CCDN 271

Assignment 3

"Make A Claim And Substantiate It"

As the generation of teenagers and adults grow, so does the material world among us. We are offered with an increasingly higher number of “branded” everyday things today, than we ever have been before. Our desires are not that of a simple everyday object. We do not seek for cheap and economical products, but would rather pursue the likes of an expensive branded trademark. My research will explore the psychology of teenagers when buying and selling, in order to discover how simple everyday things need to be “labelled” to bring satisfaction to this day and age. I will argue that in looking at my generation’s needs, rather than wants, expensive and branded everyday things are requirements in this generation. Beginning with Alissa Quart’s book Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers, this study will provide me an overview of the “brand” design movement critiquing the initial periods when trademarks evolved. 
I nominate Design Sociology and Anthropology - Youth as my intersecting theme as I feel that the evolution of the trademarks on everyday design has influenced the behavior of teenagers and adults to this day. The initial texts I will use for this is Creating Powerful Brands by Leslie de Chernatony (2011) and Quart’s Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers (2003). 

“...the blue jeans with the prominent Levi’s rivets, the watch with the hey-this-certifies-I-made-it icon on the face, your fountain pen with the makers symbol crafted into the end...Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding.” (Peters, 1997). 

Both of my claims are revolved around the everyday things that we as consumers buy. My claim is that in this generation, we do not seek cheap and economical products and that branded things are requirements in our everyday lives, regardless of the object. Alissa Quart states that “Todays teens are victims of the contemporary luxury economy. They have grown up in the age of the brand, bombarded and defined by name products and intrusive and clever advertising strategies.” (2003, pg.xvi). This is the main idea in her book “Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers” giving us an outline of her experiences with the evolution of the brand industry. 
In Chernatony’s book “Creating Powerful Brands”, he writes about why it is crucial to have powerful brands worldwide and states that brands are and “estimated to represent at least 20% of the intangible value of businesses on the major world stock markets.” (2001, pg 8). Due to marketingcharts.com, they conducted a research with 1000+ kids aged between 13 and 19 of mixed genders with a survey about brands. It resulted that 46% say “they are loyal to the brands they really like” (2007). The study consisted of brands such as Apple which resulted in Apple’s iPod is the brand “absolutely essential to teens.”

Chernatony, L. D. (2011). Creating Powerful Brands (4th ed.).

Oxford, UK: Butterworth-Heinemann. 

Quart, A. (2003). Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers.

New York, NY: Basic Books. 

Peters, T. (1997). The Brand Called You.

Retrieved from http://www.fastcompany.com/28905/brand-called-you

Attfield, J. (2000). Wild Things: The Material Culture Of Everyday Life.

New York, NY: Berg.

Teens Both Fickle about and Obsessed with Brands. (2007). Retrieved from

http://www.marketingcharts.com/television/teens-both-fickle-about-and-obsessed-with-brands-698/

Palmer, J. (2012). The balinghou.

Retrieved from http://www.aeonmagazine.com/living-together/james-palmer-chinese-youth/

MDDN 241

Project 2A
Pre-production


Orthographic Sketch Final

So, this is my final sketch model of my character! I added a little bit of rendering to it to give it more of an effect, plus it looks a whole lot better. I hand drew the bear yes, then put it through photoshop to fix up anything that I could, and finally coloured it using my SketchBook Pro on my iPad which turned out quite well. If you're wondering why I've got the mug shot style photo of him, well let's just say he's not your normal everyday teddy bear. With creating this character I had to combine 3 inanimate objects that have the 3 qualities which are "Materiality", "Motion" and "Meaning". I decided on the meaning of it first which I thought would be easier on the other 2 to decide. As weird as it sounds, I went with the "Not-so-cuddly" teddy bear. I didn't not want to have a normal teddy because that would be too much of a cliche, so I went with the opposite and made him evil. The colour choices I have made this possible due to the darkness of it, with it's facial expression giving it that extra edge. For materiality I chose actual animal skin for it instead of cotton. Why not cotton you ask? Well it would make sense for my bear to do the opposite of what it's originally made out of since it is an evil bear, and you don't normally see a teddy bear made out of animal skin. This will be handy because I can add fur to my final render as well when I get to that stage. Lastly for movement, I went with your basic wind up key. Although it's an evil bear and it looks like its locked and reloaded ready for destruction, its still a wind up toy! How clever is that? I'm excited to see how this goes on maya when I'm modelling it.

MDDN 241

Project 2A
Pre-production


Sketch Final Colour

By combining what I thought were the best colours put together for my teddy bear character, I have come up with my final colour that I'll use for it. For it's main body, I went with a more darker brown than usual. I didn't like the way the green capsule looked mixed with any of the other colours used so I went with a blooded colour along with the bow tie. And of course I mixed and matched the cannon colours as well to make it as contrast as I can, which turned out great! 

MDDN 241

Project 2A
Pre-production


Sketch Colours

I explored different types of colours but stuck to the main shade for the usual teddy bear colour. The cannon/bionic arm of course will have a metal look to it so I chose to do grayscale colours for that. There is a little part in the gun as well that has a capsule type of thing in it which contains "bio" and "radioactive" chemicals in it which I chose to either do green or red. The bow tie I chose either red or pink which in most teddy bears signifies comfort and love. Here are the ones I came up with.

[Colour Concept 1]

[Colour Concept 2]

[Colour Concept 3]

MDDN 241

Project 2
Pre-production

Concept Sketches

So this is the main and final idea that I went with for my sketches. I went with a teddy bear with a big scar on its head and one on its eye. With its current expression, its signifying that its evil, which is related to the meaning that I have. It also has a "cute" bow tie and oh yeah, a cannon for an arm. For its movement it is controlled by a wind up key. I just need to figure out what colours I would like to use for my character.

MDDN 241

Project 2A
Pre-production


Ideas ideas ideas..

Like all projects that I have, I always have the final finished product in my mind right at the start. The narrative and context I have plenty of ideas on. but my character; I have no idea. So where to begin? First off I'll need to figure out what materials, motion and what meaning to have, then and only then will I be able to decide on my character.

[ Materiality ]

Something organic? This will be useful for something that I would want to grow, or have in an environment such as a forest. Organic could include materials like wood, vegetables and fruits, flesh, animal skin.

Something liquid? This will be useful for a character that lives in wet areas like the ocean or river bed. Such materials can be as simple as water, or oil. There is also blood, lava and milk.

Something raw? Similar to organic materials, raw materials usually are the materials used more often in todays markets. This can consist of such materials as timber, tobacco, sugar, spices, silver, gold etc. Pretty profitable which could also have some meaning behind it.

Something processed? This will include pretty much the rest of the main materials such as paper and metal and glass. Any of these can be used in most environments and could give me access to almost any character choices.

[ Motion ]

There are a lot of inanimate things out there that have an interesting movement to it. I have come up with a few possible ones that I have thought of. 

Something that leaps/jumps? This could include such things as a spring. A spring could be used to launch the character around and also bounce it everywhere. A mousetrap? This would be an instant jump compared to your normal spring, kind of like spring-boarding yourself off something. 

[ Meaning ]

There are a lot of objects out there that have a lot of meaning to it, even some that have little meaning can be used. I thought of something that would have great meaning to it but twist it a little and do the exact opposite of it. Something like a soft toy that's cuddly but isn't cuddly, if that makes sense..

MDDN 241

Project 2A
Pre-production

"The power of digital animation gives a designer the ability to bring life to the inanimate in ways that were previously inaccessible"

This project is pretty self-explanatory. We are required to design a character all within it's pre-production. This character has to have 3 qualities:

-- Materiality

-- Motion

-- Meaning

From this we will plan, model and texture our character ready for it to be presented on a 360 degree rotating turntable animation. I will pay extra attention to the way it moves, the personality it possesses, and the environment it habitats. For the narrative, the character must overcome some sort of environmental obstacle or situation. A storyboard consisting of at least 18 illustrated scenes will be created as well to pre-visualize key elements within the composition.  

Information provided and quoted from http://schoolofdesign.ac.nz/mod/page/view.php?id=1171

CCDN 271

Assignment 2

Identifying a Standpoint & Support




As my generation of teenagers and young adults grow, so does the material world among us. We are offered with an increasingly higher number of “branded” everyday things today, than we ever have been before. Our desires are not that of a simple everyday object. We do not seek for cheap and economical products but would rather pursue the likes of an expensive branded trademark. My research will include the psychology of teenagers when buying and selling, in order to discover how simple everyday things need to be “labelled” to bring satisfaction to this day and age. I will argue that in looking at my generation’s needs, rather than wants, expensive and branded everyday things are requirements in this generation. Beginning with Alissa Quart’s book Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers, this study will provide me an overview of the “brand” design movement critiquing the initial periods when trademarks evolved. 
I nominate Design Sociology and Anthropology - Youth as my intersecting theme as I feel that the evolution of the trademarks on everyday design has influenced the behavior of teenagers and young adults to this day. The initial texts I will use for this is Creating Powerful Brands by Leslie de Chernatony and Quart’s Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers.

Chernatony, L. D. (2011). Creating Powerful Brands (4th ed.).
Oxford, UK: Butterworth-Heinemann. Retrieved from 
http://books.google.co.nz/bookshl=en&lr=&id=TGb6c2oKqXIC&oi=fnd&pg=PR13&dq=teenagers+and+branded+labels&ots=2elGEmoyCI&sig=eda4SZyaVl9EYqyTAQoDZRVAT0Y#v=onepage&q=teenagers%20and%20branded%20labels&f=false

Quart, A. (2003). Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers.
New York, NY: Basic Books. Retrieved from 
http://books.google.co.nz/bookshl=en&lr=&id=TGb6c2oKqXIC&oi=fnd&pg=PR13&dq=teenagers+and+branded+labels&ots=2elGEmoyCI&sig=eda4SZyaVl9EYqyTAQoDZRVAT0Y#v=onepage&q=teenagers%20and%20branded%20labels&f=false

MDDN 241

Project 1
Materiality

Final Movie

This is my very end result. It was a long road towards it through all the tutorials and videos I've had to watch to learn the programs through to all the rendering and finalising. But I'm glad it's finished, and I must say, I'm quite happy with what came out of it. Here is a list of the programs and resources I used to create this:

-- Autodesk Maya
-- Adobe After Effects CS5
-- iMovie
-- www.freesound.org
-- google.images

I couple of notes to take in, I added 2 effects to my movie in after effects which I thought would help the environmental factor within it. I added particles in the background, that look like stars which gradually appear and disappear but are noticeable if you pay attention. The effect looked cool because it gave it even a better 3D effect. The second one I used was the lens flare right after the big explosion. This effect looked too awesome and fit perfectly to the lighting that I did in my animation.

MDDN 241

Project 1
Materiality

Sound/Music

Below is the list of sounds and music that I chose for my animation. I wanted the sounds to be mystical and space-like and overall I think the sounds fit perfect with what I have created in my movie. I got all the music files from the open source sound website - www.freesound.org

--  "boom3" by NoiseCollector

-- "dead Verstorben" by UdoPohlmann

-- "Heartbeat 5sec int" by Benboncan

-- "Huge bomb" by jobro

-- "space buzz tone" by thatjeffcarter

MDDN 241

Project 1
Materiality

Poster

This is the A3 poster as part of our hand-in. We were required to make a poster that shows 3 different stages of our form and a brief description of it, also explaining where we got our ideas and inspiration from.

MDDN 241

Project 1
Materiality

Final Stages

Another little tweak and change that I made was the colour of the final model. The spikes are now a nice shade of red implying that this used to be the old planet, but now it is controlled by some random infection. The red spikes have moving textures which add a cool little effect to the whole thing as such. 

MDDN 241

Project 1
Materiality

Development


This is a screenshot of one of my final moments before I am to render my animation. As you can see, we have the final textures of each of the objects in the shot. We have to light sources which are the red arrows and which way that light source is facing. And the camera angle, which is the exact same as the screenshot. With the camera work, It's going to start off in this position, then slowly zoom in until the object is about to explode. It then pans around the whole object whilst the spikes are coming out of the dead infected planet.

MDDN 241

Project 1
Materiality

Development


One thing that I have almost forgotten was the background image that I was going to use in my animation. It would have to be a deep space background since it is a planet, so it wasn't too hard to find. The image below is the one I will use which looks pretty good afterwards. It is plain and simple, plus I can add effects to it later on once I animation it.