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Home of stop-motion artist PES, creator of the shortest film ever nominated for an Oscar, Fresh Guacamole

I found PES when I was at college, I have always found his stop motion animations brilliant. That he sticks so close to the themes like in ‘SUBMARINE SANDWICH’ using all sports related cards, gloves, balls, as substitutes for food items, you understand what it is even without commentary, without looking at the title, or having someone tell you, you know from visuals alone.

I also tried stop motion in college, it was difficult but fun to do. I gave it a little go in this project, with paper cut outs instead, I thought of Monty Pythons Terry Gilliam and his animation style.

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Digging out a phone recording of a chance encounter on the bus a few months ago, Anna’s new short is joyfully nostalgic for a public transport journey.

Brilliant animation and I love her animation style. Seems random to animate, but so much happens on public transport, and with her style of illustration and animation it works so well. You can tell what everything is, the colours are reflective of the mood, textures are great and timing is done so well.

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Developed during the animator’s first year in the city, the three-minute animation is a fluid depiction of New York’s vibrancy.

Found while looking through ItsNiceThat. Really really well done, I loved this. Showed great focused animation, that flowed well and because so much was happening and changing so often, the more minimalist art style was perfect.

I took inspiration for my animation with the centralised illustrations that are contained within a shape/item. After tutorials, my original animation was too all over the place. Like white space can be used well in editorial pieces, it can in animations too, the screen doesn’t have to be filled as long as it isn’t too sparse and there is a reason for leaving/using space.

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Made by four graduate friends at the École des Nouvelles Images, the hilarious short was inspired by the greats of 20th-century silent cinema.

Such a funny piece, I love this. I definitely won’t manage this level of animation (ever) but looking at this showed the amount that can be done in a short period of time. Pacing is great, story is great and I love the animation style itself.

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The animator hopes her short film, set to a serene piece of piano music, will awaken in viewers a sense of wanting to protect our fragile planet.

Research

Beautiful animation. I love the texture of the illustrations, I always fall into insane simplicity and flat block colours and block shading, experimentation within illustration is something I definitely need to do more of.

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Created during his final year at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, _The Postman_ features minimalist line work, fantastic characterisation and morphing perspectives, following a solemn protagonist as he goes about his daily job.

A bit of research. Found Tom Karvin while looking on ItsNiceThat. I love the style he has and the pacing he manages here.

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Specialist Practice

RSA brief 8 : Moving Pictures (chosen brief)

Either ‘The Future We Choose’ by Christina Figueres or ‘How to be a Good Ancestor’ by Roman Krznaric (after listening to both audio clips multiple times I chose the second to continue with)

The challenge is to ‘clarify, energise and illuminate the content’ of the audio files, to create an animated story line to accompany the talk but avoid obviousness with both visuals and metaphors, to really think about the story you want to create.

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My Associations

Sound. Photography. Animation. Type. Illustration. Colour.

Critical

Sound - loud, an alarm, siren, there to get your attention. Photography - no bright colours, no ‘artistic’ angles, to the point, of a road sign or warning sign? Animation - attention grabbing. Type - sans serif - you want it to be clear to read, like a warning sign you want people to be able to read it quick and more than likely while moving. Illustration - clear and to the point, use of triangle or circle? Colour(s) - red, amber, orange and black.

National

Sound - national anthem, loud-and-proud. Photography - it would be clear about what it is showing, full image, nothing small or unrecognisable, country flag? National flower? Animation - obvious about which nation, fanfare. Type - serif - serif appears more formal, fits a nation better. Illustration - poll cards? flags? Colour - blue, green, burgundy.

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Assiciations

I moved on from definitions to researching words that people associate with Critical and National.

Critical in the disapproving sense - criticizing, negative, unfavourable, scathing and nitpicking. In the context of importance - crucial, vital, of the essence and high priority. I looked at associations with disastrous, a word that goes hand-in-hand with critical, and found the words grave, serious, in-the-balance and hazardous.

National as an adjective - ethnic, home, racial, state, public, cultural and governmental. A noun - native, citizen, voter, subject, resident and inhabitant.

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Critical and National

Starting off Will It Blend I started obvious with looking at what each word meant. Each had a couple variations.

Critical could mean ‘expressing adverse or disapproving comments’ (Oxford languages), ‘inclined to find fault or to judge with severity, often too readily’ (Dictionary.com) or ‘having the potential to become disastrous; at a point of crisis’ (Oxford languages).

National could mean ‘relating to or characteristic of a nation; common to a whole nation’ (Oxford languages), ‘a citizen of a particular country’ (Oxford languages) or ‘peculiar or common to the whole people of a country’ (Dictionary.com).

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Will It Blend?

First of a series of mini projects to start the year off. For this one, our tutors gathered a load of words and put them through a random generator, so they could assign two words to each student fairly.

The task - to mash them together and see what comes out the other end... to see if they’ll blend. We are to create a piece of sound, photography, animation, type, illustration and colour that show a blending of these two words - no way to wrong here, it’s about experimentation.

My given words were Critical and National.

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#third year #here we go

Paper

I tested out a few different paper types; basic (80gsm); it would fold up fairly easily and the stark white would make the lino even bolder, newspaper; it would reduce waste and the type and imagery would make an interesting folded pouch even without the lino printed on top, kraft paper; it is very easily recyclable and lovely to print onto, newsprint paper/thin wrapping paper; has a smooth finish, easy to print onto, although it creases easily, card; just don’t know why I tried, one of those times where you just think this isn’t going to work all the way up to it not working, bone folder was no help, I tried cutting and sticking card board instead of origami folding; it didn’t look great, tracing paper; really interesting material to work with, I loved being able to see all the folds/layers, although not great to lino print onto, kitchen roll / tough tissue; a bitch to cut with a scalpel but otherwise really cool, it folded well, the uneven surface gave the lino a nice effect and you can throw it into the compost with the seeds and it won’t effect the seed, compost or soil, napkin; following the theme and using pieces that you would usually throw away (no, not a used napkin), people always pick up more McDonald’s napkins than they need, so I tried folding and printing onto one - it worked! It was so much worse to cut than the kitchen roll, it tore so many times, but because they’re a little rough, it was fairly easy to fold and the printing ink bonded well, overall not bad, but too much hassle when cutting to size.

Regarding sourcing the material, apart from posting asking for donations of paper that people would usually throw away, the best and most effective is the kraft paper/

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Lino testing

The ink I have used is water-based, easily washable although depending on the material / medium it’s used on/spread on it might stain slightly. The paper I used is from a parcel which individually wrapped bottles with this paper.

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Lino

Lino printing is something I first tried when I was in college, we had our own print room opposite to the studio, it was bloody brilliant. Print making in general I have always liked, but lino was especially fun, but could also be challenging like when you were trying to figure out which parts you wanted in the positive or negative space and which would look better when printed.

When looking at the seeds I bought for this project and sticking them into my book, I was reminded of pattern making when the seeds fell, which then led me to think of how to make and present those patterns; leading to lino printing.

I thought I could incorporate this into the freebies and the poster somehow, although they would be slightly abstract as I am no where near skilled enough to create a singular detailed pieces with lino, my designs have aspects of the plant in; tomato stalk, coriander leaf (leaves), carrot leaves, leaf veins and bag standard seeds. When designing these I kept in mind designers such as Maldo Malacek and Stephen Cheetham, drawing inspiration from their bold lines and minimal take.

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Feckin Freebies

When I started playing with this idea, I thought of a nice little seed packet that didn’t include any glue or convoluted folding, a simple origami pouch that could be made with minimal material, my idea was that it would preferably be made from scrap pieces of paper so that it would help with reducing waste.

I followed a simple design, wanting to make something easily replicated to inspire students if they wanted to carry on with growing plants outside of this (they could use pouches like this to store seeds they had collected) and so that it doesn’t take half-an-hour to fold one single packet (I attempted an origami rose at one point, didn’t have the right paper or the patience).

This particular packet, above, I made using newspaper. This was the second attempt with this material. The first square was taken from a page corner, chosen at random. After unfolding the first and working out which section of the paper would show on which panel of origami, I found a food advert within that newspaper and took a square that lined up to the largest panel would show what seeds were on the inside - in this case tomatoes.

The biggest problem with this is that being that picky about which sections / adverts within the newspaper to use, limited greatly how much of the paper would be usable for these packets, going against aiming to use us up scrap paper. Another downside is that you would need to be careful which stories from the paper you would use and be careful when folding across words as that can make a whole other mess.

I did love this particular iteration but it would have been too much effort and made too much waste.

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More freebies

It has been a while since I tackled parts of this project, but the last time I looked at creating freebies for students to collect, I wasn’t far off what I finished up with.

I wanted to create something that was easy to make, sustainable, recyclable and/or reusable and that was easy to transport from university, in the students bag and back to their homes - it couldn’t be bulky or too big.

Doing a pack that included pots, instructions and compost I feel would have been too much, not many students carry light and when they do they only have bags big enough for the equipment they have on them.

Also being offered a freebie is great, but when offered a bulky one (that isn’t edible) it can be off putting when you already have your hands full. It also might seem fab to get a big freebie, until you realise you need to put a bit of work in.

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