Unit 4 Communication Through Art and Design: April 2013

Wednesday 24 April 2013

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Tuesday 9 April 2013

Task 1 - Examination of images to convey atmosphere

Today we've been asked to find one of the following, and give a brief description on how it conveys meaning to the word.

a sense of mystery
This image here I found is of an enchanted land, that beholds a mysterious castle, where those who go near it, are curious to see what it beholds. the Myst adds a very mysterious effect to the environment, the sun in the sky shines brightly upon the castle and the lake, giving a very magical feeling to the atmosphere, while retaining the same level of mystery.

a clearly defined atmosphere

This is a image of a clearly defined portrait of war and chaos, a land where thousands are killed for supremacy and unorganization, a land and image which clearly represents an idea for no rules, and no law, where anything goes, total chaos. People being brutally killed, the sky turned red and black from the amount of explosions and the amount of fire.

a specific style

Here is an art image of the style futurism, futurism as stated in some of my other blogs, was a style done by artists who had an idea of what they thought the future would of been like, in this picture we can see that this is an attempt, on an idea on how space travel may be like, clearly this was meant to be some form of spacesuit. the background colour is black which would represent space, while the tubes and various other shapes represent what the artist feels what a spacesuit would probably be like.

something that attracts viewer’s attention,
This is a car accident, n image of something that would attract an onlookers attention either out of shock, or to run and go help, or even to find out what's wrong, car accident's always attract alot of attention due to the risk they hold, as it often involves endangering peoples lives.

something that provokes a strong reaction

Bullying is something most people don't take kind to, and envokes strong opinions and reactions, as bullying is a leading cause in suicide in young children, and isn't seen as a good thing due to the amount of distress it causes the victims.

something that sells

Below is a customized xbox 360, with LED casing advertising its most loved game, " Halo ". The appearance the xbox and the LED art it gives off, is a very powerful, and sci-fi shooting experience, which visually comunicates to the customer whom would then want to look into buying it, or even just look into what " halo " is.

Task 2 - Examination of 4 artist's work

on task 2 we've been tasked with finding 2 artists from 2 art movements and giving a brief overview of what they've done and who they are.

Expressionism

Edvard Munch

My first Artist I chose was a man called Edvard Munch, a man who worked in the expressionism art movement. Edvard was born in a rustic farmhouse in the village of Adalsbruk in Loten, to Christian Munch, the son of a priest. Christian was a doctor and medical officer who married Laura Catherine Bjolstad, a woman half his age, in 1861. Edvard had an elder sister, Johanne Sophie ( 1962 ) and three younger siblings: Peter Andreas (1865) Laura Catherine ( (1867) and Inger Marie (1868). Both Sophie and Edvard appear to have inherited their artistic talent from their mother. Evard Munch was related to painter Jacob Munch (1776-1839) and historian Peter Andreas Munch (1810-1863)

Christian Munch's military pay was very low, and his attempts at developing a private side practise failed, keeping his family in perennial poverty. They moved frequently from one sordid flat to another. Munch's early drawings and watercolours depicted these interiors, and the individual objects, such as medicine bottles and drawing implements, plus some landscapes, by his teens, art dominated Munch's interests. At thirteen, Munch had his first exposure to other artists at the newly formed Art Association, where he admired the work of the Norwegian landscape school. He returned to copy the paintings and soon he began to paint in oils.

Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas. Expressionist artists sought to express Meaning or emotional experience rather than physical reality.

James Ensor

James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor was a belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in ostend for almost his entire life. He was associated with the artistic group Les XX.

While Ensor's early works, such as the " Russian Music (1881) " and " The Drunkards (1883) " depict realistic scenes in a somber style, his palette subsequently brightened and he favoured increasingly bizarre subject matter. Such paintings as " The Scandalized Masks (1883) " and " Skeletons over a hanged man (1891) " feature figures in grotesque masks inspired by the ons sold in his mothers gift shop from ostend's annual carnival. Subjects such as carnivals, masks, puppetry, skeletons, and fantastic allegories are dominant in Ensor's mature work. Ensordressed skeletons up in his studio and arranged them in colourful, enigmatic tableaux on the canvas, and used masks as a theatrical aspect in his still life's. Attracted by masks' plastic forms, bright colours, and potential psychological impact, he created a format in which he could paint with freedom.

Pop Art

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol ( August 6, 1928 - February 22 1987 ) was an american artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertisement that flourished by the 1960's. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhole became a renowned and sometimes contreversial artist. The Andy Warhole Museum in his native city, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, holds an extensive permanant collection of art and archives. it is the largest museum in the united states dedicated to a single artist.

Warhol has ben the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentry films. He coined the widely used expression " 15 minutes of fame ". Many of his creations are very collectable and highly valuable. The highest price ever paid for a Warhol painting is a 100 Million US Dollars, for a 1963 canvas titled Eight Elvises. The private transaction was reported in a 2009 article in The Ecominist, which described Warhol as the " belwether of the art market ". Warhol's works include some of the most expencive paintings ever sold.

David Hockney

Hockney was born in Bradford, England, on 9 July 1937 to Laura and Kenneth Hockney, the fourth of five children. He was educated at wellington primary school, bradford grammar school, Bradford College of Art, and the Royal college of art in london, where he met R.B. Kitaj. While there, hockney said he felt at home and took his pride in work. At the royal college of art, hockney featured in the exhibition " Young contemporaries " along with Peter Blake, that announced the arrival of british pop art. he was associated with the movement, but his early works display expressionist elements, not dissimilar to some works by Francis Bacon.

he left for California after he got his diploma, where he subsequently lived for many years, inspired him to make a series of paintings of swimming pools in the comparitively new acrylic medium rendered in a highly realistic style using vibrant colours. The artist moved to Los angeles in 1964, returned to london in 1978, at first renting the canyon house he lived in and later bought the property and expanded it to include his studio. He also owned a 1,643 sqaure foot beach house at 21039 pacific coast highway in Malibu, which he sold in 1999 for around 1.5 Million dollars.

Task 3 - Production of images to convey atmosphere

Today we had to go out to town, and take photographic images in the town finding the best locations for suitable pictures to convey meaning.

We had to convey the following emotions/representations.

Happiness

Depression

Anger

Sorrow

Love

Mystery l

Confusion

I felt the first Image I had, represented anger rather well, as this is a antagonist character from the star wars universe called darth maul fueled with anger and rage. I then took it into photo shop and gave it a more angry environment and feel to the image.

Most of my images had too much sunlight going into them, but this worked in my favour as I felt this added a very artsy feel to my picture, this picture was of the ferris wheel sign which had a confusing statement on it, but I feel this works better for the user, as it confuses you that its a picture, with almost nothing in it. I then took it into photoshop and added various colours with text, to make it more clear, but still rather confusing.

This image was meant to represent sorrow, as its of an image of a high street with shops that have been shut down due to the recession and lack of money. I changed the background to a darker gloomier effect with graffiti and a title to give it a depressive impression.

This image was of happiness, showing here families out for dinner on a sunny day outside the americano cafe. I then added several positive symbols and a phrase to the picture to make it appear more positive.

This image is of acceptance and love, I asked a citizen about how he'd feel about giving my friend a hug, and having his picture done, he willingly and happily accepted, and here's my friend and the citizen in a picture.

I then tried to try and restructure the picture slightly to represent love for your friends.

This alleyway I found I felt would be a good representation for mystery, as you don't know what's down it. I didnt know what exactly to do with my mystery image, but I decided to add a black glow to the centre to make it appear more mystical, I then added the text.

This image below is a representation of sorrow, of al the soldiers lost in the first world war.

Another image about sorrow, I saw a lone magpie, and I felt it might make a good image for the saying " one for sorrow, two for joy "

Task 4 - cartoon Images

Today we had to create an animation and a cartoon image using a real photo, now although I cannot show the animation I did complete it and followed the demo on doing cheeky hand movement, heres a screenshot of some of my work.

Think for a moment about how much a person is able to convey with just a facial expression. A smile can indicate approval or happiness, while a frown can signal disapproval or unhappiness. In some cases, our facial expressions may reveal our true feelings about a particular situation. While you may say that you are feeling fine, the look on your face may tell people otherwise.

Emotions Expressed Through Facial Expressions

Just a few examples of emotions that can be expressed via facial expressions include:

Happiness
Sadness
Anger
Surprise
Disgust
Fear
Confusion
Excitement
Desire
Contempt

Universal Facial Expressions

Facial expressions are also among the most universal forms of body language. The expressions used to convey fear, anger, sadness, and happiness are similar throughout the world. Researcher Paul Ekman has found support for the universality of a variety of facial expressions tied to particular emotions including joy, anger, fear, surprise, and sadness.

Emotions, Facial expressions and body language's are clear and effective ways for human beings to express how they feel about one another, or how they feel about certain situations. for example a human being whom feels bored in a situation, would look too relaxed, most likely with an emotionless face, whereas someone who feels happy, would be moving a lot, and smiling a lot.

The Animation we created from the demo, as you can clearly see, from the smile and shape of the eyes, represents a cheeky type of emotion, feeling rather positive and happy about it, and as for the position of the hands, shows a well known cheeky emotion. if peole did not show these representations and emotions with body language, we would not be able to tell most of the time how they felt without asking them.

Confusion

Love

Mystery

Sorrow

These are several emotional expressions on faces, happiness, sadness, and angry, confusion, love, mystery and sorrow. happiness often entails a relaxed expression in the facial muscles, with eyebrows appearing relaxed but often appearing either pointing upwards slightly, or just above horizontal. whereas sadness, either has a horizontal smile, or a smile pointing downwards, with eyebrows looking too relaxed. Anger normally appears with eyebrows pointing more in a downwards position or horizontal, with the eyes appearing stressed with a small frown on the face. Confusion has a mixed appearance to the face, often with the eyes pointing up, with a sort of puzzled expression to the face, meanwhile love often entails bright smiles, a positive glare, with variations in colour if your talking of the terms of a cartoon. Mystery is rather hard to explain, but tries to give two sides to everything as an expression, while sorrow often has a slump, with a sad face, with tears and a introverted appearance to the body.

Happiness for body language normally has raised arms, and an active positive apearance to the body.

Whereas sadness often has a slumped, loose appearance to the body.

And anger would have raised fists, or a stiff appearance to the body, with a firm stance to represent anger.

I then attempted to draw 4 more drawings based around the language of the body, the top left was meant to be a representation of sorrow, of someone sitting down curled up, feeling sorrowful, whereas the top right is meant be love but turned into a mixture for joy/love, the bottom right was meant to be a body of someone appearing mysterious, whereas the bottom right was meant to be of someone feeling confused, and showing confusion. Body language can be expressed with different appearances and postures, and once you know most of the postures for certain feelings, you can start to read body language with great ease.

we then tried to do a little bit of personification, and I created a happy puppy, or a puppy with a happy expression on his face.

Task 5 - Good and bad web banners

Good Banners

Today we've been tasked with writing a summary of good and bad web banner ads, good web banner ads should be visually appealing, and be showing the audience exactly what is on offer. when creating a good banner you want to make it as productive as possible, a productive banner is an effective banner. good banners often are quite visual with their linked site, and often express the link between what they are advertising, where it is, and the link between the site and the banner ad, as most people feel worried about the ad not being secure. Good banners are often straight to the point, and don't show irrelevant images. well placed ads often ensure security, as more times than not, secure ads are on well known sites, as the sites with a good reputation, are normally happy to host secure websites. it also helps if the product your selling is relevant to the site you've hosted it on. Good banners normally have a professional feel to the ad, any ad with spelling errors or irrelevance or too much immaturity on, normally push potential targets away.

Bad Banners

Bad banners are normally exactly opposite of what has been stated in the above, unsuitable banners normally consist of being either too simple, or too immature, or anything that pushes people away, normally the word " instant " can push people away, as things likes " instantmoney " will push people away as it is normally deemed as a scam. anything that has too much of something, or too little of something, or anything that isn't very clear, will normally drive people away, any web banner that pops up in peoples face, or any ad that pops up before the site, normally gets deleted.

Here are my examples of good advertisements, the ads I picked are advertisements that are clear and to the point, they advertise high profile and well known products that are related to the site.

Good banners Are...

Clear
not too simple, not too friendly
visually appealing.
shows you whats on offer
shows where its on offer.
related to the home site.

Watchdogs, xbox 360, upcoming game, hosted on a games informer site.

Again, an advertisement on a games informer site, straight to the point, professional.

Metro last light, hosted on a PC builder site, related to the host's product, a product known and high profiled, and a known title.

A known company hosted on a PC builder site, related to PC's, graphics card builder.

A clear, and straight to the point advertisement, explaining what they do, and where it is, high profile machines.

Bad Ad Examples

bad ads as mentioned previously, are either unclear, unrelated or overly friendly or overly bland.

Bad Banners Are....

Unclear
Talks about money
overly friendly
too bland
pop up in your face
Unrelated to the host site.

Overly friend, unrelated to the host site, tells you to click on it.

Strange mind game, unclear, life insurance ads are normally dodgey, money related.

Unrelated to the host site, small print, very unclear, too simple.

Too simple, doesnt explain what it is or what it does, or where it goes.

Unrelated to the host site, unusual, rather unclear, no clear view to where it goes.