who you ask.
Firstly, most photography studios have a background that the subject will be up against, they are usually white in order to make the subject appear clearer, as the fashion the subject wears is vital to the photograph, so having the background white makes it more visible.
Secondly, the positioning of the lights does matter in the final look of the photo, as the position of the lights changes the look of the photo, whether that be looking dark or looking bright which is dependent on the position. Finding the right position of the photo will ultimately pay off with a photo you think works, and that is partially thanks to the light's positions.
Back in the first half of the 1900s, Fashion Photography usually had women in modest clothing, with slick-backed hair and circle or poodle skirts. This was what was considered fashionable and attractive back in the day, and this was the norm for some time.
The quirky clothing trend would get some sort of renovation of some sort in the 1980s, with clothing now using neon and overly-saturated colours, alongside other features like shoulder pads, funky hair and leather on some parts of the body like hands.
After the 80s came and went, the new fashion trend reverted back to modest and plain clothing similar to the ones back in the 50s, where everyone started wearing ordinary everyday clothing, and that was the point of the flashy clothing trend from the 80s that died out for some time.
After that point, nowadays some or few people do wear 80's clothing, mostly either due to nostalgia or having an extreme passion for 80's culture, so they wear clothes from that time period to feel like someone from that decade. But most of the population now wear everyday clothing as most view it as normal.
Final Products
My aim for this project was to create something that related to my huge interest in movies, which has been something near and dear to my heart for almost all my life. This mainly had to do with my parents who used to take me and my siblings to the cinema when I was very young, and that's what was the catalyst for my love of movies and also the cinema experience. So with those in mind, I had an idea to base the final project on a film fest that showed a specific type of film that appealed to me the most.
The audience I had in mind to appeal to for the supposed fest were fans of cult movies like The Room, Birdemic, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Mystery Space Theater 3000 fans to a lesser extent. What these movies have in common is that they are bad in a good way, mostly due to their absurdity of the direction, writing, acting, production values, etc. to the point they turn into unintentionally funny movies, and due to this, they grow an ironic audience who enjoy watching it for the sake of irony. This fest is meant to appeal to these types of movie-goers, as the experience of watching it with other fans and interacting/mocking the film provides a whole new way of watching the specific movie.
My final project for this topic was a poster and social media header for 'The Ultimate Cult Film Fest', which is a fest showcasing movies that are sort of the 'poster boys' for 'so bad they're good' type movies. What influenced me to do this was my grown obsession with watching bad movies, specifically the ones that fall into the 'so bad they're good' category, as some can be a blast to watch, especially with other people around. Watching bad movies with other people who are fans of it works as sort of a gathering for people, where they gather around to mock and interact with the movie with other fans.
I don't think I had a different plan for the project, as I knew what I wanted to do from the very beginning.
I created the graphic and photographic design on an app called Phonto, which was something I've had for a long time. I used the fonts they had available to carefully choose which one would suit the type of tone I wanted to use. The photo on the photographic poster was taken at the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square when I went to the premiere of Big Shark by Tommy Wiseau (who also made The Room), which was another factor as to why I chose to base it around a cult film fest.
For the project, I used some secondary research to look up lists that were ranking cult films from best to worst and popular to unpopular, this was to see which one I thought would suit best to advertise, as I wanted to use recognisable movies to draw people in, as it gives them an indication that the film title shown will definitely be in the line-up. The other research I did was cult films that I named off the top of my tongue, which were ones that are famous in the cult-film 'fanbase' circle.
I didn't face a lot of issues per se, but one roadblock I hit was when I was told I could not use pre-existing imagery. This required a huge switch-up to the direction as the original take on it had assets of popular cult films around a circle with the title and dates in the middle. I overcame it by instead taking inspiration from film festival posters, specifically ones that were minimalistic yet surreal and eye-catching to the general eye.
In my opinion, I think the final design for the posters is a lot better than my original vision, and I have to thank my teacher for telling me about the rules. One poster I absolutely love is the Graphic poster which is a stick figure diagram made up of the film titles that would be definitely in the line-up. I had a lot of fun designing it because I thought it would be visually unique, where the poster is very simplistic yet the stick figure entices you because it might be something you've never seen in a poster before. It also helps that it stands out compared to the other ones, where most have bright colours and eccentric art, my one has an ominous sense of tone, where it's all black and white (minus the red in the title) and doesn't give you anything outside of the fest title, the days it's playing on, and the stick figure design made using film titles. The other designs I made aren't as unique as the poster I talked about, but I do believe that the same kind of simplistic and ominous tone is still present, which helps communicate the idea of it being different from other film festivals.
However, What I think worked less well is the positioning on the posters seems off to me. This was because of some technical disadvantage on the app which didn't allow me to have the option to use a grid. This was a huge problem because a grid is necessary for positioning things like images and text the way you want to be like it is in the middle. Without a grid, it makes it harder and very frustrating because you'll often go 'Am I the middle or not?', which leads to you spending more time trying to position it perfectly compared to the other factors.
With all that out of the way, a question that is definitely important is if I were to do it again, what would I do differently? And that is a very good question, and one I have a great answer to. My answer is I would push for more visually appealing designs for the posters, like taking advantage of features like curving, distorting, scaling, perspective, etc. I believe this because I think the more surreal aspect of the design fits more in both standing out and also drawing people into the poster, which is what you'd want to do if you create a poster for an event like this.
No comments:
Post a Comment