Eraser Head

A few weeks ago my friend showed me a movie that completely blew my mind. I only saw parts of it, and it was enough to get my emotions to react. It's called Eraserhead by the filmmaker David Lynch. It has no actual linear plot and it's open to each critic what the point is of the movie. It looks to me like the film adaption of a living nightmare, as most of the movie takes place through random dreamlike sequences. He really gets that dark, emotional sense of despair throughout the movie. He even did the whole film in black and white (even though color film was available) to increase that nightmarish feeling. I think he did his best to assure that the viewer would feel uncomfortable throughout the film. It's an amazing movie and in the end I learned of the existence of another great artist and a very unique style of film production.

Here's a sample of the movie that isn't very graphic:

clip from Eraserhead 

I looked for some more works by Lynch and found that he did a lot of animated work as well, using old, hand painted pictures. They are really interesting animations that have that strange style he uses. It shows, despite the simple animations today, that there are some creative animators out there.

 

Graphic Novels vs. Manga

I was curious on why American graphic novelists and Japanese manga writers have a common style. I wondered if this was for any design reason and researched on that fact.

I found that American designers choose a more gritty, hard style using older characters like Spider-man or Batman. The characters usually have larger than normal builds and huge bodies. The action is often assisted by dialogue and sound bubbles.

Japanese designers, however, use a softer, more idealistic style. The characters are usually very young and have large eyes and pointed chins, as well as spiky hair. The action is focused on more than the actual dialogue and is often exaggerated. 

I asked a few artists, and looked up a few references, and found that the styles are done for specific reasons. The American style has a more realistic, hard-edged feel because that appeals to an older male audience, people that the readers can look up too. The Japanese style however, has a softer, feminine feel and has characters that the young audience can relate too. (I also noted that this helps confirm my earlier blog on line art)

I personally love both styles, but I prefer Japanese manga for its over the top action and its unique idealist style. That doesn't mean that I don't read a good graphic novel every now and then, which generally have more immersive story lines than manga does.

Photoshop Perspective Tutorial

I often search site like DeviantArt for inspiration and photoshop materials. I happed to stumble upon a very interesting tutorial

http://alexiuss.deviantart.com/art/Tutorial-Photoshop-painting-74699956

It wasn't the painting techniques that I was interested in. It was the new perspective concept that caught my eye. I had heard of the 1 and 2 point perspective techniques for drawings and designs, but I had never heard of a 3 point perspective. It's an interesting style where a third vanishing point is placed for the objects to meet at, except when it's placed off the horizon line. In my opinion, it's great for works involving a city, but it also works wonders when you want to make a project seem deep and low, like pit or a cliff, or even an image viewed from space. It doesn't work well in designs that are subtle, but it's wonderful for those dramatic designs.

Class Discussion

Recently, in my New Media 110 class, we study a few design elements for a project. The concept of line art in designs. I was told of something I should have known being an artist, but quickly realized.

  My professor explained that in line art designs, curvy lines are considered feminine and therefore are used in feminine designs. Angular lines are more masculine and are used in the appropriate designs. It's one those principles that you don't know until you her about but you know as common sense, like breathing or eating.

  

I thought about it and checked some of my own work. I saw this rule applied everywhere. Any design on clothes, backgrounds, etc, that I wanted to be more welcoming and gentle, had a curvy look. Any design I wanted tough or intimidating, I gave an angular feel. I had never heard of this rule yet I applied without realizing it.

Big Whopper, Eh?

While researching for my blog, I came up with this thought after getting some food from Burger King.

Burger King always makes commercials that advertise how huge their Whopper and Whopper Jr are. Either by saying how much meat is on the burger or dressing people as a one to compare size, they always praise how big it is. 

Here, I made my own comparison. The burger was almost as small as my wallet! Big, huh? I learned here that Burger King (as well as many other fast food restaurants) claim huge proportions and show large burgers, but it's all in the design. The burger itself is small and tiny, but is disguised to look huge with veggies that makes it twice as thick. Yeah, that makes it bigger, but that patty is still small and tiny. So by designing the commercials to advertise its size and using condiments to make it look bigger, they've made their Whopper huge and appealing. By designing your product and ad right, you can fool just about anybody.  

N110 discussion

During one of the discussions in N110, We discussed an interesting concept of design. The concept of angular designs verses curvier designs. Angular and sharper designs attract masculine audiences

Animator vs. Animation

I am a fan of quality animation work. I found this particular one several months ago, and it just amazed me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo1d6ttbAq8

To label it simply, it is the animator's mouse arrow caught in a battle with his own animation as the two fight among each other on the Adobe Flash window. The animator claims this took roughly three months, which is still impressive for flash.

I see an underlying message here (whether the animator realized it or not) of how frustrating flash can be to create animations, and how one seems to be in a fight with it constantly to finish a work. Also, because they are fighting on the workspace, you can see how much can be done if you have the patience to figure it out, like the figure using the tools as weapons. The only thing I don't like is how quiet it is. There are only a few sounds, most of which are repeated several times. This can cause a slight disconnection from an otherwise amazing piece. Just a little music might help to fill the silent gaps and more variety in sound effects.

I checked myself how hard Flash is to use. After about, 30 minutes, I thought my brain would explode. I couldn't even make a shape move. In, conclusion, the thing to take from this is that animation is very difficult.     

Horrible Ad Choice

Recently, I search for ads that would peek my interest. And lo and behold I find my wish and then some.

Yes, a McDonald's ad for young teens below a childhood obesity warning sign. You have to ask yourself, who makes this kind of decision? Is someone pulling off a sick joke here or what? One thing you can take away for ad design is this: "Location, Location, Location..."

It's not just how the ad looks, but where you decide to place it. Placing it under an ad that foils it is pointless. People will just laugh when they see it.  

I looked into how these spaces are chosen, and they are on a rent basis. You go to a billboard company, and rent the space. So at least one company knew about the other's space already.    

Billboard Ad: Blood Donation

On one of my many rides through Crawfordsville Road, I happened to notice a billboard advertising a blood donation center. I found this billboard ad quite profound. It depicted a giant bandage with one small blood drop in the middle. Beneath it the donation center wrote. "There, that didn't hurt a bit." In the corner is their logo. 

I figured what they're implying is that by taking a tiny little prick in the arm, you can help to save dozens of lives. Here, the tiny blood drop is the price you're paying, which is small. And the giant bandage is the lives you help to save. It is definitely a very profound design. However, I have a slight issue with it. They've got their message across, but the logo was so small and hard to see on the sign, I had no real idea what their name was. From this ad alone, no one will know who to contact. Maybe making the logo a little bigger and giving the text a darker color against the white background would help tremendously.