Author: Stephen Alneus (Page 2 of 3)

During, the internship I was given an assignment that would get me accustomed to the brand guideline that I would be using throughout my internship which was first to make a poster based on a talking panel that would be at the school, detailing information as to who would be there, information about the guest speakers and how to get more information about the event. In the beginning stages of making the poster, I had to make various iterations of the poster which both can back with editing notes on how I could improve on the poster, such as how I should be viewing my color choices, type layout, and the spacing in which I should be used to give the poster breathing space in terms of type, photo, and logo placement.

This soon led me to my second assignment, which, was to make two posters based on an upcoming spring 2022 student recital for undergraduate and graduate students. I start off making poster-based off work that I had previously seen done by using certain colors, textures, and fonts. With various versions I learned that I had to be aware of making the posters readable; the use of texture can’t be so present in your work, and to beware of your photo choices and font placement. With the various editing notes, I was given I was seen made aware of how much of their work was to look like one person had made them all with the use of brand guidelines.

This semester, what started off as a search for an internship took me to many different avenues, from companies as far as California to New York, all with different kinds of interest. This eventually led me to send my resume and portfolio to Brooklyn College with a professor that I was familiar with at first, it didn’t seem like it was a fit as I was looking mainly for an internship that was based on Illustration. Still, with some guidance, I put together a design portfolio that fit what was being looked for and was soon accepted as an intern in the office of communications and marketing at Brooklyn College. 

My first week as an intern began with learning the software that I would be used mainly in my internship, which was Basecamp, which is used to input and update schedules, deadlines, and assignments. While being able to view various things on the basecamp site such as the home screen which lets you view all the current assignments that are being worked on, while also giving you access to various things such as “Pings” which let you direct message anyone who has access to it and exchange files and PDF’s. “Hey!” gives you updates on individual projects that various people are working on or projects in which you are mentioned for edits or updates for any assignments.

One of the first things that I had to learn was the use of the brand guidelines and logos for the college which stated many of the school perimeters such as logos with where and how you should use them, official color usage for marketing which are made up of three groups of official college colors, primary colors and secondary colors, brand uses of typeface and typesetting, and various other guidelines.

Sol LeWitt is an app that gives you an insight into various things, about Sol LeWitt, who was born in 1928 and is recognized as a leading figure of minimalism and one of the key founders of conceptual art. LeWitt was known as an incredibly prolific artist, as he has worked on thousands of pieces across various mediums, such as drawings, painting, prints, and sculptures. And the app gives you insight into his work and the space in which he conducts it. 

As you explore the app you are met with a few menus choices from which you can pick such as an artist bio which gives the reader a quick synopsis of the life and times of Sol LeWitt and his effect of the art community in which he was a part of, as you move on you can pick “Scan a wall drawing” which he and his team drew directly on walls which, are scattered throughout the world that can be scanned on selected wall drawings using Microsoft AI to unlock process behind the artwork in which you have scanned.

Then you can move on to the “virtual studio tour” which gives you, the viewer, a look into his studio in which you can click on objects that give you insight into the tools that he uses and how he goes about his process or interesting tidbits about his life and the people that he has met. Which can tie into the next selection of the app, which is the “Mapping LeWitt” which shows a map of LeWitt’s scannable artworks throughout the globe while detailing the time in which it was made and the inspirations for it, while also showing different studio locations which he worked. Then you have the choice to select “LeWitt’s Work Themes” which shows the six different major themes with which LeWitt’s body of work can be broken down into which is seriality, lines, and bands, geometric and isometric, locations, continuous and complex forms, and curvy and loopy, which he applies to his work from his individual influences.

Another app that I had the pleasure of using is “Basecamp” which is a project management software for remote work, that has many uses, from showing what is actively being work on from various projects assigned to notifications as to who is working on which part of which ever projects that are being assigned. As, you click on the individual projects you get a more in depth look as to projects files, to-do list, to a project timeline which show both when the project begin what time it is due, and the individual changes that needs to be made from editing type, photo choose that a client may provide for the posters, flyers, or social media ads that you may be working on. You can also use the “pings” feature to talk to individuals that are also working on the same projects which you can use to exchange files and view pdfs, which can be used to leave editing notes. 

The exhibit that I visited was the virtual exhibit of “Contemporary Art in Seoul, virtual exhibit on Korean Artists since the 1970s” by National Museum of modern and contemporary art, Korea. Which gives us a view into the changes in the art movement of Korean Art from the 1970s to the mid-2000s. While, exploring the exhibit some of the pieces that I found to be the most appealing were the “Atomaus Eating Noodles” which is an Acrylic on canvas painting by LEE Dongi in 2003 which is based on an original character Atomaus that was developed by LEE in 1993 as a combination of Japanese animated character “Atom’s hair” and Disney character “Mickey Mouse’s face”. Using a red background with the colors of grayish-blue, dirty yellow, and green as the main colors, while the texture comes off like a sticker painted on to canvas and compositionally comes off taking a fair share of canvas space without dominating the whole canvas. The reason I selected this piece is because of how it is put together as it comes off like many of the stickers that I used to have as a child the color choice just seems right to me as it reminds me of the character art of a cereal box. 

Another piece that stood out to me was the “Vindictive Spirits” which is a woodblock print by “Oh Yoon” showing his perspective own his own world view based on a balance between “realism and mysticism” through the expansion of imagination through meditation, public awareness, and the exclusion of scientific civilization. The colors used in the piece are a variety of light pastel watercolor-based colors but is and oil on canvas painting the size of 69×462 cm, and is composted in the form of a timeline of how things can go from normal day to day live, to what fans the flames of war, to what death that comes of it. I selected this piece because of the timeline choose that Yoon has made and the color choice that he makes in his piece as it seems he makes a deliberate choice of transition colors throughout the whole piece while telling a story using those colors and figures. 

And the final piece that stood out to me was the “Deoksu Palace-Seoul” which is a digital chromogenic color print by “IM Sangbin” where he focuses on meeting or a collision between human and urban, or nature and artificiality. The color choice seems to be photo manipulation where the natural colors of the photo seem to be saturated and the light value raised. The reason I picked this piece is because it shows a good balance and blended of city and nature and one that you don’t get to see often in today’s world such as a blend of central park and Manhattan cityscape fused together, the piece comes off as a bright futurist city that has found peace with nature.  

The virtual experience of an exhibit is somewhat different but the same as visiting a museum in person, while the differences are you cannot get up and close on the pieces as you would in a museum nor could you get the feel of the atmosphere that you would get from a certain exhibit and how its modeled toward the themes that they are going for, while it is the same from the aspect such as the information given to us of the time period the pieces were made in and the purpose behind it. While the site is geared toward setting up a timeline or journey for use, the views to go through.

The event with I attended was a networking/workshop event named “Designing Characters with Purpose” hosted by Brookes Eggleston. While in the event the topic that was mostly covered was exploring the fundamental principles that can help you create the characters that people care about in books, shows and movies such as various technique’s that movie studios use when make those characters.  

During which there was an open Q & A handled by an advisor where questions were screened using the raising icon used in zoom or asking questions in the chat as there were many attendees from various parts of the country. What I learned was that most characters in movies and shows have what is called “Shape language” which is a distinct shape that are used to build a character which helps those characters to stand out to the audience that is viewing them to which they can even be viewed in a silhouetted form. 

After the event there was a follow-up email after thanking people for joining the workshop and asking people for feedback to help keep making the workshops better. I found the event to informative it was helpful to hear from someone who has been in the industry for years to tell people how they can improve on their work while also telling people of the different companies that they have worked for and what the environments were like.

 As for the speaker Brookes Eggleston who is a Character Designer, Illustrator, and Story Artist for nearly 15 years as a freelance artist and teaching character design to others while also working on his own various projects such as Character Compendium books, pins, and stickers while using these workshops to inform people on the ins and outs of a freelance artists life and how to go about run your own business on the daily.      

The name of the webinar that I viewed this week was called “Timing and Spacing” and the topic was the basic principles of animation and how to effectively use them, led by Aaron Karline and Victor Navone who are animators at Pixar Animation Studios. Now  what I learned from this experience was the ranges of tools that an animator can use to express a scene in a film such as the variation in Timing by using asymmetry in a scene to slow down and speed you a characters movement and gestures you can express a more human and realistic feel to a character who is doing normal and mundane things to keep an audience’s interest in a scene or creating and breaking patterns to create emphasis in an action. 

They soon when into detail as to how the Timing a Performance and help express emotion without any sound is when you know an animator has done his/her job well. My review of this webinar is that the speakers took their time to explain in detail how to attack some of the issues that beginner-to-intermediate animators may come across and how to think of or problem-solve issues with the various principles that they went over. 

Which led me to investigate one of the animators Victor Navone who is a well-known Pixar animator; he earned his degree in Fine Arts from the University of California and worked for several years in the computer gaming industry as a conceptual designer and 3D artist. Made early animation exercises, Alien Song, which went on to become a popular viral clip on the internet and caught the attention of Pixar Animation and went on to work on many of Pixar’s films such as, Monsters. Inc, Finding Nemo, and WALL-E, which won him a Visual Effects Society award for Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Motion