Grace Walker Communication Design

YouTube has become somewhat ubiquitous on the internet, and in popular culture generally. Web 2.0 applications which encourage people to make and share things are often not very specific tools, as such, but are broad platforms. Without the 'amateur' content and contributions, YouTube would be much less popular. YouTube is a platform which offers a framework for participation, but which is open to a very wide variety of uses and contributions, and basically agnostic about the content, which means it has been adopted by a wide range of users for a diverse array of purposes.  People spend time creating online content because they want to feel active and recognized within a community of interesting people, and because they wish to express or display aspects of themselves and their interests. 

After googling lots of different poster designs relating to both grunge and modernism, I settled on the theme of modernism as I think it will be more of a challenge and I find the posters more aesthetically pleasing. Below is a mood board I created of particular modernist posters which stood out to me: I then recreated 3 of these posters, one multiple times, to find the best software to use. I found Illustrator best for creating text, but photoshop better for putting the designs together. I presented these ideas to the class and the most popular one was the faded overlay of gold on the black background. I will use this idea for my project and build on how the gold creates a 3D effect, especially with the 'O'. My next step will be to use this style on an actual poster, instead of Lorem Ipsum, and create information for a modernist exhibition. An idea from the feedback discussion was to build up the opacity of the gold throughout the press pack as if it ...

Rules create a framework for design without determining the end results. Style sheets are rules for displaying the different parts of a document. Rules can be used to generate form as well as organise content. Rules can be produced in computer code as well as natural language. Repeating and rotating forms are universal principles of pattern design. 

Motion is a kind of change, and change takes places in time. Time and motion are considerations for all design work. Any still image has implied Motion, while motion graphics share compositional principles with print.  Animation encompasses diverse modes of visible change. Alternative modes of change: scale, transparency, colour, layer, etc. A word or design element can stay still while the environment around it changes. A motion sequence is developed through a series of storyboards, which convey the main pages and movements of an animation. Cropping a shape can suggest motion, just as diagonal compositions do. Complex and subtle behaviours are created by using different modes of change simultaneously. When animating type, the designer must pay special attention to legibility and reading order - context is important. Storyboards summarise key content/moments of an animation's events. Interactive logos and graphics are another aspect of motion design. 

In the workshop, I practised using Illustrator to get used to the tools and try and find a theme for my project. From using the tools, I found I was leaning towards modernism and geometric patterns as well as grunge typography so my project will lean towards one of these themes.