Alexis Jamet creative report responses

 Alexis Jamet creative report responses

You have described your work as 'poetic, abstract and narrative, soft and bold'. How did you come to develop your style as a creative, and how has it evolved throughout your experiences within the industry? 

I think for my workmates it wasn’t really the case.

I never knew if it was a question of Ego or not but sometimes working for agencies or studio can be frustrating for me. It happened that I worked on a project for A to Z on my own for a studio and never be mentioned. Now some studios are more grateful to their team and mention people involved but I was sometimes felling like a ghostwriter.

For my own description I don’t remember where I said that but I think I wanted basically to express the fact that abstract/narrative or soft/bold can be the opposite but can work together.

You've spoken about how you branched into the design industry through skateboarding, creating zines, videos and board designs for local skate shops. Do you feel like this element of community influenced the way in which you approach your design? Is collaboration something you value as a designer? 

Yes maybe. I do love collaborating with people I admire wether in skateboarding or design.

It’s definitely a value to collaborate because it’s a way to make your work evolve in my opinion.

And it’s just nice to work or hang out with people with same interest and same approach.

I really admire how your portfolio balances a combination of consistency and versatility; in conversation with It's Nice That, you discussed how you become 'bored very quickly' which influences how your work constantly evolves. In regards to this, how do you approach your clients in a way that welcomes new ideas and experimentation? Have you found it difficult that you are creatively restricted with your commission or more commercial work? 

When a client comes up with no ideas about what they need but they just know they want to work with me that’s usually the opportunity to kind of surprise them and « renew me ». And sometimes clients come up already with an idea or a moodboard so I’m just following the brief which can be relaxing also and as well exiting if for example they ask me to draw something I never tried to do in the past.

The best solution for me if I get too much frustration through commissions is to make self initiated projects, these are always the best things to me.

What have your experiences been like working in studios and agencies? Do you prefer these environments in comparison to working alone with freelance work/ personal projects? 

As I mentioned before working in a studio is not the perfect fit for me at the moment but I definitely had great times. The last studio where I worked was Lyon and Lyon in Sheffield and the team was lovely and some of the projects were nice, and on top of that they were very trustful.

It’s more exiting for me now, because I meet a lot of different people and can choose the direction I want to go for. In studios I was just seing my workmates and rarely the clients or collaborators.

But who knows maybe in some years I’ll be tired of being a freelance and we’ll be back to an agency position.

What advice would you give to a designer starting out in the industry? Are there any hurdles you have had to overcome throughout your career so far? 

It really depends of what a designer want to do. I’m not a very good example because I’m a very lucky person doing things I love. For example for a designer who want to work in a corporate studio or an add agency I don’t really have advices.

Maybe the obstacles I had was to fight with the self impostor syndrome because I’m not graduated from a prestigious design school, or also sometimes improvising new skills while working on a project.

Over the past few years, you've had the amazing opportunity to work for agencies based in France, Spain, North America and England. I'm interested in how you got to the position where you were able to do so; how were you able to branch out your contacts globally? Would you credit the internet for this, or was it a case of contacts and connections within the industry? 

Definitely the internet. I had my first job position in Los Angeles through Behance. The creative director just found my work on this platform and asked me to work with them in the US.

Then for the other jobs I just sent emails showing my interest to some studios and polishing my portfolio where they could understand what I do in a few seconds.

Your work consists of a 50/50 split between digital and analog design, with a lot of your designs and illustrations using nostalgic textures and elements of printed matter. Do you think that in todays' heavily digitally orientated environment that this element of physical design is crucial within the design process? In light of this, would you say that you begin your creative process digitally or physically first-hand? 

It’s a tough question for me because I work this way for more self oriented reasons. I’m not informed enough if digital or print is the worst for the planet at the moment. But like many graphic designers I love to get my stuffs printed.

And again it depends on the project but for example for more visual oriented project I usually start by writing down ideas on a post it paper and then I drop images and references on a Illustrator artboard and I see what I can do.

You have previously mentioned how you take a lot of inspiration from the internet, skateboarding, magazines and animated movies. Before starting out as a designer, you initially wanted to study film; I'm a big film-lover myself and want to know how much film influences your work and in what way? Outside of the design world, what films have impacted you as a creative or struck a chord with you personally? 

It’s veery wide. I love animated movies like Studio Ghibli’s or more experimental ones like Vince Collins with Jazzy Alphabet also titles that Saul Bass made during his carrer, and my favorite Georges Schwizgebel for his experimental movies.

And my tastes for movies go for all the Hitchcock movies (I love the title openings). Also the French nouvelle vague especially Chabrol, Godard and Truffaut. 

I take a lot of screenshots that I save for no reasons.

Now more than ever, Instagram and social media is a massive influence in the design world, yourself even discussing how when you hit a creative wall, you look online for inspiration. Despite this, do you think that the design industry has become too 'trend' based; are designers becoming reliant on heavily stylised and 'trendy' designs? If so, do you agree with designing based on trends? 

I think it depends where you look online. If you are looking for inspiration on Pinterest for example, I don’t think that’s a good idea. If you listen to a podcast or read an interview from a designer or watch an interesting project and try to understand how the designer ended up doing something that’s better.

But to the opposite, I also just watch random images. I follow a lot of instagram and Tumblr accounts posting anything but graphic design. These platforms can be like a big flee market with a lot of random images.

Of course there’re trends and I’m conscious my work is becoming trendy. But trends exists since centuries. To me a good design needs a good balance between trend and audaciousness. Then it needs luck to have your work aging well and still interesting 10 years later.

Finally, heres just a fun quick task for you: create a 'starter pack' meme of yourself. This can be a collection of images associated with you and yourself as a creative (definitely expecting a lot of grain, haha).

The 12 principles of animation

 The 12 principles of animation 

Squash and stretch 

This looks at the force of the motion of things hitting the ground, e.g a ball. The force of the ball hitting the ground squashes the ball flat, then when it bounces back up it stretches back into shape. This effect gives the animation an elastic quality, as objects should react to gravity accordingly. 

Anticipation 

Anticipation is the preparation for the main action, for example somebody kicking a football. 

Staging 

Staging directs the audiences attention to the main focus of the animation, in the same way a camera focuses on a subject. This helps build a stronger narrative that effectively advances a story. 

Straight ahead action and pose-to-pose 

Straight ahead action is where you draw each frame of an action one after another as you go along. With pose-to-pose, you draw the extremes (the beginning and the end drawings of action) then you go and fill in the middle frames. Pose-to-pose gives you way more control over the action as you can see early on where you want the subject to go instead of hoping to time it right. By doing the main poses first, it allows you to catch any mistakes early. However, sometimes this method feels too perfect and neat. Straight ahead action is less planned and therefore more surprising and fresh. The best technique in animation is to do a combination of both methods because it allows you to have both structure and spontaneity. 

Follow-through and overlapping action 

When a moving subject comes to a stop, other objects in frame might continue to move in the same direction because of the face of forward momentum. These secondary objects that will move are things like hair, clothing etc. Follow-through can also describe the movement of the primary subject, for example, if you land in a crouch after a jump, before standing up straight, that’s a follow-through. 

Ease in ease out 

When you drive a car, it takes a little while to accelerate to 60mph, which is the main principle of ease out. This method is the careful controlling of speeds of objects, thus making their movement more believable. 

Arcs 

Most living things move in circular motions, called arcs. Arcs operate along a curved trajectory that adds the illusion of life to an animated object. The arcs in animation also have to change pace according to what the action or movement is, for example, some movement arcs are so fast they’re just blurred. 

Secondary action 

Secondary actions are gestures that support the main animation to provide more character. They can create more insight to what the character is thinking or doing. 

Timing 

Timing is about where you put on a timeline each frame of action. For example, on a timeline of a ball bouncing, there will be certain sections of the timeline where the ball frames are tightly packed together. This is because the ball is slowing down before it bounces. The success of any animation depends on your sense of timing and takes time to listen to the rhythms of animation. 

Exaggeration 

Exaggeration presents the features of a character and their actions in extremes to provide a comedic or dramatic effect. Exaggeration is a great way to add to the animations narrative and the enhance the storytelling of the character.

Solid drawing 

Solid drawing is all about making sure that animated forms feel three dimensional. This process involves defining the volume of the character and their characteristics. 

Appeal 

Appeal in animation is essential, as people remember real, interesting and engaging characters. Obviously this is subjective, but character design still plays a massive role in the appeal of an animation and how audiences react.

The origins of the Berlin techno scene (documentary notes)

 The origins of the Berlin techno scene (documentary notes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWPFrWojYQ4

• Rose in the early 90s 
• At the beginning of the 80’s in Frankfurt the origins of techno began with electronic music 
• New order, Kraftwerk and depeche mode were key influences 
• Frontpage was the in house fanzine of the techno scene and was first published in 1989
• Techno was noted as expressing the emotions at the time, the dullness of society 
• The Frankfurt Technoclub was a massive historical merit 
• Techno clubs were never considered ‘hip’; they were underground for outsiders 
• There was some overlapping in Berlin with techno and house
• Acid house began opened up the techno scene in Berlin 
• The UFO opened up outside the Berlin Wall and became an acid house club; it opened up a new kind of scene. Made by the people for the people
• These new clubs weren’t styled clubs, they took place in empty buildings and warehouses 
• Acid house evolved into a nation wide phenomenon in the late eighties 
• Acid house already had a techno ish character, coined as ‘proto-techno’ 
• Acid had this drive and message of escapism; everyone was so fixated on the music 
• Acid house quickly became ‘hip’ and popular, which distracted from its underground nature
• There began to be acid house parties in established/ mainstream clubs
• The love parade celebrated music and art, with fashion designers being asked to design for people’s outfits 
• The exciting thing about the parade was that people were aware that they were party of something that would eventually get bigger 
• At the same time, the situation in east Berlin was very different; everything was state controlled and you couldn’t publicly organise parties 
• East Berlin was way more underground, there were a lot of people coming from new wave and punk 
• The GDR was falling so people drew their energy from techno and partying 
• There are rumours that techno existed before the fall of the wall in east Berlin, but it was very small 
• People in the east listened to mixtapes 
• The image of the west for the east was glamorised and the idea of an independent dance event shocked many people 
• ‘For us they were like demigods’ 
• Cafe Kanzler was a club people came to after the fall of the wall 
• UFO club became massive after the fall of the wall, it was something so alien to people from the east 
• People in the east new about it from the radio, but had never seen any DJs mix music in person 
• ‘Everyone felt so free’ 
• House and techno was the new avant garde music, which was brought in from people from the east and the gay community 
• Cyberspace club in UFO was something completely different and monumental; sometimes there were only 3 guests 
• The techno events were the first events that brought the west and east together; event organisers were trying to get both sides together after the reunification 
• Techno was a new form of ‘dance floor socialism’ 
• The goal was to create a trance like experience 
• Tekknozoid was the first race in Germany in the early 90s 
• The term techno existed, but it widely was undefined 
• There was a kind of war over ‘who defines techno?’ 
• There was a clash between EBM and technohouse; it was a war between the old and the new, with new techno being influenced by the west such as Detroit 
• Techno often is associated with the self made and DIY fashion and art scene; organisers experimented with decor and how they could create a unique experience 
• It was all about space, and to create a space where you could test a new freedom and have new experiences of perception 
• The early 90s saw these new stylistic associations with techno, working with patterns, colours and fantasy worlds 
• It was more about total abstraction from reality, with a dark kind of atmosphere 
• People called the party the scene the ‘re-alm’ and the kingdom; it was other worldly 
• At the beginning of events, there would be ‘space research’ where the hosts would test really intense things like a full line up of basses mounted on the ceilings 
• It has something very scientific about it, with experimentation of decoration and lighting 
• The decorations reinvented the clubs, reimagining empty spaces 
• You didn’t print DJs on the flyers, there was very minimal advertising 
• The guests helped to arrange the set up of the parties 
• Back in the beginnings, you partied but not that hard, it was only later when drugs and alcohol were introduced 
• A way in which people found the parties would be to hold up a red rose in a station and somebody would direct them to the location of the party 
• Busses sometimes drove people to abandoned bunkers for parties 
• Dorian grey had a Sunday culture where people would do all nighters; this idea originated in trance, which was bigger in Frankfurt 
• The love parade had the motto of ‘my house is your house and your house is mine’ 
• It was a life task for many people

Random research day task

 Random research day task

For todays' day research task, in groups we have to pick a random word and research around it. The aim is to go on as many tangents as we can in order to find out some super niche facts; this will help me improve and find new ways of researching that can later inform the project. My group and I have chosen the word 'sun'. I have been given the role of researching around the folklore associated with the sun, as well as mythology behind it. 

Sun folklore

How Hou Yi shot the sun

In ancient Chinese mythology, there were not one but 10 suns. Every day, the sun goddess Shiho would pick one of these suns (who were also her suns) and put them in the sky. Whilst one of the suns was in the sky, the other 9 suns would play by the mythical Fusang tree. 

One day, the suns grew tired of their responsibility, so they decided to run along the sky all at once in order to generate enough heat and light to take a few days off. This ended up scorching the earth. 

The sun god Dijun took pity on the suffering mortals, so called in the expert archer Hou Yi to discipline the 10 suns. The archer stalked and killed 9 suns, but the last 10th sun survived as a young boy stole his last arrow, which saved the earth from being in eternal darkness. 

Dragon/ demons

Ancient Chinese myth also holds the belief that solar eclipses were caused by a demon or dragon devouring the sun. This myth led to the people of China banging drums around a solar eclipse to scare the demon or dragon away. 

Norse legend 

In ancient norse legend, the sun goddess Sol is chased through the sky by the wolf Skoll, who plans to devour her. Eclipses were said to be a sign of Skoll getting closer to Sol. In fact, the norse believed that one day, Skoll would finally devour Sol, tying into the myth of Ragnarok; this is the story of a great battle between all norse gods, where the world would be plunged into an apocalypse. 

The sun boat 

In Egyptian legend, the flacon headed sun god Ra would captain a crew on a boat across the sky every day. This boat was called Mandjet, meaning the 'boat of millions of years'. At night, Ra would return to the east via the underworld, where the serpent god Apep would attempt to stop Ra by devouring him. Solar eclipses were thought to be Apep getting an upper hand of Ra in their battle. 

Cherokee legend

According to Cherokee legend, the sun always grew jealous of her brother moon because the people of earth always looked up to her with twisted faces and squinted eyes, while they gently smiled at night. Angry at the humans for their ugly expressions, the sun began to use the opportunity to send down so much heat that people would die of fever.

The humans then turned to the little men; the little men were friendly, magical spirits who lived in the forest. The little men said the sun must die, so they turned one man into a rattlesnake and another into an antlered serpent called Uktena.

The rattlesnake arrived at the suns' daughters house to wait for her arrival. While he was waiting, the sun's daughter opened the door and he accidentally bit her, killing her. When the sun came to see her daughter, she wept, flooding the earth with tears.

To stop the sun from weeping, the people of earth made an attempt to rescue to the dead daughter from the land of ghosts, but failed. When they returned, the sun began to weep even harder. To stop her weeping and to make the sun happy again, the people of earth began to dance and play music, called the sun dance. 

Slowing down the sun

The Maori people of New Zealand tell a tale where the days are shorter than what they are now. The hero Maui often heard his brothers complain about the lack of light during the day, so he decided to solve the problem by taming the sun. Although skeptical, Maui and his brothers helped him weave a net to catch the sun.

Maui and his brothers went east to find the suns resting place, covering the entry to the suns cave and covering themselves in clay to protect themselves from the suns heat. When the sun emerged, it fought and struggled in the net, but the brothers held it firmly. Maui began to beat the sun until the star was so weakened it could no longer race across the sky. This is how the days were made longer. 

Creating an animated report - initial frames

 Creating an animated report - initial frames

Despite not hearing back from Alexis just yet, I decided to get on with animating the questions of my creative report interview. This was crucial as I'm not a pro animator by any means, so I wanted to get to grips with it as it is obviously more time consuming. In light of this, the approach to the animation is fairly minimal, which is mainly so they don't massively distract from the type/ questions. 

Title frames

Inspired by the Alexis' approach to using colour, the colour palette I decided to use for the animation features contrasting bold colours with a soft airbrush texture. The foundations of the animations' colour palette is essential in setting the tone for the creative report, as well as communicating a playful atmosphere. As well as this, shown in the frames of the title/ intro animation, the type I decided to use was Times New Roman; this was mainly as I wanted the type to be clean to juxtapose the soft colours/ textures of the animation. Further informed by Alexis' style, I added some grainy texture to the type so that it subtly flickered as the animation moved along the timeline. These subtle animated components really brought the animation to life a bit more, as the type didn't feel flat alongside the colours. Due to this, these frames played a massive role in setting the tone and atmosphere of the rest of the animation; all of the other frames needed 1) the same colour palette 2) the same airbrush texture 3) the same animated typeface. Additionally, the animation itself explores the analog approach to design that is prominent in Alexis' style, as I ended up doing a frame by frame animation. This meant that the animation movement felt a bit jumpy and hand rendered, instead of being super smooth. Although this was mainly down to my lack of skills and knowledge of animation, I actually like the effect it provided. 

Question 1

For each question, I wanted the animation to reflect the topic of the question itself; the animation had to reflect this juxtaposition of 'soft and bold'. Due to this, I decided to animate a flower building into an explosion. I liked how this one turned out, as it was my first try with proper animation; I think it especially works against the plain background, as it has a minimal yet effective movement. The blurred texture also works in creating a somewhat abstract atmosphere which fits into Alexis' style. 

Question 2

Again, this animated loop related to the question itself, through animating a skateboard that turns into a camera; blending the skate community with the creative community. I found this animation quite challenging as I wanted to find a way to introduce the camera; instead of it just appearing out of nowhere, it needed to be more fluid so I animated it to form out of a liquid from the top of the frame. I feel like this definitely made it feel slightly more playful, and pushed me to consider how I could make it feel more dynamic and three dimensional. 

Question 3

This question was a hard one to animate, as its kind of lengthy and abstract to visualise; due to this, I decided to focus on the idea of evolution in regards to creative styles, which is symbolised by the animated loop of a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly. This maintained a fun and playful atmosphere, and definitely fit my personal creative style. I'm pretty happy with how the butterfly motion turned out, as I spent a while trying to replicate the movement of a butterfly somewhat realistically. 

Question 4

Again, this was quite an abstract question to animate, so I decided to go down the route of focusing on teamwork vs solo work; I animated a high five to reflect the concept of visualising studio environments, and then I animated a cowboy to reflect the idea of solo freelance work. I feel like this one turned out really well as I managed to blend the two key frames fairly effectively, despite working frame by frame. 

Question 5

For this animated question, I wanted to communicate the concept of hurdles by introducing the imagery of mountains; this reflected the challenges of starting out in the design industry, which was juxtaposed by the animated sun that grows throughout the loop. I liked how this animation definitely filled the space a bit more, as obviously the question is fairly short; I think the soft textures also didn't overpower the type, as the question still needed to be legible. 

Peer feedback

Because I was halfway through animating the questions for the creative report, I decided to ask some peers for any feedback. One thing that was suggested was to look into and research the 12 principles of animation, as it could help me try out some new techniques for the animation to build a more dynamic outcome. Despite this, overall the peer feedback was that these outcomes worked well in communicating the style of Alexis Jamet, whilst also communicating elements of my own personal style. The main focus now is to get the rest of the 5 questions finished, whilst waiting for Alexis' response. 

What am I going to do with Alexis' responses?

Once I have animated the other 5 questions, I then need to animate Alexis' responses to the questions. I'm expecting the responses to be fairly wordy, so I don't think they will work with the kind of imagery I'm doing for the questions at the moment. Due to this, I think I want the visual hierarchy of the animation to have more focus on the answers, so I think I want to keep the animated elements that go alongside the answers be quite minimal. Despite this, I still want to use the same colour palette and airbrushed textures, yet in more of an abstract way. This could be something like a very subtly animated texture, with more focus on the answers.