It's that wonderful time of year again when first year ND Art & Design (Interactive Media) students are getting into their stop motion animation production unit. It is good to see that some students are so enthusiastic about it they even came in on Friday when they had no timetabled lessons.
The high level of interest means that some students have even begun to practice the techniques at home.
Free Stop Motion Animation Software
So that you can experiment and enjoy doing stop motion animation at home what follows is a list of FREE software to help you with your productions. None of it comes with any guarantee, and you download and install at your own risk blah blah blah, but you get the gist.
Here it is:
AnimatorDV - http://animatordv.com/download7
MonkeyJam - http://www.giantscreamingrobotmonkeys.com/monkeyjam/download.html
SMA - http://www.clayanimator.com/english/stop_motion_animator.html
Papagayo - http://www.lostmarble.com/papagayo/index.shtml
Other programs also available on college intranet under unit 116.
Friday, 5 June 2009
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
Creative COW - great FREE resource for budding designers and media producers
Serious art, design and media students will be interested to hear about Creative COW Magazine available as a FREE PDF download.
The latest issue was bound to get my attention being all about Stereoscopic 3D (no doubt also of interest to a student of mine who produced an anaglyph 3D animation recently).
To give you a flavour of the insight you can gain from the Creative COW magazine take the opening paragraph from an article about the production of South Park:
Each episode of “South Park” comes to life in six days, start to finish — a crazy pace for an animated series. Even crazier: each episode arrives at Comedy Central in New York via uplink somewhere between 6:30 and 8:30 PM on Wednesday, to be shown that night at 10 PM. Cutting it close?Want to read more? Download issue 10 - click here >
I recommend that serious students add Creative COW to their favourites and check back regularly to download each issue - click here >
You can also download all the back issues you may have missed. Some back issues that may be of special interest for you include:
But there are plenty of others too.
What are you waiting for? It's free...
Wednesday, 27 May 2009
Tutorial Discussion: Love at No Sight
This interesting article on the BBC discusses love and attraction from point of view of a vision impaired person. Really interesting considering the obsession we tend to have as a society for good looks and physical beauty.
Read on: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8069993.stm
Read on: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8069993.stm
We launch our YouTube Channel...
Today's top story is the launch of our own YouTube channel for art, design and interactive media work. At the moment we have just a few examples of student work online, but as you finish your 3D animation, Stop-motion or video work we will see more and more.
Take a look:
http://www.youtube.com/user/stephensoncollegeart
And in honour of the occasion, I choose to embed "A Snotty Situation" into this blog page, directly from YouTube.
Take a look:
http://www.youtube.com/user/stephensoncollegeart
And in honour of the occasion, I choose to embed "A Snotty Situation" into this blog page, directly from YouTube.
Monday, 4 May 2009
Beating Creative Block!
This great article from .net magazine really sums it up well. Most designers do not have a tap which they can turn on to get the ideas flowing. More realistic is the notion that it simply takes time, work and an effective approach.
That's what we are currently teaching you, an effective approach (research, development etc.).
Read the article here:
http://www.netmag.co.uk/zine/discover-culture/beat-the-creative-block
That's what we are currently teaching you, an effective approach (research, development etc.).
Read the article here:
http://www.netmag.co.uk/zine/discover-culture/beat-the-creative-block
Why should I do Key Skills?
Why does it matter whether I can spell? It won't matter in my road painting job...
Spelling, grammar, addition, subtraction... you'll be amazed at which jobs it's important for.
Spelling, grammar, addition, subtraction... you'll be amazed at which jobs it's important for.
Friday, 1 May 2009
What future employers will want from you...
I have just got back from a meeting with the Director of a Leicestershire based design studio. I was discussing what they look for in a graduate/potential employee. In a nutshell the priorities are:
1. Speed – must work quickly (e.g. 12 highly finished logo options for a client in 1 working day).
2. Know the software (really know it, so they can work quickly)
3. Creativity
I asked how closely these ranked. The answer was very close. They are ALL important.
To paraphrase the Director’s own words: if you don’t eat, drink and breathe design, then the job isn’t for you.
How do we know you eat, drink and breathe design? Because you dedicate most of your time to it. It is more important to you than TV, video games, and generally hanging around. You get home from college and boot-up the computer to carry on working with Photoshop and Illustrator and those other programs, until you are an expert at using them.
From the Director’s point of view new recruits need to hit the ground running and be generating a profit within their first few weeks.
And that’s reality.
This is pertinent to all students. To HND students because they will be next into industry. To Intro, First and National students because now is the time to be learning the software in your own time so you are an expert (that's what I did).
Do you have what it takes?
Failure won't be because you lack talent, but because you won't pay the price to be good enough.
What is the price?
The price is your own time. Lots and lots of your own time.
One more lesson to learn from Ivan Chermayeff, the secret to success as a designer is to find your work more fun than fun.
If design is in your blood, you will be doing it constantly, you will eat it, drink it and breathe it, you will enjoy doing it, and won't ever have to be told or reminded to do it.
1. Speed – must work quickly (e.g. 12 highly finished logo options for a client in 1 working day).
2. Know the software (really know it, so they can work quickly)
3. Creativity
I asked how closely these ranked. The answer was very close. They are ALL important.
To paraphrase the Director’s own words: if you don’t eat, drink and breathe design, then the job isn’t for you.
How do we know you eat, drink and breathe design? Because you dedicate most of your time to it. It is more important to you than TV, video games, and generally hanging around. You get home from college and boot-up the computer to carry on working with Photoshop and Illustrator and those other programs, until you are an expert at using them.
From the Director’s point of view new recruits need to hit the ground running and be generating a profit within their first few weeks.
And that’s reality.
This is pertinent to all students. To HND students because they will be next into industry. To Intro, First and National students because now is the time to be learning the software in your own time so you are an expert (that's what I did).
Do you have what it takes?
Failure won't be because you lack talent, but because you won't pay the price to be good enough.
What is the price?
The price is your own time. Lots and lots of your own time.
One more lesson to learn from Ivan Chermayeff, the secret to success as a designer is to find your work more fun than fun.
If design is in your blood, you will be doing it constantly, you will eat it, drink it and breathe it, you will enjoy doing it, and won't ever have to be told or reminded to do it.
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