Sound Visualisation

This lecture was given to us after we were assigned our second brief.

We began with this quote:

'If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration' -Nicola Telsa.

This is another way of explaining the importance of sound, which will be key for our project.

We began looking at the first way of visualising sound which was telegraphy in 1840. This created notation marks on paper which could be sent. However, morse code, invented by Samuel Morse was the first graphic representation of sound. Combined with telegraphy, this creates texts. This was a turning point in visualising sound.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code

Although it isn't very visually appealing, it is still used today and is an example of how sound can be visual. 

The next example of visualising sound was mathematic notation which was called Bach. I did not fully understand this example but understood that it used maths to visually represent notes in music. The method was famously invented and used by Joseph Schillinger who used mathematical equations to translate music, art and design. A famous piece of his was the Skyline Melody.

http://villa-lobos.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/new-york-skyline.html

This technique took real life images and turned them into musical phrases. This meant that it worked on two levels and literally was visualising sound. This technique is aesthetically pleasing to see and hear.

John Cage also composed music and his music sheets were incredibly visual. For example, Sub Rosa:

http://www.subrosa.net/en/catalogue/unclassical/song-books.html

This follows a very literal example of how to visualise sound. However, it is outdated and has moved on from this.

Brian Eno was the next example we were given. He created an album 'music for airports' in 1978. Although this isn't literally visual, it is background music (also known as musak) and is not supposed to be listened to as you would regular music. This may make a place seem more pleasant and relaxed but people aren't supposed to be drawn to listen to the music and it isn't really supposed to be heard. In a way, this makes it visual as it has to fit with its environment and create a mood that will compliment a situation. This is an interesting type of music and is a concept to take into account when doing this project, particularly focusing on how music sets a tone.

Oscilloscopes were the next example we were given. These machines work with using frequency and oscillation and are still used today, although deemed old fashioned. 

Karl Ferdinand was the inventor of this in 1897. 

http://www.rigolna.com/products/digital-oscilloscopes/ds1000d/

These machines use sound and vibration and translate them into waves which symbolise voltages. Again, this machine had no use to be graphically visual but is another way to visualise sound and this concept could be taken further. For example, the use of sound waves can be very visual and interesting.

Leon Theramin invented an instrument out of oscillating devices. The instrument is called a Theramin, which was one of the first electronic musical instruments. Although this music doesn't create image, you do have to move your hands around in a pattern to work it, which makes it quite a visual instrument with a very distinctive sound.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Léon_Theremin#/media/File:Lev_Termen_playing_-_cropped.jpg

This could inspire other ideas such as how to physically visualise sound as it is an interesting concept and, it is true that not only modern concepts are the greatest.

Mary Ellen Brute was friends with Schillinger and Theramin. She created animation using oscilloscopes in 1953 which were far more visual that Schillinger's and Theramin's inventions. For example:

http://www.awn.com/mag/issue1.2/articles1.2/moritz1.2.html

Harmonics and vibration was the next part of the lecture and for this we looked at Robert Hooke (1860) as he made the discovery that the motion of the glass plate he was experimenting with moved perpendicular to the flour on the plate he was experimenting with. The flour turned oval. This discovery showed that vibration could be visualised and was groundbreaking. It was rediscovered by Ernst Chladni in 1871 and started to discover the theory of sound.

We then looked at Hans Jenny who coined the term Cymaticas. It was known to occur on a surface, such as a plate, where you can visually see the vibrations on the surface. It has been used in the video, Science vs Music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3oItpVa9fs
This is an excellent example of how sound can be visual and how amazing it could look. There is a lot of information of how to make sound physically visual within this video and although it is edited, it still looks very effective.

This lecture was a great introduction on the brief and I really enjoyed the information. However, a lot of the examples were physical and it would be nice to have some digital demonstrations. In another way, it is good to have more ideas that move away from solely working on a computer and these examples definitely have inspired me to do so.

Typography
In this week, we were given a small brief to use examples of typography and use these to create our own typeface. Personally, I like working with paper and pencil  and feel it is far quicker and easier to visualise the ideas in my head. I began by looking at a few examples and experimenting with the letters I was given, 'a', 'n', 'e' and 'g'. The examples below are a few ideas that I initially thought of before I looked further into the examples we were given.

I then developed these by using different styles and worked quickly and loosely to get some basic ideas. I like the first one as it is quite roughly done and effective. However, not all the letters are the same hight nor are they the same size. This is something I need to develop as I work on different typefaces. I enjoyed working with a range of styles that used the letters I was given and for some interesting results. I also discovered, some letters were harder to do than others. Such as, 'S' and 'G' whereas 'A', 'N' and 'E' were a lot easier.

This is the most developed typefaces that I created in this workshop. I really like working loosely and struggle to do geometric lettering as it is too time consuming. Perhaps I need to experiment more with alining the type as well as making it more geometric. I feel this was a good exercise as it allowed me to work freely and with pencil and paper, which is good as well as working on a computer. My favourite typeface is the one I created one at the top of the final sheet of paper which is very fluid and unique. The bottom one on the final page is unclear. I need to do more working on kerning and letter size because this is where I failed with this brief. However, I did experiment with a lot of styles and get a lot of ideas down which will help in my next typography session.

The Meaning of Life
Art, Design and Consumer Culture.

We began the lecture by looking at this example:

http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/feminist/images/BarbaraKruger-I-Shop-Therefore-I-Am-II-1987.jpg 

Barbara Kruger made this piece of artwork that plays on the famous quote by Descartes, 'I think therefore I am'. It plays on the idea that consumerism defines us as a culture and we define ourselves by what we buy. However, in this society, we follow a cycle of: wanting, buying and then forgetting about it. Before the consumerism culture, religion was. Religion used to drive people and move people but now, money is the new religion and people follow this. Not working results in leisure activities and living for the weekend and buying luxuries that we don't need. 

Values and activities have changed and this is apparent through media and shift in subcultures. Understanding culture is key to graphic design because we need to be aware of social aspects so that we can produce design that is relevant as well as contemporary. 

Consumer culture is a desire to satisfy wanting. This is recognised as a bad way to live (in the western world) and is displayed in a beautiful way by Chris Jordan. This piece that he did was made out 78,000 plastic bottles and shows how much waste is created by our consumerism society. This amount of water bottles is equal to 1/10,000th of the estimated number of people in the world who lack access to safe drinking water. 

http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/rtn2/#water-bottles

http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/rtn2/#water-bottles

http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/rtn2/#water-bottles

We then talked about aesthetic theory which questions what art is and what is beauty? These questions were posed by Theadore Adorne.

Graphic Design mixes fine art with social science and combines communication, technology, perception and behaviour. Design can't be understood without the communication system which links strongly with our social culture. 

We were given a short quote by George Bernerd Shaw, 'The reasonable man adapts himself to the new world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man'. This means that we should be changing the world to fit our needs and this is how progress, in all aspects of life, happens. 

Survival in the 21st century means:

Technology is advancing,

Advertising has dominated image,

Attitudes change,

Devices change us,

Digital immigrants and digital natives (digital immigrants are the older generation who have not grown up with this advanced technology, for example, mobiles. Digital natives are the younger generation who have been born into this technological age and don't have to adapt. 

The western world is is a mixture of rich and poor, however, the virtual world is all online. Because there is two major worlds, online and western, that means everyone has 2 selfs: an online self and a physical self and these can be very different. Reality can be escaped through the online world as you can filter and alter what you say and choose to show about your life. 

All of this comes from a natural human desire to communicate as we need to share information in order to survive. Human nature is driven by collecting, organising and sharing data.

This lecture was incredibly useful as it gave us a broader understanding of how society works and what society wants, with particular reference to the Western World. As a graphic designer, knowing your own society is key as you need to be able to sell to it which means working with needs and wants from the majority and keeping that in your mind for whatever work you do. 

Interactive PDF:
In this session, I created an interactive PDF booklet. This session was a challenge because I am not familiar with how to use buttons on Indesign. This is what I created, although it is incomplete.

I added a button onto the number five so that it would go straight to the introduction, this made it an interactive PDF and was under the interactive tool box in Indesign. It was simple to link the pages and was a good tool to learn. 

I also made a button on one of the circles in the poster I was recreating. As you can see, I didn't  match it exactly but through the process of kerning and letter height, I would be able to.

 Instead of writing an actual introduction and information page, I inserted this filler text which just displays where the text would go. It is a tool I am well familiar with and is great to use when deciding on layout and font size/ type.

 Inserting images was also another skill I revised. Although, I was also very familiar with this and it was not a challenge. The image is of the jazz musician that the PDF is about.

Inserting videos also made it an interactive PDF. You can press play and hear the video as well as see it play. This is a key skill to know when presenting work in the future and was also interesting to learn how to import a mov. file into InDesign. Overall, the tutorial was basic but essential. I am not too happy with the final product but felt it was very useful when learning how to create interactive PDF's.

Kinetic Typography



For this After Effects tutorial we were working on kinetic typography and this was helpful when doing my project as I could use what I was taught in this session in my work.
We began by choosing the font we wanted to present as we were expected to use a couple of frames to give some information and display a typeface. I chose American Typewriter because it is a favoured typeface of mine and I know it from the 'I love NY' brand. I wanted to use black and white as I felt it fit in best with the font as it is in the style of a typewriter, which would be black ink on a white page. I also liked how much the one red heart stood out within the frames and the use of negative space, creating a simplistic style.

This is the storyboard that I then put into after effects. At first, it was daunting as I was unfamiliar with how to use different tools and how to make my animation look effective. However, it became simple as I was shown round the basics I got the hang of how to move things and effectivley and make my still storyboard animated. 

I added solid rectangles to reveal different parts of the text in the first frame. This was to try and mimic the style of  a typewriter. However, it would have been better to mimic exactly how a typewriter types onto a page but this was too time consuming and complex for the session. 

I also revealed text with rectangles as I was experimenting with the speeds I can move things around as well as how I can use space and what looks most effective. Although this is basic, it made me a lot more comfortable with how to use after effects and introduced me to new ways of working. I enjoyed using After Effects and am beginning to use it for my project. 

These are the tools I used when positioning and animating my objects and below is the outcome of the projects:

Research and Essay Writing.
We were introduced to four styles of writer:
1) Leaper
2)Crazy Paver
3)Blue Printer
4)Map Reader
It is important to identify which style you have in order to begin researching and writing.
It is advised to follow this pattern:
1)Clarifying the path
2)Gathering Information
3)Reflect or Evaluate
4)Planning and Drafting
5)Final Draft.

We were also advised to look at the University of Kent's Assignment Survival Kit which tackled ways of revising as well as writing styles.

It was said that it would be more useful to divide the process up into phases in order to make it manageable and not too overwhelming.
The first stage would be clarifying the task and gathering some research and ideas. Then, write up a plan and mind map key concepts of the essay you're going to write. Keep in mind, the first phase is 1,500 words and the second is 2,500 words.
The second stage is the research, which will take longer than clarifying the task. Reading techniques involve: first, scan the text to find relevant chapters, pages or paragraphs. Then, skim through these to find even more relevant points to include in your essay. After you have established key sections, read through this carefully and pick out relevant points and bits of research.
Step three is 'reflect and evaluate'.  In this step, you are expected to refer back to the brief and try and incorporate your research into the question you will be answering. At this point, you should also be making your own discoveries and finding patterns within research.
The next step is forming a logical order for your essay. This means you have all the information and now just need to lay it out in a logical and coherent way. This also means taking into account paragraph structure as well as where to put images.
The final stage is to make sure its written in third person and also all correct.

This lecture was really helpful as it gave me a starting point on where to research and how. I feel more confident about essay writing now.