Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Research to support Design and Development

The Squad
The Squad are a group of creative people based in Sydney. They specialise in branding, digitsl marketing and traditional media creative. The team consists of Chris Armstrong, Jessica Langton, Tessa Conn, Ben Hopkins, Matt Web, Dan Harvey, Michael Smith, Ema Webb and Tamie Wong.
What Squad Does...
-New branding development -Corporate ID -Brand Refreshes -Logotypes
-Style guides
-Digital creative -Banner campaigns -Animation & multimedia -E-learning tools and EDM
-Small brochure sites -Large CMS backed and -E commerce websites
-Social media campaigns -Applications for iPhone, iPad and other mobiles
-Press ads and publications
-Promotional marketing pieces -Point of sale (POS) -Packaging design and production
-Brochures -Posters and -Flyers
Their previous clients included Fisher & Paykel (banner ads, mini-sites, landing pages and POS items), Victoria Bitter (VB) (visual treatment for Bloody Legends Campaign), Toyota (legal and billing documents POS, advertising material and brochures), Westpac (concept for Westpac Rewards Program) and Nestle (visual treatment for the Nestle Free iTunes Song Promotion).
Style The squad uses a lot of vector-based illustrations in their work. Their opening page features vector based graphics of their team. A lot of their work on websites such as the VB Bloody Legends website features vector based
illustration. This is one of the main aspects that seems to contribute to their overall style. They are exceptionally good at designing vector based illustration suited for a playful website. Although a lot of their work features illustration, they can also have a very professional approach for more serious designs. We can see this in such websites as the Westpac bank project. For a lot of their more profession projects where illustration is not used, they have a very clean crisp feel about their work, with the focal point often being on a image or a photograph.
They also specialize in motion graphics and animation. Motion graphics is well displayed in projects such as cieam project. The main feature for this project was to advertise through motion graphics. This project has a very business type feel to it which displays the message well I think. Animation features in most of their website designs which also captures the playful idea
Percept
Percept is a Graphic Design agency that have been operating in Sydney, NSW, Australia since 1997. They were formally known as Eye Scream Graphic Design. The services they offer can be divided into the following categories: Branding, internet, print and marketing. Branding includes corporate identity, re branding, and brand naming. Internet includes web design, web hosting and email advertising. Print includes designs, stationary, digital and offset printing, photography and visual communication aids. Marketing includes advertising, collateral design and electronic marketing.
Percept are recognised by a number of jobs such as the Packaging Design community with features in the Dieline, Packaging of the World and Labels Plus, and the Email Marketing community as featured in the Campaign Monitor Gallery and as well as winning an Inbox Award.
Percept have represented in the prestigious Desktop Create Design Awards. They have been twice honoured in the 36th Annual Creativity Awards. Percept has published 42 design projects in various international graphic design journals.
Percept have featured in Oz Graphic and the Desktop Design Directory, the publications featuring Australia’s top design studios. Percept were Wine label design medallists at Printing Industries Craftsmanship Awards. They are also an active member of AGDA (Australia Graphic Design Association).
Percept like to create designs, they treat every client like they are their only client and aim to deliver above expectations. Percept don't have one style they develop custom design solutions that appeal to their clients and audiences, this makes them able to accommodate to a variety of clients and jobs. They demonstrate that they are different through their experience and flexibility of various styles in a portfolio displaying a vast amount of work.

Rising Sun Pictures
Rising Sun Pictures are a passionate team of producers, artists and technicians, known for providing complex visual effects and cg character work to feature film clients all around the world. With a capacity to scale to over 750 shots per year, Rising Sun has recently worked on films such as Terminator Salvation, the Harry Potter series (The Goblet of Fire, The Order of the Phoenix, The Half-Blood Prince, The Deathly Hallows), X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Watchmen.
From humble beginnings providing digital effects and 3D animation for the Australian television, film and multimedia industries, Rising Sun Pictures has evolved to become an internationally respected provider of visual effects for feature films. Rising Sun’s filmography now exceeds the 60-feature mark, not bad for 15 years collaboration with some of the industry’s top filmmakers.
The amount of involvement Rising Sun has on each feature film it works on can vary wildly depending on what stage of the production it is called in. This in turn affects how Rising Sun itself approaches the client brief. “Each production is different, and the amount of information we receive from our client determines how we approach the creative solution,” Cope explains. “Some projects allow us to get in on the ground level and contribute ideas, concept designs, pre-visualisation and onset supervision. Others may come to us with background plates, which have already been shot, that we’ll then need to augment. The look is mostly driven from our art department, but also from the VFX team through workshopping ideas and experimenting with various techniques that might deliver the look we are after.
Regardless of the context, however, attention to detail is key as apparently we humans have an uncanny knack for noticing anything that doesn’t fall into place. This can encompass all elements from ensuring continuity of the lighting and colour, through to how the background appears in the rear of a shot. Rising sun pictures work tirelessly on single shots that can go through up to 100 viewings before being having a final copy.
Rising Sun Pictures offers a wide range of visual and digital services. They have a vast range of cliental around the world from the very famous Harry Potter series to the film Australia. They offer services not only of 3D digital animation and creation but offer 2D conceptual art. They also provide story- boarding and previsualisation.
They are able to integrate live action with computer generated environments.
There wasn't much information on Rising Sun Pictures and they were lacking information about their company and this was all the information that I could find on their work practices and clients.
Rising Sun Pictures offers a wide range of visual and digital services. They
have a vast range of cliental around the world from the very famous Harry Potter series to the film Australia. They offer services not only of 3D digital animation and creation but offer 2D conceptual art. They also provide story- boarding and previsualisation.
Experts in creating environments for blockbuster movies such as Wolverine and Superman Returns. They are able to integrate live action with computer generated environments.
There wasn't much information on Rising Sun Pictures and they were lacking information about their company and this was all the information that I could find on their work practices and clients.
Rising Sun Pictures are located in Adelaide Australia founded 1995 and also have a studio in the US. It was named after Rising Sun Inn in Kensington.

Frost design
Who is frost! The company frost*design was founded by Vince Frost who was originally from London and moved to Sydney, Australia. He now has office in both London and Sydney, with a Studio of 30 people who work across a variety of media and work for a variety of clients around the world.!The tea describes them self as problem solvers saying "solving problems is what we do best - listening getting to the heart of the problem and developing effective solutions that surprise and excite in equal measure."!Frost and his team have bought together art, commerce, design & advertising with their positive 'can do' approach. Their projects include TV graphics, books and magazines.!In 2006 Frost held an exhibition called Frost*Bite held at the Sydney Opera HOuse, which accompanied by a book Frost*sorry trees.!Frost plays an active part in the community a talks at many conferences and with colleges around the world.
Achievements of Vince frost and Frost Advertising
Vince frost founder of frost advertising has had a major success in his career up to date. In 1996 he was awarded designer of the year and also was shortlisted for the BBC awards. He has also won 3 awards from the society for Environmental design. He has worked for clients such as The Independent Newspaper, Nike, D & D magazine ampersand, Warner music, Maquarie Bank and Sydney Dance Company. He has also created a book called sorry trees. This contained 500 pages of frosts work, which contained more than a decade award winning projects. Frost design also won several AGDA awards in 2006 and in 2007 was announced by Hotshop as the design studio of the year. Quote “there’s no doubting that frost design has contributed to raising the bar for design in this country”. Lately Frost design
has worked for prestigious clients such as Qantas and continues to be a powerhouse in the design industry.

The Chopping Block
The Chopping Block is an award winning design agency, known for their visually appealing, cutting edge websites. The agency was founded in 1996 in New York, by Cooper Union graphic design graduates Tom Romer, Mike Essl, Matthew Richmond and Rob Reed, when the founders decided to make a company which collaborated all their different talents with all their clients sourced from freelancing. The company has now expanded to at least 9 team members- as well as the designers there are project managers and design technologists. All the team have formal university educations- it is preferred by the company as this way makes the company more credible. The Chopping Block is known mostly for their websites, but they also do print work, corporate identity, and also have an online store which sells t- shirts with their designs on them. Portfolio: - Chop Shop Merch: It is their main product sold online. The inspiration for their work is all things nerdy or geeky, which can be defined by the obsessive nature of our culture rather than simply appealing to math and programming nerds. - Consolidated Theaters: We asked to rebrand the website with an elegant Hawaiian feel to it that doesn't come across to the average person as too over-priced. - Me Ra Koh Is a photographer on a mission to empower women through her images. Chopping Block created a simple but elegant Wordpress themed website for her, also with a simple identity. - Phish Festival: "Save The Date" Is an interactive website for the band Phish. It was done by creating an open map of the US and as each state was eliminated in the running for the band to play there, each state would be removed in a random and bizarre occurrence. - Rachael Ray Created a website that combined all things Rachael Ray into one go-to site. - TBS Created a game for the TV series, from one of the episodes "ten Items or Less". The game involves the latest programming 3D technology from Flash
called Papervision, simulating a real life grocery isle and turkey bowling. - They Might Be Giants US band, created the theme and album cover for their first album "NO". They also created an interactive CD/ROM for the band. - The Happiness Project Website designed for Gretchen Rubin as an upgrade from her blog to put her theories into practice. other clients and portfolio pieces have been: Dilbert Identity: United Media Qelavi Identity Climate Central The chopping block manage their own website utilizing a large amount of JavaScript to create an interactive website. Giving viewers the option to view their portfolio and their future projects. The chopping block also have their own blog linked to this page. Here they talk about their work as well as several other topics even some not related to design. They also have their own online store where viewers can purchase any poster or print design shown. The chopping block helped with the design of websites such as Consolidated theatres, Me Ra Koh photography, Phish, Rachael Ray and many more. Their goal is to continually push the boundaries of interactive web. The Chopping Block Design Studio which was established in 1996 relocated from their original location after September 11, to their current site in Broadway. With a team of dynamic designers or design technologists as they call themselves, they create web sites with an unusual twist, advertising, brand identities, kiosk applications, print projects. Along with these design elements they also have a Chop Shop where they sell some of their creative work (this work manifests itself as t-shirts, typefaces, mugs and prints of their designs). Being a fully serviced graphic design studio they have created unusual web sites for bands like Phish, Dave Matthews Band and They Might Be Giants and cutting edge interface design and programming such as creating a new online player for X Satellite Radio.
My Opinion The Chopping Block Design Studio has a very unique way of creating web designs that are very interactive, they are hard to navigate around until you get used to them. Some of their work in their portfolio is very creative whilst other work obviously suits the clients. Their book covers show a depth of the
designers ability to think outside the box and their t-shirts (yes I would actually wear some of their t-shirts) show a fun and unusual bent to them.
Industrial

Light & Magic...
History ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) has been operating for over thirty years. It has set a standard for visual effects and in the process for creating some exceptional images in the history of Film. Founder of ILM in 1975, George Lucas had created special effects for the movie Star Wars and discovered that there was no facility of its type that existed. ILM is located in San Francisco and Singapore and remains one of the leading effects companies in the world, serving the motion pictures, commercial production and attraction industries. ILM has created effects for over 300 movies and played a key role in 10 of the 15 worldwide box office hits and contributed to over 25 of the top. ILM has the largest and most digital effects pipeline in the entertainment industry. and are consistently expanding the possibilities of digital imagery. ILM continues to break new ground. Film makers collaborate with ILM to create imagery. The production departments handle the research and the development, concept art, creature development and working closely with the directors to ensure their visions are realized on the screen.ILM has a mixture of concept design, computer graphics effects, models and miniature, digital environments, and state-of- the-art animation. Achievements/Awards: Industrial Light and Magic have had many achievements and received many awards over the years for their outstanding visual effects in many of the films we all know and love. Their greatest achievements and milestones include: The resurrection of VistaVision (a higher resolution, widescreen variant of the 35mm motion picture film format, created by engineers at Paramount Pictures in 1954); first use of a motion control camera in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in 1975. In 1982 ILM created the first completely computer-generated sequence – the Genesis sequence in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. In 1985 ILM created “the stained glass man” in Young Sherlock Holmes, the first completely computer-generated character. In 1988 the first morphing sequence was created for the film Willow. In 1989 the first computer-generated 3D character – the pseudopod in The Abyss – was created. In 1991 the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day was created – it was the first partially computer-generated main character. In 1992 the texture of human skin was computer-generated in the film Death Becomes Her, for the first time.
In 1993 ILM used digital technology for the first time to create a complete and detailed living creature – the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. In 1995 the first fully synthetic speaking computer-generated character, with a distinct personality and emotion, to take a leading role in the film Casper; the first computer-generated photo-realistic hair and fur (used for the digital lion and monkeys) in Jumanji. In the same year, ILM were the first to put visual effects for live-action sequence into a 2D cartoon in Balto.
In 1996, ILM created the first completely computer-generated main character – Draco in Dragonheart. In 1999, Imhotep in The Mummy was created – it was the first computer- generated character to have a full human anatomy.
In 2003, ILM used the most extensive projects and animation techniques yet to create a large, human-like, green monster in Hulk. In 2006, ILM used the iMocap system in the creation of Davy Jones and the ship’s crew in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.
In 2011 the film Rango was created – it was the first film animated completely by ILM. ILM were nominated for Best Visual Effects for many years in the Academy Awards, the British Academy Awards and the Emmy Awards.
2009 – Nominations for Star Trek and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince 2008 – Nominations for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Iron Man. 2007 – Nominations for Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.
2006 – Received awards for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. 2005 – Nominations for the Chronicles of Narnia and War of the Worlds. 2004 – Nominations for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. 2003 – Nominations for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
2002 – Nominations for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Gangs of New York, Minority Report, and Star Wars: Episode II “Attack of the Clones”. 2001 – Nominations for A.I. Artificial Intelligence. 2000 – Nomination and award for The Perfect Storm.
1999 – Nominations for Sleepy Hollow, Star Wars: Episode I “The Phantom Menace” and The Mummy. 1998 – Nomination for Mighty Joe Young and award for Saving Private Ryan. 1997 – Award for Men In Black and nomination for The Lost World: Jurassic Park
1996 – Nominations and award for Dragonheart and Twister. 1994 – Nominations and awards for Forrest Gump and The Mask. 1993 – Received awards for Jurassic. 1992 – Received awards for Death Becomes Her. 1991 – Nominations for Hook and Backdraft; awards for Terminator II: Judgment Day. 1989 – Awards and nomination for Back To The Future Part II and The Abyss. 1988 – Awards and nomination for Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Willow. 1987 – Received awards for Innerspace and The Witches of Eastwick
1985 – Nominations and awards for Young Sherlock Holmes, Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, Back to the Future and Cocoon. 1984 – Received awards for The Ewok Adventure and Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom.
1983 – Received awards for Return of the Jedi. 1982 – Nomination and awards for ET and Poltergeist. 1981 – Nomination for Dragonslayer. 1980 – Award for Emperor Strikes Back 1977 – Award for Star Wars. Work ILM was created by George Lucas to provide visual effects for his first Stars wars movie Episode IV – A new hope (1977). In the production the Dykstraflex motion control camera system was created and used. This system facilitated the compositing of numerous elements, this system revolutionized the visual effect field. Since then ILM has created visual effects for close to 300 films, including the entire Star Wars saga, The Abyss, Indiana Jones series, Harry Potter series, Jurassic Park series, Back to the Future trilogy, a few of the Star Trek films, Ghostbusters II, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Pirates of the Caribbean series, the entire Terminator sequels, Transformers films, the Men in Black series, and also provided some work for Avatar. ILM also collaborates with Steven Spielberg on most films that he directs and/or produces.
ILM were also the first visual effects company to create entire computer generated characters. The films included Young Sherlock Holmes, The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Jurassic Park. They also created life like distortions of the human body in Death Becomes Her and The Mask which made way to digital breakthroughs in the films The Perfect Storm, Twister, Star Wars: Episode I -The Phantom Menace and on to modern blockbusters like Avatar and Star Trek, Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean and Iron Man films.
Additionally, the ILM has created less noticeable effects in productions such as Schindler's List, Forrest Gump, Snow Falling on Cedars, Magnolia, and some Woody Allen films. This includes widening streets, digitally adding more extras to a shot, and inserting the film's actors into famous photos.
With its many technical and creative innovations, ILM has helped develop the evolution of visual effects and set the standard.

Zoo

http://kindofcreative.blogspot.com/2011/05/zoo-advertising.htmlZoo Advertising has been around for over 10 years, working out of their Canberra based studios. The team of designers have quite a number of years experience working in the Graphics Industry. Although there isn't a lot of information about the formation of the studio their
web site is beautifully produced, with a finish that keeps you going back and looking for more within it. Their portfolio of work is very impressive and the quality of the work is very clean and attractive. They offer skills of design, branding, web design and corporate image. Their logos and poster work are exceptional and very creative. There work also includes interior design work as well as work that is seen outdoors (such as banners and posters), one of the designers has also created his own clothing brand (Spader) where he incorporates many of his designs. They also pride themselves of typesetting which is apparent in most of their portfolio
Much of the work the agency does stems from local and federal government agencies although it is not limited to this area. The design team has a vision of where they want to be in the now and in the future and they do this by keeping abreast with current trends and having a dynamic team of creative minds who want the best for their clients.
Zoo is considered to be one of the best agencies I camberra

Bauhaus
School
History of Bauhaus School
The Bauhaus was one of the first colleges of design. It was founded by Walter Gropius in 1919 and was closed in 1933 by the Nazis. The Bauhaus holds a place of its own in the culture and visual art history of the 20th century, and has spread to far corners of the world. One of the main goals for the Bauhaus was to renew architecture. The Bauhaus school bought together a number of the most outstanding contemporary architects and artists. The Bauhaus was almost the only to attempt to achieve reconciliation between the aesthetics of design and the more commercial demands of industrial mass production. In 1923 Bauhaus turned its attention to industry as a result of works of aesthetically pleasing and useful were mastered by the means of design. The first major Bauhaus exhibition was opened in 1923 reflected the revised principle of art and technology a new unity spanned the full spectrum of Bauhaus work. Throughout the 1920s The Nazi Party and other fascist political groups opposed the Bauhaus as they considered it a front for communists, especially because many Russian artists were involved with it. The school was moved from Weimar to Dessau, from Dessau again to Berlin, and was closed on the orders of the Nazi regime in 1933. Throughout decades following its closer the Bauhaus has had a major impact on art and architecture trends especially in Western Europe and the United States.
Biography on founder Walter Gropius was the man who founded the Bauhaus School in 1919 and was director until he stood down in 1928, when Hannes Meyer became director. He was fired in 1930, and replaced by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe,
who was director until the schools close in 1933.
Gropius was born in 1883 in Berlin. He studied architecture from 1903 until 1907. After this he worked in Peter Behrens' practice until 1910 when he opened his own. Around this time he became a member of the Deutscher Werkbund, a group whose aim was to promote creativity in design. He founded the Bauhaus School in 1919 and was director until 1927. He stayed in Europe and England until moving to America in 1937 to take up a teaching position at Harvard. In 1938 he opened a joint practice with Marcel Breuer. He died in Boston in 1969.
Meyer was born in 1889 in Switzerland. he took over as director of the Bauhaus school in 1928, and it was under his Communist beliefs and influence that many of the students followed, thus bringing unwanted political attention to the school. He was fired as director in 1930 by the Mayor of Dessau. After his sacking, he and several students formed a group whose projects included architectual structures and urban planning projects. He travelled a lot after this group was also forced to quit, but returned to Switzerland where he died in 1954.
Mies was born in 1886 in Germany. Before opening his own practice in 1912 he worked for several years at the practice of Peter Behrens, and studied his craft. He designed many buildings, including skyscrapers. He became the director of the Bauhaus School in 1930 and stayed on until the school was forced to close in 1933 by the new German Nazi Government. In 1937 he moved to Chicago where he became the head of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He also later designed this Institutes new campus, as well as many structures in his style of open space, steel and glass. He died in Chicago in 1969.
Style Bauhaus was a Utopian driven school in Germany that believe in changing the world through design. Bauhaus means "build House". Bauhaus movement started in 1919-1933, it's main aim was to bring arts and crafts together to make a better place for people to live in. Walter Gropius the founder of the Bauhaus school was known to say " Form follows function and together let us desire, conceive, and create the new structure of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity” Walter Gropius http://thinkexist.com The main influences to this movement was in architecture, future, and in typography. The style is referred to being spare, functional, and geometric. Which appealed to the Western Europe. The Impact of Bauhaus In the decades following its end, the Bauhaus had a major impact on the trends of art and architecture in Western Europe, The USA, Canada and Israel. The style became one of the most influential currents in Modernist architecture and modern design. The Bauhaus had a profound influence
upon subsequent developments in art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design and typography. One of the main objectives of the Bauhaus was to unify art, craft and technology, and the exploration of fundamentals such as the material properties of wood and metal or how colours and forms operated within an image instead of recreating or imitating great artworks fo the past. Today’s “Basic Design” course comes from Bauhaus’ Vorkurs(“initial” or “preliminary course”), which is offered in architectural and design schools all over the world.
One of the most important contributions of the Bauhaus is modern furniture design. Many chair designs we see today are created in the Bauhaus style - sleek and geometric. Buildings and other architectural structures we see are also influenced by the Bauhaus style. The city of Chicago is probably one of the best examples of this.

Art Nouveau
The Art Nouveau style made itself known and present between the 18802 to the 1910s. Art Nouveau was influenced strongly by artist Alphonse Mucha. After he produced a lithographic poster in 1895, the style became popularized, as did Alphonse. The style was firstly known as the ‘Mucha Style’ before it became known as ‘Art Nouveau’.
Art Nouveau was most popular in Europe and the British Islands, but its influence was global. The Art Nouveau monuments are now recognised by UNESCO with their World Heritage List as significant contributions to cultural heritage.
William Morris was a well-known artist for his Art Nouveau style art. Although this art movement was also a style of distinctive individuals such as Gustav Klimt, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Alphonse Mucha, Rene Lalique, Antoni Gaudi and Louis Comfort Tiffany, each of who interpreted it in their own way. The Art Nouveau style is known for its flora and fauna, as well as its flowing lines and repetitive patterns. A particular piece of this style of artwork is the image of a woman with a lot of curves and long wavy hair. Visual standards of the Art Nouveau style are flat, decorative patterns, intertwined organic forms of stems or flowers. Art Nouveau emphasized handcrafting as opposed to machine manufacturing, the use of new materials. Although curving lines characterize Art Nouveau, right-angled forms are also typical, especially as the style was practiced in Scotland and in Austria. As you may notice, a lot of churches have stained glass windows that were actually influenced by the Art Nouveau style.
Although Art Nouveau was replaced by 20th-centruy modernist styles, it is considered now as an important transition between the historicism of modernism.

Joshua Davis

Joshua Davis is a New York based artist, designer, and technologist. He
produces both public and private work for companies, collectors, and institutions. Since 1995, Davis has been using technology and computers as a medium to create infinitely interesting projects, and he also utilized Chaos Theory () to establish a new, unique perspective on visual communication and creative expression which had been an otherwise unexplored area in graphic design. Davis was strongly influenced by abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock, and incorporated Pollock's random technique of splattering paint and other items across large canvases into his coding. He was also influenced by his love of classic video games, such as Space Invaders. In 1995 at the Pratt Institute David began to delve into HTML, working under Thomas Noller, and afterwards began to experiment with Macromedia Flash and ActionScript programming. Davis' work became influential in graphic and web design in the Y2K era. In January 2001, Davis posted an autobiography in K10k.net which revealed subjects on his personal life in the NYC art/club scene in the early 90's, his drug addiction and how he overcame it to pursue his goal of being a full time artist. He aspired to be a writer and illustrator of children's books. From 1998-2001, Davis worked with the web production company Kioken. When the company folded, he became an independent web designer and artist. In 2002 Joshua Davis teamed up with developer Brandon Hall to form a media development studio, The Department of Notations Studios. It was disbanded in 2006, but despite this Davis and Hall cobtinue to collaborate on various projects. In 2003, Adam Jones from Tool asked him to take over their website. He designed an intro page, but the site has since been changed. As of 2007, Davis resides in NY with his wife and daughter. He is a professor at the NY School of Arts, runs his own design studio, and continues to lecture and lead design workshops. Annabel's opinion of his work: Davis' work is very recognisable, as you see examples of his particular style on almost everything such as clothing and on the cover of notebooks/diaries/etc. It's easy to tell that he puts a lot of thought and effort into his art by his use of colour and pattern to create beautiful detail. I like that his work ranges from abstract to very abstract, and it's easy to keep looking at his art because whilst there are a lot of patterns and bright colours it's not too much. Style Joshua Davis has a very distinct abstract vector based style using geometric shapes along with the more commonly seen vector swirls and swishes. Joshua's artwork has that strong vector look using blends of colours to achieve extra dimensions to his work. His design work appears on home decorating items such as bed linen, cushions, dinnerware and personal items such as backpacks and notebooks.
␣ Joshua describes his work as being "dynamic abstraction". ␣ Joshua sometimes calls his work a "beautiful accident waiting to
happen".
His style may not appeal to everyone as it is a very abstract style, with colours not necessarily harmonious with one another. Michelle's opinion of his work I personally don't mind some of his work, but I think that you would have to use it and view sparingly as it is very strong. On the other hand his work has obviously been emulated often so there is a flood of similar style art on offer around the world.
I enjoy the blends of colours and the combinations of colours that he uses. He really shows what you can do with colour when you don't restrict yourself to any rules.

Ansel Adams

Born on the 20th February 1902, in San Francisco and died 82 years later on 22nd April 1984 in Monterey, California. Adams first interest was in music and he was a pianist before he became a photographer and an environmentalist.
Adams came from a conservative family both socially and emotionally causing him to be naturally shy, he had problems fitting in school mostly caused by the events of the earthquake in 1906 which left him with a broken nose which was a distinct feature of his entire life. He became interested in photography when he first visited Yosemite National Park in 1916. Music influenced Adams photography greatly as it taught him to have substance, discipline, and structure. He loved nature and spent a lot of time exploring his surroundings. In 1928 he married Virginia Best in Yosemite and had two children, during this time he lived in Yosemite and took many pictures of Yosemite National Park. He was encouraged immensely to pursue photography by Paul Strand, Adams work were based on landscapes and Nature. Adams invented a method called the zone, which helped him divide the light of a scene into different zones. By doing this it allowed him to separate black and white and blend grey to give him his desired effect on his pictures. Ansel Adams is best known for his black and white photographs of the American west. He is also known for developing the zone system. The zone system was a way of determining the proper exposure and adjusting the contrast of a final print. It is a way concluding the development and control for black and white in a photograph using 9 different variations of shade varying from black to white. These are called zones. Ansel had a different way of looking at the process of taking photographs. One of his mottos was “as far as photographs are concerned beauty comes first”. He also advocated the idea of visualisation, which is seeing a photo in the minds eye before taking the photo in achieving all together unity and aethetics. Ansel has also received many awards including a doctor of arts from Harvard and Yale. He has recently been inducted into the California Hall of Fame. Some of his photographs such as the Yosemite national park images are one of the most recognisable pictures in the world today.

Animal Logic

Animal Logic was established in 1991, it quickly earned a reputation as on the worlds leading design, visual effects and animation companies. Animal logic continues to produce award-winning work for a diverse, international clientele, with studios in Sydney Australia and an office in Los Angeles California.
Animal logic has worked successfully with leading advertising agencies and television commercial directors which enabled Animal logic to expand into feature film work including, Babe, The Matrix, 300 and culminating in the release of Australia’s first digital animated feature Happy Feet.
Animal logic has done a lot of ads, some you might recognise as the Optus ad, the target colours ad, Honda jazz ad, Mars bar ad, Pure blonde ads, Carlton draught and Toohey’s ads. Animal logic is famous for their digital animation; I guess it’s why they are as famous and popular as they are. If I were to choose a company to do digital animation or commercials I would defiantly recommend animal logic.
Not only does the company Animal Logic have a vast client base throughout the world they also have a long history of developing and supporting software products. They have created and built on software products such as Mayaman, Maxman, Softman, PRman. By developing these programs and software animal logic has made 3D programs and software available to not only big businesses but one-man businesses from home.
Animal Logic has worked on many high end visual effects for commercials and television programs. They have worked and designed projects for clients such as Cartoon Network and Spicks and Specks they have worked on the award winning film Happy Feet. In November 2009 Animal Logic ranked 447 in the Top500 super computer sites. Animal Logic's online presence is wide and varied. Information found on Wikipedia is the same as what is provided on their own website. Contact information is provided on the Fox Studios Australia website; filmography is listed on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB); and they have accounts for people to follow on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Their own website is quite impressive. It is a Flash based site with stills from movies and commercials they have made looping on the background; is quite interactive (particularly in the section where you can 'meet' some of the people who work there) and has a lot of images, film clips and information about the movies, commercials, designs, jobs and products (software) they develop. Their style, based on their portfolio, is impressive, varied, interesting and memorable. Their work is different and 'outside the box' which is why is it is memorable, although most people would never have heard of them. Animal Logic has several studios in Sydney, Los Angeles and Santa Monica. Their work targets several different audiences from children with films such as happy feet, babe and legend of the guardians to adults with films such as 300, 28 weeks later and world trade center. It is hard to develop a single opinion on them as if there is something you don't like made by them then there will most certainly be something else that you would like. This is a
result of several unique advertisements and filming effects that adhere to everyone's likes and interests.

Soap Creative

Soap describe themselves as specializing in delivery innovative, hight creative ad strategy-focused campaigns across websites, games, content, social media, widgets, electronic direct mail, standard and rich media, viral and metrics and reporting. Soap creative have clients that include Unilever brands LYNX, Streets, Bushells, Impulse as well as 3 Mobile, FOXTEL, 20th Century Fox, Activision and Marvel.
You could say that soap has a work hard play hard culture, their claim to fame is that they host weekly BBQs, take their entire team to remote locations for Skiing lessons. Each ember has a soap-o-hero alter ego which they get to choose and illustrate them and place on their business card. They say this is great for client meetings and pitches as it sets them apart from other agencies, it also creates a 'tribe" and creates unity among the staff. The culture of the soap-o-hero is extended through the office where they have different meeting rooms " the hall of justice", emergency meeting room " the scape pod" and mystery room "x".
Big gamers and at the moment have three active gaming clients activision, unilever and naughty dog.
This agency is absolutely amazing! Soap Creative has had many clients over their nine years of business, including a vast collection of widely recognised companies such as 20th Century Fox, ABC New Media, Activision, Ben & Jerry’s, Dick Smith, Foxtel, KFC, Lynx and Marvel. Soap Creative offer services in screen-based media such as websites, mobile phone applications, tools and games (including online and CD-Rom). This agency has also created tshirt prints for Bubble-O Bill, and a card game called the Meeting Game. Their work is very clean and professional its very groovy and all the content that I have viewed has all been very awesome, I never felt negative when interacting or viewing the content it was very attention catching and fun.
The lynx content was a bit sexist however it is targeted towards men and sex does sell as there statistics show, I wasn’t offended it just didn’t hold my attention as the rest did.
They have many notorious clients and deal with a broad medium from games to videos and websites that are all targeted towards a variety of audiences.

William Caslon

Career: In 1716 he built his own type foundary in London, which produced some 16 years later his most famous typeface Caslon. He first started out in his business as an engraver of gunlocks and barrels and as a bookbinders tool cutter. He later established contact and encouragement through the printers William Bowyer and John Watts that lead to cutting type punches for various presses London.
In 1720 he designed an “English Arabic” typeface used in the New Testament. Soon after in 1722 he released his first typefaces, which were based on seventeenth century Dutch old style designs and were used extensively in England because of their practicality. 1726 was when the typeface Caslon was first used and soon after it’s release he received loans and sufficient trade, which enabled him to complete the setup of his foundary. Up until the 1780’s there were few books that weren’t printed in one of his typefaces.
In 1735 his typefaces spread all over Europe and American colonies that lead to the font being used to print the American Declaration of Independence. His son William Caslon II soon joined the company and in 1745 became partner and took over the family business after his death.
Achievements: William Caslon designed a number of serif typefaces in his lifetime, some of which are still used today. The first three fonts by William Caslon were Arabic, Hebrew and Koptic. He also designed typefaces such as Caslon 540, Caslon Bold, Caslon Old Face, Big Caslon, Caslon Open Face, Williams Caslon Text and most likely in any other that has the name ‘Caslon’ on it.
The United States Declaration of Independence was set in Caslon type, which would have to be one of William Caslon’s greatest accomplishments.
The name ‘Caslon’ comes from the 18th Century typeface that was designed by William Caslon. This serif typeface was printed in the earliest English language texts and is also know to the typeface used for the New Yorker Magazine.
William Caslon’s typefaces immediately became popular and were used for many important printed works. Caslon’s type became so popular that the expression about the typeface choice, ‘when in doubt, use Caslon,’ came
about.After William Caslon’s death in 1766, his typefaces fell out of favour but were revived in the 1840s, some of which are widely used today.
Biography: William Caslon was born in 1692 in cradley, Worcestershire, England. In 1706 at the age of 13 he began a seven-year apprenticeship as an engraver with a London harness marker. In 1716 he became a self-employed engraver of gunlocks and barrels, and as a bookbinders tool cutter. In 1721 the society for promoting Christian knowledge commissioned Caslon to cast Arabic alphabets where his font became an instant success. In around 1720 William Caslon founded a typeface foundry called the Caslon Foundry. That foundry became the leading English typeface foundry of the 18th and early 19th centuries. He died in 1766. Caslon is cited as the first original typeface of English origin.
Caslon’s font is characterized by its short ascenders and decenders, bracketed serifs, moderately high contrast, robust texture and moderate modulation of stroke. The Caslon’s typeface has become one of the most famous typefaces in the world today. The first copy of the declaration of independence was printed in Caslon. There are many typefaces that have been derived from Caslon’s font in existence. Caslon’s type is now considered a good, readable typeface for text.

Giambattista Bodoni

Giabattista was known as an engraver, type designer, typographer, printer and publisher. By 1780s Giabattista designed a typeface called BODONI and it has been regarded as to be one of the first modern typefaces. He moved on to making another 2 main innovations in type design: he gave a vertical alignment to the sloped swellings in the bowls of the letters that derive from the down strokes in handwriting; he made all the horizontal serifs on the upper and lower parts of the letters very thin and uniform; and he increased the contrast between stems and serifs (Quoted-Art Encyclopedia- Grove Art, Oxford University Press). According to the Columbia Electronic encyclopedia Giabattista was regarded as one of the leaders in originating pseudoclassical typefaces.
At the age of 18, Giabattista moved to Rome and was employed as a typesetter at the Vatican's Propaganda Fide printing works; Giabattista had worked for the Vatican for almost 10 years. After battling Malaria, Bodoni was hired by the Duke Ferdinand of Bourbon - Parma to organise a printing house. This is where Bodoni got to work on a range of specimen books, which were very well received. Eventually Bodoni opened his own printing house called Officina Bodoni.
http://www.linotype.com/683/giambattistabodoni.html
http://www.media5live.com/Bodoni/bodonibio.htm#art http://www.typeculture.com/academic_resource/articles_eassays/
From 1768 Bodoni ran a printing house called Stamperia Reale, in Parma, Italy. After a while doing this he opened his own printing house called Officina Bodoni.
Bodoni's Internet presence is minimal. There is not a lot of extensive information about his life: some can be found on wikipedia.com, linotype.com and other typography websites. His fonts can be downloaded from sites such as myfonts.com, fontshop.com, itcfonts.com and adobe.com.
Whilst working in the Vatican's Propaganda Fide printing house in Rome, Bodoni impressed his superiors with a willingness to learn, he had a mastery of ancient languages and types.
Bodoni achieved an unprecedented level of technical refinement, allowing him to faithfully reproduce letterforms with very thin "hairlines".
Bodoni designed and personally engraved 298 typefaces.
Bodoni did away with old style letters and introduced a new clear simple type - the modern typeface. In his influential Manuale Tipografico of 1818, he laid down the four principles of type design, which were: regularity of chracters, cleanness, good taste and charm.
His master piece was Homer's Iliad.
Bodoni was the most successful early proponent of what is referred to as the "modern" typeface, distinguished by a strong contrast between thin and thick strokes.
His coldly elegant books where made to be admired for the typeface and layout and not to be studied or read. (Proof reading was not his strong point).
␣ In his manuale tipografico (two volume works) contains about 142 roman alphabets, numerous script and exotic typefaces and a striking collection of flowers and ornaments.
␣ Bodoni emphasized the use of good paper and strong ink.
Although Bodoni is regarded as a "modern typeface", I feel that Bodoni would be more suited to that of a display font and used sparingly. Although in saying this a combination of his typeface and ornaments would create a very clean piece of artwork.
I admire the use of thin and thick strokes throughout his type as I feel that this gives the type a unique definition.
Formal yet fun with thick and thin strokes.
Bodoni has created a classic type face with letters very thin and uniform; and he increased the contrast between stems and serifs.

David Carson

David Carson!!Born September 8th, 1952 in Corpus Christi, Texas, but moved to New York City four years later.!!Carson was a high-school teacher before he was a graphic designer.!!First actual contact with graphic design was made in 1980 at the University of Arizona on a two-week graphics course. He attended San Diego St. University as well as Oregon College of Commercial Art. Later on in 1983, Carson was working towards a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology when he went to Switzerland, where he attended a three-week workshop in graphic design as part of his degree.!!Carson was also a professional surfer and in 1989 and qualified as the 8th best surfer in the world. His career as a surfer influenced his designs along with his various wolrd travels.!!Famous for pushing the boundaries of design he is considered one of the most famous graphic designs on the planet (as described by creative review magazine). Carson is famous because he has influenced graphic design immensely through his use of type, approach and technique, which does not follow “traditional” graphic design standards. Many designers changed their methods and based their style from Carson’s work, which they consider “new” standards. He highly regarded for this but also through his use of combining photography and typographic elements, he
manages to communicate both idea and feeling in his designs. David started his own business called David Carson Inc and has agencies in Del Mar, California and Zurich Switzerland. He lectures all around the world. He is well known for his photography and graphic design pieces but has ranged out into other mediums e.g. directing commercials and videos. He has also written many Books including The end of print, which has been the best selling Graphic design book ever written to date and has appeared in over 180 magazines and newspaper articles. His website www.davidcarsondesign.com/ is very basic with no side links. This website is focussed primarily to focus on the body of the website and not the headings. Because he moves around a lot he needs to work in a mobile work studio.

Neville Brody
Neville Brody's work has been deemed uncommerical as his work often puts heavy heavy emphasis on safe and tested economic strategies as opposed to experimentation. During the punk rock fase in london he was almost thrown out of college for putting the Queen's head sideways on a postage stamp design, which beganhis design career of questioning the rules of society and design. !Brody largely made his nam through his revolutionary work as Art Director for the magazine "The Face" in 1980 when it was first published. He has pushed the boundaries of visual communication in all media thorugh his experimental and challenging works. He also designed (with others) the coporate identity for the House of World Cultures in Berlin. He was one of the founding members of Fontworks and there designed a number of notable typefaces. He also co-produced FUSE, which is a project that is a published collection of experimental typefaces and posters which challenge the boundaries between typography and graphic design. !He has published two books and have a combined sale of over 120000 copies and had over 40000 visitors at his exhibition in London before he started touring. Neville Brody's online presence is very vast. Information about him and examples of his work are on many websites such as researchstudios.com (which he founded), designyatra.com and even on the Mac section of the Apple website. There are also interviews avaliable to watch online on vimeo.com. His vast collection of fonts, including Insignia and Blur, appear on many websites that are available for download or purchase, such as identifont.com, fontfont.com, fontshop.com, fonts.com, itcfonts.com and myfonts.com.Neville Brody was born on the 23rd of April, 1957 in London, England. He studied Graphic Design from 1977 to 1980 at London College of Printing, and at the Hornsey School of Art. His influences include 20th Century Avant-Garde design, and Russian Constructivists El Lissitzky and Alexander Rodchenko.

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