IDENTS

Conclusion

In conclusion, I think that I presented 6 interesting idents, completed to the deadline, and each contrasting in visual stlye and techniques used. I realised that generally I had gone down the possibly more boring route of making them very corporate, that is to say, I hadnt exactly gone wild with creativity. Then again I felt that what I had achieved was a certain degree of self discipline in getting the job done to specification, as I would have had to in the professional world, and therefore I am not displeased with them.

Changing the brief...

I dont know if im allowed to do this but I felt that I need to change the brief... Whilst working on the idents I found that 5 seconds (even though it probably would have been exactly the right amount of time that the national galley wanted) was not quite enough time for me to display any kind of creative imigary or animation, other that something purely text/logo based. Therefore I am now making all the ident 10 seconds long so hopefully I can give a better representation of what I wanted to dispaly in each. Again, I probably should have found this out at the beginning of the project, but seeing as this makes it more work for me and not less, I cant see how it is necessarily a bad thing...

Concept #6

For this concept I wanted to use front pillar idea again but instead of 3D just use the image of the actual gallery as a bold staement of its identity, I also wanted it in black and white and for the sky to be moving. I wasnt sure how the logo was going to enter but this cam eto me later as the idea that the sun could pass through the clouds and reveal it...

Concept #5

Concept 5 was initially meant to be themed towards the fact that this ident was going to be shown before and after a film presentation, therefore I wanted to make it film/projector themed. For example, masked out faded to black edges with lots of scratches and grainyness over the film as the logo faded up, but I found this all a little bit boring when it came to the lack of it being visually striking...

I had fun with particle effects (in the form of fireworks) instead...

I think this fitted in with the whole theme and could be used if the gallery was to ever need something during a time of anniversary or any kind of celebratory event...

Concept #4

I have to admit this one I kind of did as I went along, although I had the basic premise of including paintings from the gallery and also to use the 3D pillard I had made earlier but in a 2D fashion. I thought this would create an interesting contrast...

Concept #3

This one was always going to be the most painstaking, but might prove to be the best. For the third I planned to use 3D layer (only in After Effects) and put the painting on them for a fly through effect. I found on the website that among the collections there are 30 works labelled as 'highlights', and there were images available so I went about usaing all of them in this piece. I doctored every one in photoshop so an recognisable element was cropped to that sections perimeter. I then imported those files straight into after effects as they had an alpha channel transparent background and set about putting them on seperate 3D layers and spacing them out...

Concept #2

I strongly feel that the identity of the gallery belongs to the artists whose paintings reside in it, therefore in this next ident I wanted to feature the artists. I was lucky enough to be able to get hold of reasonably hi res pics of the portraits of the artists from the website and wanted to use them subtly in an ident.

As I began to work on this one I felt it should be purely 2D layers, although I found that applying 3D text animation looked good. So I made a preset in After Effects and had portraits of 4 artists slowly fade up in the background with a compound blur which gives the interesting colour.

They are Van Gough, Monet, Velazquez and Turner.

Concept #1

This idea for one of the idents came about through looking at the actual building's classical architechture and the fact that it appeared to me that the main features; pillars and arches; really exemplify the gallery's identity and stand out as clear defined features or even as symbols and therefore a logo...

I decided to use a little 3D for this one, as I didnt want to be completely restricting myself to 2D, and I think it worked as an idea. So I modelled some simple pillars and arches with a couple of ambient lights and tried out some camera moves. From the start I wanted a kind of 'going through a tunnel' feeling so you could come out the otherside to the view of the logo...

Further Research

[Ok, I'm really annoyed as I just wrote about 400 words just now and then blogspot decided to crash when I tried to publish the post!!! I'll try and remember what I ws saying...]

I have found yet another gem of a website where they put up professional idents, mainly from television channels. Its a great resource and a way to see what idents are in the professional world. Looking at text animation is one thing, but I feel I need to explore what the nature and purpose of an ident really is.

http://www.theidentgallery.com/

Although I do not yet have the skills to make them as good as this on my own, these idents, once studied, show that various things such as pace, sound and structure are essential in their success.

I have realised that idents nearly always have the same pre-defined structure; there is an initial eye grabbing shot, then through the middle some sort of tension is created and when the release comes, thats when the logo appears. In a sense idents are just short adverts that reinforce the identity of what theyre advertising, but they cannot allow any room for dilution, they have to be pure and wholly representative...

Inspiration

I seem to be somewhat lacking in inspiration of late to come up with any interesting ideas. Therefore I have taken the liberty of acquiring a CD of music that was written and composed at the same time as many of the paintings in the gallery were painted (1250 onwards):

Upon listening to these tunes I also think that I might be able to use extracts of them as the background music in my idents. There are particularly beautiful swells and trills in the music and I think that these may go quite nicely with whatever I end up coming up with!

Something about the brief...

I am writing to make it clear that I am changing the brief ever so slightly. As I think Jared suggested I am now making the ident not just for the Sainsbury wing of the gallery, but for the national gallery as a whole. I believe this will give me a wider scope of possibilities and open the door for some more interesting designs. Although i'll need to be careful of the fact that I am now representing the entire gallery in my idents and now just a specific section or exhibition. I'll need to think about the gallery's IDENTITY even more now...

Text Animation Research

Logos and text animation will surely play a large part in these idents and i've started to do some research into what other people are doing in this field and therefore what is possible...

I've found an amazing website with a page that has a good set of text based animations and it proves that text animation and 2D logo animation can be done to a level where it's interesting and isnt boring as one would normally think (?)...

http://www.artculture.com/art-design-features/animated-typography-motion-videos

here are some for easy viewing

These grabs are from the website which unfortunately is not very inspiring, but again displays basic colour schemes and logos which im sure will prove useful later. The one thing they do have is medium res images of all the paintings! This will be useful as I'm hoping to use some of the actual paintings in my idents...

These images are scans of leaflets and clearly display the colour schemes they use in their branding...

The Gallery Itself

I think the previous pictures reinforce the gallery's boldness and classical feel, and also give a sense of its scale and presence...

The Beginnings...

SO, I have some idents to do for the National Gallery. My first thoughts were to actually go to the gallery and get a feel for the place so I could pick up on things such as the mood and ambiance and the speed at which the gallery operates and how the public look around the gallery. Maybe I can also get some leaflets which will give me some idea of thier branding which they use for their advertising and take a note of the coloursand fonts which are used in them.

Initial words that spring to mind when I think of the national gallery are "Archive", "Prestige", "Grandeur", "Elegance", "British", "Europpean", "Classical".

In the brief it says to make idents which capture what the gallery is about and what it represents. And I think to fulfil this a good start woud be to have thsese words floating around my head whilst I think up the concept ideas for each ident.

Brief B

I have chosen the following brief for this project:

Brief B: Animation
Source: Nicola Freeman
Commissioning Editor -- National Gallery Publications
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/

“We need some idents done for the National Gallery’s cinema presentations, maybe your students could come up with some ideas for us? We need a range of five second clips that we can play before during and after our presentations to reinforce the National Gallery’s identity. They can use the gallery’s logo, they can use images from the gallery’s collection, they can use current or future exhibitions as a theme; it would be really nice if they could reflect some of the colours that are used in the new Sainsbury Wing. You know, those lovely deep reds and warm greys.

It would be great if they came up with a range of ideas… I would like to see six ideas from each of them, but do you think they could give us a paper presentation as well, I don’t know the first thing about computers? A storyboard for each as well as some explanation of why they have taken that approach would be excellent support for their actual animations. I suppose they’re going to have to do a little bit of research into the gallery and what we’re about to really come up with something useful…”

Do some research into the National Gallery
Storyboard, explain, and produce six five second segments of animation to reinforce the identity of the National Gallery.