Thursday, December 15, 2011

Digital Stew

My first creative experiment with MaxMSP.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Röyksopp - Keyboard Milk



My recent music obsession. The video is pretty cool as well, although it's not the official music video.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Friday, November 18, 2011

DUHM DUHM TSSHHKKKT

Just finished my creative project for my History of Modern Graphic Design class. Based on and inspired by Filippo Marinetti's work, Zang Tumb Tumb.

Oh, and to pat myself on the back... I didn't use Helvetica.

Marcel the Shell With Shoes

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Mint Julep



I can't wait for Mint Julep's new album to be released. I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas morning again. November 21st can't come soon enough.

Also, on a Creative Technologies note... they do a really cool effect in this video very similar to the Bullet Time effect from The Matrix, but they do it with disposable cameras. Genius.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Embracing Limitations



More recently, my own work has consisted of very primitive shapes that make up the majority of my design - especially when it comes to work using in new 3D programs. Using primitive shapes as a way to learn new programs is great, but can this aesthetic be pushed further?

Sometimes when you want to focus more on the animation than the actual modeling of characters or environments, you can keep your models relatively simple. This designer/animator created a piece that not only embraces limitations, but pushes them to a new level. Everything in this piece is made of cubes. Even 8bit looking dust particles!?!?! Amazing.

Monday, October 31, 2011

Splitscreen: A Love Story



This amazing short film was shot entirely on the Nokia N8 mobile phone.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Animated Type

I love animation. I love typography. I love animated typography. Love it.

I've been waiting to post this for some time now, but this post was getting a little long and crazy so I've cut it down and reduced the length drastically with an awesome widget from vimeo. I was originally planning on animating a typeface for my next project, but I've since decided to do something slightly different but still inspired by the work below. I would still like to design and animate my own typeface at some point, but it might be more of a self-initiated project over the summer.

I'm also planning on writing a project statement for a future motion graphics class. This project has the possibility to take on of many forms. One idea would be to have each student pick an existing typeface, study it, and animate it. Another idea would be to have each student design their own typeface and animate it (very similar in nature to Moshun, Typogami, and Binary 2.0 by Calango). The last idea I had is inspired by Nick Campell's Animated Alphabet for the 2008 Webby Awards. A typeface would be chosen or voted on by the class and then divided amongst the group to be animated. This project could end up being a large and challenging project or a shorter project/exercise with a quick deadline depending on which direction it takes.

Of the work shown below, my favorites would have to be the work by Calango, Takuya Hosogane, and Brett Morris. In the work by Calango, each typeface has a very unique aesthetic and looks like it was designed to be animated. The thing I like most about Takuya's work, Disruptive by Design, is that you can't tell that each info-graphic-looking piece is representing a letterform. It's very abstract and extremely captivating. In Brett Morris' ident's for Foxtel, he animates or arranges various objects in the shapes of letterforms to creatively and accurately define various genre's of movies and television. Brilliant work by all.



If you're viewing this on a mobile device you can watch these videos in my Animated Type Channel.

ROBIN BACIOR | Ohio

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Music Video Using Xbox Kinect Camera.

A very creative use of the Xbox Kinect Camera! They took raw data visualization and turned it into a very interesting and unique aesthetic.



Check out the making of this video.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Type Fight



thetypefight.com

I just discovered this site that two designers created to keep themselves entertained and "distract them from the day-to-day grind." A couple of my graphic design friends friends that I graduated with from Iowa State decided that doing something similar, but compete in a tournament style with a larger group. I'm pretty excited!

Monday, October 17, 2011

Sunday, October 16, 2011

5:46 am



This beautiful piece reminds me a lot of the photography work of Eugene Atget.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Shift



My finished project for my 3D Visualization class!

Friday, September 23, 2011

Degree MotionSense

Just saw an ad on hulu for Degree MotionSense. Basically, you sign up to wear a motion sensor that you wear and it keeps track of your daily activity. Be more active and get more points. More points = more "dollars" to win various items. I'm scared. I hope this points trend doesn't take.

Also, I googled 'Degree' to find their website and the first several links sent me to their facebook page. I finally found their actual site and it just contained images that were links back to their facebook site. Yikes. Check it out.

Uniforms for the Dedicated



This song is March of No Coincidence by Uniforms for the Dedicated featuring Maria Nordström. Uniforms are a group that does a variety of work including art, music, film, clothing design, and concept design. I really enjoy their work, particularly this song and video. This song could be on repeat forever and I would never get tired of it. Ever.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Grad Seminar Video Response



To me, the most interesting thing that Jesse Schell says in this presentation has to do with technology bringing us back toward "reality". Much of the world's population finds the concept of a digital world extremely intriguing, including myself. Much of the work I do, my daily activities, and communication is done through some sort of digital platform or in digital world. If I imagine what would happen if one day the internet, computers, electronics, etc... just stopped working or no longer did anything. Almost like they never really existed in the first place. All my work, my studies, my digital life/world... gone. I would be completely lost. But, the idea of technology that brings us closer to some form of "reality" can be comforting.

Although he's very right about some technologies bringing us back to reality, I really hope he's wrong about the future of point systems. I would hate living in a society where everything was based on gaining more points. Although if you think about it, we already do if points=money.

I also found it interesting about the professor who grades by giving out experience points instead of normal grades. This different way of grading somehow gets students to show up to class more, turn in more assignments, and pay closer attention. Although it appears different on the outside, in the end it's still calculated the same way and divided up into different percentages just like any other class grade. But, somehow just changing the outside appearance makes the whole concept more fun.

I also think he's right about our lives being tracked and recorded by various types of systems so that our legacy lives on. That our children and grandchildren will know what books we've read, what movies we've watched, what places we've visited, etc. In a way, this is already started happening with things like facebook, twitter, blogs, online photo albums, etc.

Overall, a very interesting presentation that makes me both excited and afraid of what the future of technology will bring.




To be completely honest, most of this went straight over my head. My understanding of algorithms and how they're used and affecting life today is so minimal that writing something and pretending to know what I'm talking about would be more embarrassing that just staying "I don't get it."

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Sound Design

The first week of classes, the professor for my music technologies class, Dr. Ivica Ico Bukvic, asked us a question (or brought up a topic for discussion). Of course, this isn't an exact quote and his delivery was a bit different and I apologize if I'm butchering his words, but the general question/topic is the same:

"What in life, other than music, gives you goosebumps? Has any of you ever gotten goosebumps from looking at a painting? I've never gotten goosebumps from looking at a piece of art, but I do get goosebumps from listening to music."

This really got me thinking. He's right. I've never looked at an extremely well designed poster or logo and got the same kind of feeling that I get when I listen to music. Even watching unbelievable motion design or animation with the sound on mute doesn't give me that feeling. I thought a bit more about it and realized that there are pieces of music that I listen to that were from a movie soundtrack or a live performance that at the time gave me goosebumps, but out of context was nice to listen to and that's it. Then I had an "epiphery". For me, it's the combination of audio and visual that gives me goosebumps. For example: there is a moment in the movie Requiem for a Dream where Jennifer Connelly has her head underwater and she screams at the exact moment the music picks up. The audio or the video by themselves are great, but together they send chills down my spine.

Although each one of these movies represented below has amazing visual effect, they wouldn't be nearly as effective without great sound design. Maybe, in a later post, I will reveal my obsession with Tron: Legacy, but for this post, we'll keep it general. These videos are by Michael Coleman, who is a producer and editor for Soundworks Collection and started Coleman Media Group. Amazing stuff (Seriously, click on the links and check it out).


Here's a video about the composer, Zack Hemsey. He's done several works for movie trailers and various ad campaigns. More recently, he did the music for the movie trailer of Inception.



The most interesting thing to me about Zack Hemsey and his work is that he never had formal training for music composition and that his work is done out of his own studio inside his house in NY. All of the audio samples are prerecorded and he just does all the composing, mixing, and editing to get to his final product. This relates very closely to what was discussed in our reading last week (Chapter 2 of Networked Publics by Kazys Varnelis) about blurring the lines between professional and amateur work and technology revolutionizing various industries.


Next up are two videos exploring the sound and audio work for the movies Tron: Legacy and Transformers: Dark of the Moon. It's really interesting to see the differences in approach to sound and the new technologies of 7.1 Surround Sound and 3D. Enjoy!



Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Between Two Points



Music video for The Glitch Mob's song, Between Two Points. Designed by motiphe. Amazing animation. Amazing track. It's also refreshing to hear auto-tune used tastefully.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Everynone

Everynone is a filmmaking team located in New York. I stumbled on one of their videos a while back while browsing through vimeo and fell in love with their work. Their videos make me see the world in a completely different way that I would have never thought of on my own.



Their video "Symmetry" does a beautiful job of combining symmetry in composition with symmetry (or balance) in life. Probably the most shocking moment of the video is the very end where birth is juxtaposed with death. The sound of a baby crying mixed with the final sound of the heart monitor is breathtaking (I know that sounds cheesy, but seriously - it makes you stop in your tracks for a few seconds).

**And I just now realized this after watching it again: The audio is also split left and right for each clip. For example, the very first clip has the audio for the countdown coming out of the left speaker and the music for the end of a movie coming out of the right speaker. Brilliant. I just fell in love with their work all over again.





This video is all about the multiple meanings of a single word. Something that we encounter everyday, but never really stop to think about. In "Words" clips are very creatively strung together that can be described by the same word. My personal favorites are the clips that have amazing transitions - particularly the series of clips with the word 'blow' and 'break'.





This last video is similar to their video "Symmetry", but focuses more on the question: "What is a moment?" I believe they do a spectacular job of illustrating exactly what a moment is. Showing a long series of 'moments' one after another brings the beauty out in the moments that we all remember as well as the moments we take for granted.

Sorry if this post was a little sappy, but I absolutely love the work by Everynone. I believe that great design about telling a story and making the viewer feel something. Everynone does just that.

Today's Technology

In response to Meg's post last week about new media:

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

The Arctic Circle

Nick Campbell - The Creative Gap: Becoming Better Than Most



It's a bit long, but if you have the time I strongly recommend it. So much great advice in a single presentation! Nick Campbell is a motion designer based in Chicago that more recently started giving presentations to various schools, design communities, and design events.

Check out his blog/tutorial site here: greyscalegorilla.com/blog
and his portfolio site here: creamyorange.com

Sunday, August 28, 2011

The Story Beyond the Still



This amazing collaborative project happened a while back, but I still find the whole concept extremely intriguing.

The Story Beyond the Still was an enormous user-generated HD video contest by Canon. The entire project was started by a single evocative photograph that was interpreted into a short film. The resulting short film ended on a still image that was to be reinterpreted by anyone to develop into another short film. Each round of short films resulted in finalists and a winner. The still frame at the end of that winning video would inspire another round of short films.

The truly remarkable thing about these short films is the wide variety of interpretations and the hundreds of entries into this competition. And, although the short films didn't have to relate to previous winners, many chose to follow the same story line, but adding twists and turns to the plot. The resulting final collaborative film is nothing short of amazing.

A unique thing about this project was each character was played by different actors in each chapter of the film because each film was created in a different part of the world. Although the characters change faces throughout the film, you are still able to follow the story very easily. There are even parts of the film that incorporate this concept of characters with varying appearances.

For the final chapter, they brought all the directors from the winning short films together. Only with all these minds put together, could this project turn out as amazing as it did.

I hope you enjoy watching!

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Motion Experiments



Steffen Knoesgaard is a motion designer that challenged himself to create one second of animation each day for 30 days. For each clip of animation he used the same color palette and similar aesthetic resulting in a short demo reel of and a creative way of promoting his work!

Sometimes deadline-based projects are the best way to keep yourself working!

iPad Light Painting



A great example of using technology in a very creative way to produce something completely unique.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Hawthorn Market Digital Menus

I finally finished the digital menus for Hawthorn Market! Here is a look at one of the finished menus:

Monday, July 18, 2011

Summer is almost over!

The summer is quickly coming to an end. I spent the first part of the summer in Virginia getting used to the area and finding a place to live for the next school year. Time well spent.

I just returned to Cedar Rapids after spending a week with the Blue Stars. Check out what they're currently up to on their vimeo page. Here's a sample:





These next couple weeks are going to be filled with some much needed family time. Then it's off to Virginia to move into my new apartment and get prepared for the fall semester!

I spent the day in Ames taking video for Hawthorn Market's new digital menus. Check back in the next couple of weeks to see the finished product!

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Samsung Commercial

An amazing samsung commercial featuring JayFunk, an internet Finger Tutting phenomenon. And they put some awesome motion graphics on top of it to make it even more unbelievably amazing.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Conan O'Brien Delivers Commencement Address @ Dartmouth

Absolutely amazing speech. If this were the commencement address at my graduation, I might have actually listened. Inspiring & hilarious.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

New Blog & Portfolio Design

Here's the first official post of my new blog. Hopefully I do a better job keeping up with this one...
I also recently redesigned my portfolio website.  Check it out: ryanwm.com

In this blog I'll post random stuff that I'm working on or anything that really inspires me.