Sunday, August 31, 2008

TED Talk: The Power and Beauty of Organic Design

Ross Lovegrove shares his passion for designing objects inspired by the simplicity and complexity of nature.

The annual TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) conference is a place where Big Thinkers gather annually to inspire and be inspired. I’ve been going through their online archive of talks for my own amusement and education, and sharing with you ones I found to be particularly interesting and relevant.

This week I’d like to share a talk by “Captain Organic” Ross Lovegrove of Studio X in Notting Hill, England. He is the celebrated designer of objects such as the iMac, Ty Nant water bottle, and Go chair. Ross is a proponent of what he calls “fat free” design that draws inspiration from natural forms - not just organic blobs in the name of nature, but shapes, processes, and sensibilities derived from the inner logic of natural objects. Although this talk is focused primarily on industrial design, those who are designing logos, 3D objects, or who just want to be inspired about someone deeply passionate about his field should enjoy it.

This talk is part of TED’s series Design Like You Give A Damn. Some who commented on the talk found Ross to be impractical at best and arrogant at worst; I found his laser-like focus on his ideals to be energizing.

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Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Spotlight: Fox Sports HD

Flowing ribbons in 3D space tie together this sports ID.

For our next project spotlight, we’re going to look at a Fox Sports HD promo animated by Joost Korngold of Renascent. This spot fuses organic movement with the high-impact 3D Fox Sports is known for. Joost, as well as Fox Sports Creative Directors Josh Nichols and Mark Denyer-Simmons plus Senior Vice President and Creative Director Robert Gottlieb, were kind enough to spend some time answering questions and revealing how this spot unfolded.

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Friday, August 22, 2008

Adobe MAX, motion 08 Awards Shows

Opportunities to show off your work.

There are a few awards show coming up that we wanted to let you know about:

Adobe 2008 MAX Awards

The Adobe MAX Awards recognizes the best uses of Adobe software for creating engaging experiences. Normally, the MAX show is the domain of web content creators, but lately it’s been expanding out to include more video and motion graphics. In keeping with that, this is the first year that there is a category for digital video projects The top three finalists will be invited to show their projects at MAX 2008 in San Francisco Nov 16-19. The winner receives free MAX registration. Award submissions are due September 5. Click here for more information.

motionfest and motionawards
Call for Entries

These two awards show are connected with the motion 08 conference (which we both will be speaking at). The first is for animation (including Flash, stop motion, 3D, etc. flavors); the second is more for motion graphics artists:

motionfest is a juried competition honoring the best in animation worldwide. Specifically, motionfest recognizes the best animations created for the purpose of entertainment: animated shorts and full-length features. Finalists will be notified by September 12, 2008. Winners of motionfest08 will be announced as part of our opening day animation events, Sunday, October 12, 2008. The deadline to enter is September 8, 2008. Click here for more information.

The motionawards celebrate creative excellence in motion graphics, animation, and vfx, honoring the most current, breakthrough work. All worked entered must be the result of paid creative services and media placement, with the exceptions of public service work, projects for the arts, self-promotion, and student. Finalists will be notified by September 12, 2008. Winners of the 2008 motionawards will be announced Monday, October 13, 2008 at the motionawards party - part of motion08. The deadline to enter is September 8, 2008. Click here for more information.

Save on registration. save $300 on early-bird registration and an additional $200 by using promo code 08stashMO - courtesy of stash. To register, click here.

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Monday, August 18, 2008

TED Talk: How creativity is being strangled by the law

Can the genie be put back in the bottle? Or should we just attach a leash to it?

The annual TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) conference is a place where Big Thinkers gather annually to inspire and be inspired. I find many of the talks relevant to how we think about motion graphic design.

One of the boundaries we must design within are the legal restrictions on the content we might want to use. I’ve written a bit about this previously in blogs on the Public Domain and music licensing. Although I personally believe very strongly in the preservation of the rights of content creators - after all, it’s how people like you and me make money -
Larry Lessig makes an impassioned presentation on how he wishes copyright law would make room for “(re)creation” using previously-created, potentially copyrighted content - think mash-ups (and make sure you watch the three examples that start just past the 8 minute mark; each one is more humorous than the previous one*). If creativity is too restricted, he fears we may become a “Read Only” culture where we only consume, not create.

Click above to watch Larry Lessig’s presentation; click here to see the high-res MP4 version. It will be time well-spent.

(*After watching these examples, I feel compelled to mention how useful it is to master “time remapping” in programs like After Effects. Click here to download a PDF of a tutorial we wrote for Artbeats on the subject; click here to read one Mark Christiansen wrote. Time remapping is also covered in Chapter 27 of our book Creating Motion Graphics, and Lesson 7 of our book After Effects Apprentice.) Also read this article on Artbeat.com on how to smooth out the differences between frames after you’ve changed a clip’s speed.

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Monday, August 11, 2008

TED Talk: Where does creativity hide?

Amy Tan digs deep into the creative process.

The annual TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) conference is a place where Big Thinkers gather annually to inspire and be inspired. Fortunately, TED tapes their presentations, and has been making an effort to post their huge archive of talks for free on the internet.

While browsing these talks, I was particularly taken by Amy Tan’s presentation on “Where does creativity hide?” It’s a humorous review of her own creative process. Although she comes from a different field (she’s the novelist behind The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife and The Hundred Secret Senses), I found it very entertaining as well as insightful, as it bounced from personal creativity to deciding to what we’re going to do with our lives, using her mother, advanced physics, and world events as touchstones. I hope you enjoy it as well.

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Saturday, August 09, 2008

Spotlight: Promos for FOX’s “Fringe”

Buster Design brings the print ads to life with excellent 3D animation and sound design.

As mentioned earlier, we will be discussing motion graphics projects executed by other studios. This time around, it’s Buster Design and the on-air promos they created for Fringe, a new series premiering this September on FOX - click here to view movies of the final animations. I had the chance to chat with Brandon Pleus of Buster about what went into this project.

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Sunday, August 03, 2008

Spotlight: Nordisk Panorama Filmfestival 2008

Silhouettes and particles are two main features of this film festival promo.

As we mentioned in a recent post, we’d like to start featuring projects by other motion graphics artists, including some background on what went into their creation. First up is a promo for the Nordisk Panorama 5 Cities Film Festival 2008 created by André Hedetoft. Two of the components of this promo that particularly caught our eye were the use of silhouetted figures, and the lovely particle effects.

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Thursday, July 31, 2008

Adobe will support RED

The news many of us have been waiting for…

Sorry for the short post, but I know this is news many of us have been waiting to hear (and sooner than some of us thought):

“Within a week, RED R3D files will open natively in CS3 Premiere Pro and After Effects.” On both Mac and Windows.

This is not a rumor; this is the real deal.

Here is the thread on Reduser.net.

Editing •
Motion Graphics •
Post Production • (1) Comments • Most recent comments by: Chris Meyer, • Permalink

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