May: Inspirations & Observations

This is the May issue of Inspirations & Observations, my monthly list of 5 things that inspired me, and 5 things that irritated the eye.

Inspirations

1. Life Drawing. I've been taking life drawing lessons at COFA to make animation and design process more hands-on, and I fell in love with drawing the human body in the process. Here are some instructional drawings by A. Loomis:
   
   
   
   
2. Neil Gaiman Sandman series. Totally inspiring, dark and accurate when it comes to portraying human nature. I was especially moved by "A Dream of a Thousand Cats"
   
   
   
   
3. Christopher Hart. I think he is the greatest teacher of comic drawing!
   
   
   
   
4. Cupcakes. I've been baking cupcakes for fun after seeing Cupcakes On Pitt store on my way home
   
   
   
   
5. Knitting - room shoes. Another one of my little projects...still in progress though
   
   
   

Observations

These are the things that didn't sit with me so well this month. It's mostly focused around usability and paying attention to your client's needs (mine in this case).

1. Xbox 360 setup and menu. I have recently purchased the Xbox (mainly to play Guitar Hero) and it felt like I needed a master's degree to set it up.
2. Western knitting pattern notations. It's interesting that I can understand Japanese patterns without speaking a word of Japanese, but when it comes to the American/Australian patterns I am having a really hard time. And I assure you that I can read and write English :)
   
3. Finsbury Paper uses iStock photos to illustration their collateral! And it's using some of the most popular images too. As soon as I received the magazine I felt, "Hm...I've seen these." Of course, a quick search on iStock revealed the answer.
   
4. Paper mail. Please, don't kill the trees for advertising!!! Send me a clever e-mail, and I might just open up my wallet.
5. Digital print shops, in this case Snap Printing. It was one of the most exasperating experiences trying to print 5 pages in the morning, which I needed that afternoon. I refuse to believe that printing has to be so complicated...but who knows, maybe it is. I did learn a lesson though: print the day before, save yourself hours of agony.
   

Previous months

• April: Observations & Inspirations
• March: Observations & Inspirations
  
• February: Observations & Inspirations
• January: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Typography with Flash

This is my research for the Typography assignment to animate text with Flash. From what we've heard, it's a complete pain setting type in Flash because of its way of interpreting vectors. It also doesn't handle kerning well. The discussion in class recommends the following to combat Flash's font problems:

1. Use monospaced fonts, if you can.
   
2. Use pixel fonts ( and make sure to turn off anti-aliasing); this font cannot be scaled.
3. If using anti-aliasing setting, use either "for animation" or "readability", just choose one and use it for the whole document to avoid Flash embedding the font twice.
   

So I've identified these properties as "safe" to manipulate in Flash:

• size
• transparency
• color
• speed of motion
• placing letters and words inside each other
• using color blocks
• diagonals
• and simple motion on a path

The theme for my animation is Victorian Era love. A Count is finally free to be with his eternal love, and he sings to her soul about his all-consuming feelings.

Some Inspirations
Although some of these were done with AfterEffects, there are still transitions and motions that can be observed and learned. Look past the 3D and watch the motion and interactions of shapes.