OUAN603 - Extended Practice: Title Cards

OUAN603 - Extended Practice:

Title Cards

By using some of the textures I scanned in last week, I am attempting to put together some appealing little title cards for each of my animations. I don't have the expertise of a graphic designer, but may be able to ask Rosy for advice on how they look and how to make them look neater and more professional. I aim to use part of an image/painting/art piece from one of the artists in each movement.

Firstly, I am using a section of "San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk", 1908 by Claude Monet. Copyright-wise, I am able to use a piece for the title card so long as I credit the original source and intend to keep my animation profit-free. The original source for this piece is from "rdjess": https://rdjess.wordpress.com/2012/06/29/love-it-or-hate-it-impressionism/

I will overlay this onto one of my textures and then create the text and graphics to complete the card. I want to keep the colours of the image but make sure that isn't too recognisable. The texture will be the main thing that you see. I aim not to put too much worrying into the title cards as they'll only be on screen for a few seconds.

For the Surrealism title card, an image from Dali has been used but has had the colours inverted to create a sense of weird and wacky. The painting is 'Les Elephants' (1948), and the original source is http://www.dalipaintings.net/elephants.jsp. I used this image as not only does it depict a very surreal environment and is by one of the major artists in the animations, but the layout is clean, showing two creatures either side of the painting with a nice blank space in the middle which makes room for text. I didn't want to overclutter the title cards so this seemed a nice image to use.

My logo was originally going to be based on Salvador Dali's melting clock mixed with a bit of a colourful twist, but after a few attempts at a logo, I decided that I wanted something a bit more clean and punchy. I eventually decided on a logo that I put together, a clock palette. Inspired by the clocks I had seen across the web, I thought it would be more teen-friendly and more suitable for an educational classroom look.  

I spent a couple of hours playing around with title cards and layouts. I thought logically about how the stopwatch would appear from the right-hand side of the screen, so any text on the titles would need to be clear and not obscured by the animation. However, I didn't like the idea of the text being left aligned and realised that if by keeping everything central, it would allow the audience to focus on the titles completely as the titles are only on screen for a matter of seconds so any unusual layouts should be avoided. I created them in a way which allows the stopwatch to be seen whilst keeping the text clear. 

 By amalgamating my own textures, logo, and text together along with a couple of background images taken from sources listed above, I was able to make a fairly appealing looking set of title cards that were straight to the point, reflected each movement in some way, and set the scene and atmosphere for each animation. I used a fairly floaty and pretty font full of pattern for the Impressionism card, a font that was striking, modern, and straight (but non conforming of the German blackletter fonts, which signaled war and were used by Hitler) for the Dada card, and a simple straight type with an 'arrowed' I for an accent (symbolising going 'up into the mind' where dreams and psychoanalysis comes from) for Surrealism. The colours are also reflective of the movements - bright and contrasting for Impressionism, brown and collage-like for the war-repulsed Dada, and blue, striking and inverted for the weirdness of Surrealism.