speech poster

No idea why, but some text is missing and the colors are completely off.

What's Good?

In its own words "GOOD is a collaboration of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits pushing the world forward.Since 2006 we've been making a magazine, videos, and events for people who give a damn. This website is an ongoing exploration of what GOOD is and what it can be."

It does seem that this is what Good attempts to do with their design.  They couple their "state of the world" views and fact/statistics into engaging and interesting designs that effectively carry their message. 

I really enjoyed the how the transitions in most of their videos were handled and the sophistication of one object moving to another.  I also enjoyed their portrayal of very serious topics in a childlike, graphical, no threatening way.

Playing with type

Book Covers

Martin Luther King Jr. Partial speech

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

Videos Videos Videos

How did the experience change with sound on and off: In most of the videos, I think that sound was essential to the process.  The type when the audio was silenced would key me in to understand logically most of the time what the creator was attempting to convey, but often lacked a clarity of mood.  Bringing audio into the stage allowed for a more in depth user experience.  When it was done right, the audio wasn't so much so overpowering the text and giving away the ending before it was spelled out on screen, but was rather playing harmony to the melody of text on screen.  This placed me as the viewer into the intended state of mind and then allowed the text to take more experimental liberties, but still keep me on track with the underlying theme. 

Most youtube examples are similar in design style. What is wrong with the similarity? When you, as the designer, are attempting to convey your message it can easily be lost amongst the droves of videos online where anyone with time and a little experience can create a similar user experience.  More often than not, when watching these videos in succession, what was going through my head were the text preset names, falling letters, energetic, etc. rather than the message that was actually being designed around.  This obviously presents a problem for designers, especially those of us novices with little experience to draw upon to create something new and surprising for our viewer, but it is something that we must strive for to create a noticeable and lasting effect. 

The Few

So why do these stand out to me?  Both carry with them a unique way of looking a letter forms.  The letter 'O' magically becomes a stream of blood cells, or mere punctuation provides a rain shower engaging with water's surface. Both also bring with them twists that are refreshing to me as the viewer.  There is always something unexpected coming along, and knowing this leaves me in anticipation of the next change.  Both also set the mood with their type, but also further that mood more effectively with the audio turned on, but because of their innovation the type is what I am fixated on, and the audio simply supports it. 

The Many 

The first video certainly sets a mood, but it does so in a fashion that is both reasonably unreadable and a little unsettling to the viewer.  I don't get a strong message from the piece and furthermore, it doesn't add anything new to its repertoire for the duration of the entire work.

The second is very similar in the fact that there is nothing for us to grab onto.  It is nothing more that a few minutes of, 'oh look, I'm flying though a three dimensional text layer again.'  Furthermore, the audio does not gain any ground in distancing the work from this boredom. 

After Effects Basics

2 hours of free education on some basics of After Effects.  Some stuff isn't going to apply to our upcoming type project, but it is amazing to see some of what it can do.

http://www.videocopilot.net/basic/