Tekkon Kinkreet: Black & White

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfQjc2hs34Y&feature=related 

Tekkon Kinkreet is a Japanese anime film, directed by Michael Arias. The anime tells a story about a pair of orphaned street kids, called Black and White, are the centre of the fiction Treasure Town where is full of violence and terror; however, some people of gangland attempting to take over the city of Treasure Town, and the boys must save the soul of their beloved city. The theme of the anime is special, the meaning behind the story is also special. The anime film shows the two sides of things, black and white, mouse and cats, day and night, good and evil, there are full of contrast.

It is different from other anime film, it is special; the style is special, the color is special, and also the camera angle is special. The color schemes are based on the advertisements of 1950's and 1960's Japan, and has a feeling of nostalgic retro. It has its peculiar flavour of the graphic design, it is a lovely way to illustrate this small town. In the trailer, audiences could feel the compare of the two sides, using the color of black and white. The way that the camera shaking is special, it gets a great camera feeling when characters jumping, walking, and fighting.

In short, it is a brilliant Japanese anime film that I am keen on. It is an attractive film that is worth to enjoy and watching it again and again.

Film Title - Catch Me if You Can

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaLDyrun_Cc

Catch Me if You Can, the 2002 Steven Spielberg film. It tells a true-life story about a young man who conned his way through being a Pan Am pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer in the early 1960s when he was still a teenager. The animated opening title is really funny due to the animation style and color setting is also the type of 1960s. 

It is basically a vector animation, and this animation present elements of narration through simplicity in design, it consistently throughout the piece. The designer used some simple color to describe the story, it is one of the master works that use lines as a guide to the camera. With the changing of different scenes, the color series produce strong contrast, from blue to black, then orange, after that, green, red, purple, finally, coming back to the first scene. In addition, the music is very suitable for this opening title sequence, mysterious and humorous. 

The animation is a summarize of the film Catch Me if You Can. After watching it several times, people could find some interesting details in this animated opening titles. For example, producers were good at using lines to create characters' and staffs' name connect with some elements in the animation; also producers use lines to separate characters that are running and catching.

The animated opening tile is a really fun way to illustrate the whole story through simple, but stunning, imagery. The short animation is amazing as the same as the great film.

Hungry Beast - ZARA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UxRAhTJ1CM 

Hungry Beast is an Australian television program that produce a lot of animated documentaries around some specific issues or things all over the world. The program uses creativity way to make a documentary file. As the ZARA one as an example, it is based on the article, when the teller was reading, there would be some related words or pictures displaying on the screen, the camera switches the angles all the time, and finally forming three shapes related to ZARA. The form of animated documentary is interesting, and it is much easier way to make audiences understand the contents that the production team tend to tell.

This animated documentary uses several color to produce, black, white, yellow, and the background is white and grey, applying on gradient effect, making the contents much more outstanding. It has already told the general information about the ZARA.The feature of this animation is simple but not mediocre.

The editing of this animated documentary is very fluent, and using the special way to form the certain shapes at the end of the animation. The ZARA file is last 3:13, but the contents is abundant and clearly.

Some audiences love this show because it uses a different way to tell something that people do not know deeply. Also, it is special because people could not classify the type of the program due to the chaotic nature of the work. 

Coke Happiness Factory

http://www.psyop.tv/#psyop/new/projects/coke-happiness-factory 

Coca cola has issued an animated television commercial demonstrating the happiness of life behind the scenes in a Coke vending machine, called happiness factory. The Animation series for Coke Happiness Factory was developed at Psyop, New York.  This new animation transfers the fresh concept of Coca cola - "the coke side of life", taking viewers inside the fantastical world of Coke vending machine. Through this animated television commercial, Coca cola intends to produce a certain relation between Coke and the feeling of happiness. 

The design style of the animation is the same as its name, Coke Happiness Factory. It is full of happiness feeling, for example, the characters in the animation are featuring of happiness, the robots, the fluffies with red lip and snowmen. And finally, the bottle of Coke makes its way through a hero's parade and rolled it into the vending machine chute. Although the background is not colorful, just green, blue and white, the jubilant is invoked by characters and music.

The inside of Coke vending machine is comprised of three sections, firstly, the bottle is filled by a tube and fluffy creatures bounce to the filled bottle and kiss it with affection; secondly, the bottle is cooled by rapidly; lastly, the parade. The switch of camera is natural so that the three sections could be fluent and merited.

Above all, the Coca cola take advantage of the fantastical of inside the Coke vending machine to create the happiness feeling of Coke to promote the products. Music is fascinating and counting for the commercial.


"The iconic cola brand enjoyed a 3.6% boost in retail sales in 2008 and its best January sales this year, despite the increasingly gloomy economic news. Annual retail sales for Coca-Cola in the UK reached £514.5m by the end of 2008 - nearly a third of the overall cola sector, according to AC Nielsen data."(http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/13/coca-cola-happiness-factory)

Alarm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN83DfmH9Tw

Alarm is a 3D short animation created by an independent Korean animation team named MESAI. The animation told a story about a regular guy who is hard to wake up. In the whole animation, there are full of different alarms, every movement of the stillness is just followed by a bell. Alarm is almost penetrate through the 8:50, including all of the process, such as getting up, washing, having breakfast and so on. Some audiences would feel the story line is slow and boring. However, after watching this short animated film and think about it, most people could feel familiar with themselves and enjoy the entire experience immensely, because it is the common problem of modern people and everyone could be related to. It is the interesting point of the story concept.

In the animated film, the character is sleepy and lazy, mainly expressed with three aspects, the expression of the boy's eyes, the hair, and the details of his behavior. The designer sketched the character as it is hardly to keep his eyes open, messy hair, and he moves slowly and laziness. The character of this short animation could present the characteristics of the story directly. Also there is a point needed to mention is that the prime objects of the animation is stretched as it is real, such as the stereo equipment, the mobile phone, and so on. There are mainly four scenes, including bedroom, living room, bathroom and hall, it is wonderful that the light of each scene is planned elaborately. The design of animation is full of Korean style, it is beautiful soft lighting and rendering. So it is comfortable to look at this film.

Overall, it is a brilliant animation that is worth to look at and enjoy it. The concept is expansion from an usual matter, but the story line is strong, designers use a lot of details to make up the story. Also every detail of the animation improved that the design is great in every steps, modeling, texturing, animation and story. The editing of this animation is lively and fluent, making the animated film much more attractive.

CHECKLAND KINDLEYSIDE

http://www.checklandkindleysides.com/
Checkland Kindleyside is an independent design company, it set up since 1979. They offer a variety of services, such as create brand identities, retail environments, exhibitions, in-store merchandising and graphic communication.

By opening this site, there is a logo with the loading below, then, appearing a tree in white color.

Some people may feel this site is too simple to be a design company’s homepage. However, this website is wonderful although it seems clean and simple design. The website is still incorporating the use of rich media content, such as 3D flash. The site use grey as the background color, and other elements almost use white, with plenty of space, allowing the other main contents standing out, the contents would attract people who view this website.

I prefer the navigation, it is not complicated but clear, the website reveals almost all information it could show. The site also lists works for their clients so far, including Converse, HSBC Bank, The British Library and Speedo. These works are creative, awesome!

All about this site is simple, including the logo, navigation and typography. But the design and content is not simple as people could see in the whole website. As a multidisciplinary design studio’s website, it is wonderful for designer to read.

ECO COKE BOTTLE

A cool new design of the Coke bottle, named eco Coke bottle, designed by an industrial design student Andrew Kim from America, he has created a very cool concept creating the square bottle.

Personally, I love the square bottle much more than the round one. It is really nice and great concept. This bottle is pretty beautiful, and it appears the smart usage of space, the square one requires less space than round bottles. Additionally, for transport and storage space conservation efficiency, this beverage square bottle design made stackable with its open bottom design.

The traditional round bottle is 100% recycle, but this square one is only 50% recycled, so the new design would influence users or consumers to recycle much more frequently.

Kim claims that the new design has the potential to eliminate the carbon footprint of shipping 320 million bottles a year. The collapsible design would also, perhaps, make it more conducive to recycling. Any measures to help the feeble 27% recycling rate for plastic bottles would be greatly appreciated by our landfills and oceans.

-          Inhabitat, http://inhabitat.com/collapsible-biodegradable-coke-bottle-proves-its-hip-to-be-square/ecocoke5/

Until now, Coke may not be accepted this concept, and Kim is still working on it.

European Masters from Städel Museum

European Masters: Städel Museum, 19^th–20^th Century brings together a remarkable collection of masterpieces from the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, one of the finest collections in Europe. Alongside masterpieces by German artists are works by the greatest French, Belgian, Dutch and Swiss masters of the time. Included are iconic Neo-Classical, Realist, Impressionist and Symbolist works, through to breathtaking German Expressionist paintings and sculpture, rarely seen in Australia.

-          NGV, http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/exhibitions/melbourne-winter-masterpieces-2010

The exhibition background wall uses of strong yellow, dark red and pale grey wall color, is hanging on the masterpieces paintings from Städel Museum. A lot of people would like the effect of the color collocation. There are some spotlights decorated on the top of the ceiling.

In the exhibition, “After the luncheon (La fin du déjeuner)” and “In the hammock (In der Hängematte)” are the paintings I prefer.

“After the luncheon (La fin du déjeuner)” is the work of ierre Auguste Renoir from Franch in 1879. It is oil on the canvas with a format 100.5 cm*81.3 cm, the girl in the blue gown is striking in the painting, and the expression of the man looks like real.

“In the hammock (In der Hängematte)” is the work of Hans Thoma from German in 1876. It is also oil on the canvas with a format 107.0 cm* 147.0 cm, the background of the painting is grass and flowers, the use of green color is warm.

Due to paintings from the art exhibition is 19^th-20^th century, the collocation of lights, walls and paintings seems to be a great visual appreciation of masterpieces, appears being pretty noble.

VOGUE

Cover of the May 1917 issue

Vogue was found as a weekly publication by Arthur Baldwin Turnure in 1892. In 1909, Condé Nast picked it up and slowly began growing the publication. Vogue got a huge successful in France.

-          Vogue (magazine), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogue_(magazine)

As a fashion and lifestyle magazine, Vogue is published monthly in 18 nations and one region, including Australia, Greece, France, USA, Japan and China. Vogue was described by the critical magazine “The New York Times” in December 2006 as “the world’s most influential fashion magazine”.

Vogue is most famous as a presenter of images of high fashion and high society, but it also publishes writings on art, culture, politics, and ideas. It has also helped to enshrine the fashion model as celebrity.

-          Vogue (magazine), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogue_(magazine)

As the same as most fashion magazines, Vogue uses the fashion photographs of famous stars from each country as the cover, accompanying by different font and different color of VOGUE, and typographical texts of main contents, representing the fashion style of the magazine.

Due to the magazine is published in 18 countries and one region. Every different edition’s contents have its own special characters of design for each country.

A Vogue magazine is all composed by matt art paper, its cover is the same paper as other pages. Like other fashion magazines, fashion pictures hold most pages in Vogue, each picture occupies one whole page, some are colorful, some are black and white; sometimes, some pages are texts combine with pictures which are surrounded by texts that explain the photographs.

Vogue magazine has a lot of contents, not only has the popular for the season, including clothes, shoes, bags and any other things. While each issue of the magazine often has exclusive interview of a famous person in fashion field and some news of fashion recently.

As one of the most famous fashion magazines in the world, Vogue brings a lot of news and fashion trend around the world. It is an amazing magazine for people who want to know about the latest fashion.

LOGO DESIGN LOVE

Logo Design Love: A Guide to Creating Iconic Brand Identities

By David Airey

Nowadays, logo design is an important part in graphic design. The logo is the image representing an organization or a certain thing. Today, almost all companies and products need their own logo, because it is a symbolic sign of an organization, also an essential approach to make people remembering the organization or the product. The logo not only expresses the purpose and the brand of the object, but also fosters their immediate customer recognition. So, logo plays a significant role in the society at present.

“With the right branding, business can increase their product’s perceived value, establish relationships with their customers that span ages and borders, and nurture those relationships into a lifelong bond.”

David Airey - Logo Design Love: A Guide to Creating Iconic Brand Identities p.8

The book which I want to introduce is “Logo Design Love: A Guide to Creating Iconic Brand Identities” wrote by David Airey. David Airey is a graphic designer, a brand identity designer and design author.

This book is all about design. There are lots of books about logo, but this one has something different from other logo books: it is a guide for people who want to know what this mysterious business (brand identity design) is. In order to share experiences with other designers (and clients), Airey wrote this book.

The book introduces the elements of iconic design, the process of the logo design and so on, showing how to create a brand identity successfully in detail. Written in reader-friendly, concise language, Airey gives a simple explanation of the brand identity design.

Firstly, Airey uses some simple words and pictures to introduce some famous logos, such as NOKIA, Oral-B, BBC and so on, in the forms of pictures and texts combination, the title of the Chapter 1 is interesting, named “No escape! (33 logos in 33 minutes) ”.

Though the words of this book are simple for people, but the typography is professional and official, there is suitable space on each page, using the white color. The white background holds the right size space, so readers would not feel boring or tired when they read this book.

This book gives us amounts of examples. On some pages, the picture takes the whole page to emphasize the perfect details of every example.

Pictures and texts hold the right position on each page. In order to show the details of each example (logo), Airey sign the work’s name, designer’s name and the year of the work on the left of each picture.

It is a good overview of what makes a good logo as well as an outline of the logo design process. In my mind, the Logo Design Love is an essential book for everyone involved in logo design.