Designing British Road Signs

I am a huge fan of the BBC programme Top Gear. Aside from the fact that I’m a car nut, I enjoy the wry humor, the unusual set (standing literally in the middle of the audience), the crazy stunts, and the graphic design that goes into the vignettes on many of the cars (that would be a nice gig…). I’ve been catching up on episodes with BBC America, and stumbled across an interesting interview with Margaret Calvert: one of the people responsible for designing the motorway signs in England after WWII. With the introduction of high-speed motorways, the government realized that their standard signs didn’t work. As a result, a whole new font and set of icons were designed. Graphic designers interested in how to convey information quickly may enjoy some of her insights:

Creative Suite 5 is Shipping

Less than three weeks after “launching” Creative Suite 5 at NAB, Adobe has started shipping it, including After Effects and Premiere Pro. In case you missed it in the middle of the NAB information overload, Scott Simmons has already (p)reviewed Premiere Pro CS5, and we did the same with After Effects CS5. I imagine we’ll all have a lot more to say once we get a chance to use it more in real-world situations; stay tuned…

Making It Look Great 7 Review

Last summer I wrote an lengthy review of the Motionworks’ Making It Look Great 6 training series, where Tim Clapham did a great job covering the integration of Cinema 4D and After Effects. I mentioned my wish for Tim to do a full series on using Cinema’s MoGraph module, and little did I know that such a series was already in the works. Not wanting to wait, I offered to proof it as it was being developed (crafty, huh!), and now it’s arrived in a store near you as Making It Look Great 7.

MILG7 consists of six projects produced using a wide variety of MoGraph objects and effectors. Not only will you learn tons of MoGraph techniques as you create some fun animations, but sprinkled throughout are a great many solid Cinema working practices that will serve you well in any project.

Canon Rebel T2i / EOS 550D

The intertubes are buzzing this week with the announcement of the Canon Rebel T2i (also known as the EOS 550D in Europe).

In short, it has an APS-C format sensor that is similar to the Canon 7D (which means it’s roughly the size of a motion picture film frame, for “filmic” depth of field), accepts EF and EF-S lenses, and shoots video at a pleasing variety of frame rates and sizes with “full manual control”:

• 1920 x 1080 (Full HD): 30p (29.97) / 24p (23.976) / 25p
• 1280 x 720: 60p (59.94) / 50p
• 640 x 480 (SD): 60p (59.94) / 50p)

The good folks at Digital Photography Review already have online a still-image-focused 13-page preview based on a pre-production unit (if you’re seeing only 1 page, use the popup at the top or the Actions > Previous/Next buttons at the bottom to navigate).

Price? $800 without lens; $900 with.

Adobe Community Leaders Summit

Last week, Adobe invited a variety of well-known people in the industry to come get a closer look at what they’ve been working on, and to provide feedback on their direction. To Adobe’s credit, this was no “preaching to the choir” session; many of those invited were FCP and Avid editors, and several current users gave Adobe personnel an earful both publicly and privately. It was also made clear to us that no specific product versions or release dates were being discussed, and that we couldn’t repeat anything that had not already been mentioned publicly (reminds us of the old Zen Buddhist saying “Those who know don’t say; those who say don’t know”). However, this event gives us an excuse to aggregate into one place a number of emerging technologies Adobe has already murmured about, for those who haven’t had the chance to keep up…

User Interface Design for Hollywood

We’ve all noticed the really bad “you’ve got mail” computer and data display screens that pop up in Hollywood movies. What we tend to miss are the really good ones, which are realistic. (Fun fact: Stanley Kubrick insisted that all of the displays shown in 2001 be plausible, including reflecting the correct state of the planets etc. at the point during the trip when they appear.)

One of the best designers of these screens is Mark Coleran (who currently designs real-world user interfaces for Gridiron Software, including Flow). Mark was recently interviewed by both NPR and Spark, where he shared some insight into his craft. (I’d suggest following the above links in order, as it starts with the eye candy and ends with his unabridged analysis.)

Interesting is that there’s been a lot of backlash to his NPR interview, as some have used him as the public face for all of the bad movie screen design that is out there. Some of the criticism is unfounded; some of it is simply the result of the common situation we all face in delivering what the client wants, for better or worse. As Mark recently commented in his defense on an After Effects forum, “I and the others who do and did this stuff spend a long time trying to haul it back to reality. Perhaps the story aspect is a post-hoc rationalization, but the requirements are very different.”

Regardless of whether or not you like the result, Mark is one of the best After Effects artists out there, with a fantastic emphasis on both detail and efficiency. If you ever get a chance to see him talk live about screen design, do so.

Masters of Visual Effects - Online

Matt Silverman, Creative Director of Bonfire Labs, is a certifiable After Effects old-timer (although he also has experience in many different systems), particularly known “back in the day” as being a roto expert in addition to an all-around top-shelf motion graphics and visual effects artist. Several years ago, he took it upon himself to enlist some of the best users in the field to construct a set of timeless, concept-based, software-agnostic visual effects training videos. These VHS tapes are long out of print, so Matt has started to digitize them and place them online. The links for Series 2 (covering compositing, keying, tracking, paint, and rotoscoping presented by Ron Brinkmann, Stu Maschwitz, and Scott Stewart) are below; watch them while you can:

Free (and heavily discounted) Footage

Previously, if you registered at the Artbeats.com web site, you would receive a monthly newsletter that included a link to download a free stock footage clip each month - not a bad deal. But today, I visited their site and was surprised to find that they’re now giving away a free clip every day! Register for their site and remind yourself to visit each day to get your clip. I don’t know about all the other clips, but today’s clip was available in your choice of HD, SD NTSC, or SD PAL. They also include on the same page daily specials to buy select HD clips for $25 each (normally $299 each).‬

In the past, I’ve lamented how stock footage has gotten more expensive through the years; I’m thrilled to see deals like this appear to help bring down the costs. (In that spirit, if you’re not already a member of iStockphoto, you can click here to get a 20% discount off 50 credits.)

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