Yanko Tsvetkov: Mapping Stereotpyes

This links to the work of an illustrator/designer who maps the world in accordance with their stereotypical perceptions.  Nobody is really left out, so it shouldn't be too insulting, although the Americans come out quite badly in a few of these examples as 'perpetrators' or maybe this is also a further stereotype?  The image below is:

The World According to USA (Fearmonger Special XXL Edition)

Malcolm Sutherland: Birdcalls

I'm becoming more interested in short films that express urban/rural spaces through sound and film.  This one from Malcolm Sutherland in 2006.  I really love the way in which the birdseye view city flyover just appears toward the end of the film:

The text by Ian Lumsden: 'I confess the concept behind Malcolm Sutherland’s 2006 animation Birdcalls was not immediately enthralling though more fool me because it is such a distinctive, quirky and very enjoyable movie. Using stop motion of pen on paper, it commences with a telephone recording device and note pad on which, after a period of rapid rewinding, the unknown recipient of the calls commences writing down the calls received. On foolscap the language of birdsong is faithfully denoted in algebraic and symbolic form. However it accords perfectly with the birdsong used as soundtrack. The calls gather a life of their own and we are treated to a variety of charming voices, appearing on the bare pad as animated symbols that for all I know are the symbols used to record birds by those experienced in such things. As night falls the pad darkens and the symbols are illuminated. It is only in the closing and opening credits that we are treated to the actual physical presence of the birds as perfectly drawn illustrations. Before that, to provide perspective, in the gloom of night we travel above an urban scene and the noise of the birds is replaced by traffic noise and the hustle and bustle of the city. It reminds us of what we have lost. The cast, other than Malcolm himself, is the nightingale, yellow billed cuckoo and bluethroat. A charming cast and delightful movie. The link above is to YouTube though a better quality version is to be found at AWNtv - Birdcalls or, even more helpfully, via his website [http://www.animalcolm.com/index.html]. I will write on another of Malcolm's animations in the next day or so together with a little biographical detail.'

Parkour Motion Reel

Graphic Design Undergraduate Work:


parkour motion reel from saggyarmpit on Vimeo.

Google Book Links for Media, Film & Animation

Click the Title to search links to books with texts on ideas and theory within Media and Animation

When does home become something else?

When your Snoopy of course! and your home can become a World War 1 fighter plane.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlf---13Q0g

Enjoy the Video

Unreal Space

Thinking back to last weeks lecture and unreal space. The thought which sprang to mind, was The Royal Family (not the TV show) and one of their past modes of Transport, The Royal Yacht Britannia. I have always envisaged a Yacht to be a either reasonably size craft, which is powered by sail, or motor, which people used for cruising of racing and maybe a bit lacking on creature comforts. As is usual, The Royal Family took this to the extreme with Britannia, possibly the only reason Britannia was regarded, as a Yacht was that, she had three masts, why? Because she was too large to be powered by sail, perhaps it was to fly all the flags and regalia required by the various members of The Family.
On the inside, she was certainly not lacking in any comfort, well maybe by The Royal Families standards she was. Something which has always puzzled me, it shouldn’t matter who or what you are, there should always be an acceptable standard for all, not just a chosen few.

Website Maps

Continuing on from yesterday, Web/Graphic designers plot out the website navigation using a simple form of sitemap, please refer to uploaded example. Basically this acts as an aid in the event of a problem with the linking of all the pages within the site. The plan is to have all the pages linking with each other but sometimes this can go wrong and the map is a paper version of the navigation you can refer back to, to help you re-establish those broken. This is not quite so crucial if the site only consists of a few pages, as it is fairly easy to backtrack and solve the problem. But say for instance you were building a site on the scale of Amazon, this map would be a life line in establishing any broken links.

Another form of sitemap is used by Google, Yahoo and other search engine providers. This is a page which is attached to the back end of your website, you provide a list of pages within the site and a link to each of the pages. When the site is submitted to say, Google for optimization ( Google crawls the site with their crawler Googlebot, which is searching for keywords and relevant information relating to your site, the more information it can find the further the site moves up the rankings) sometimes Googlebot doesn’t always crawl all the pages, as there could be missing or broken links. in this case if the sitemap page has been included, Googlebot will crawl this page seeking the information.

Both images are my own

Utopian Themes and Graphics for Games Development: 'Click Here!'

What happens when we try to imagine a truly perfect environment? Who/what is included/exluded in this process? Where does the individual reside in a real or virtual utopia?

Floating Utopias - Daniel Dociu: Guild Wars