New Visual Language Magazine

Form Follows Function Research Document

Photoshop Timeline Workshop

During this photoshop workshop, we were made aware of an easy technique to create simple gifs using photoshop's video timeline feature, as opposed to the more conventional medium of using adobe after effects.

The process is incredibly straightforward by converting the layers into frames. In this instance, I used several layers of coloured circles in different positions across the canvas and converted them into frames to create the animation. It is highly customisable as you can change rate of frames per second. 

I developed on this further, and experimented with the use of animating typography by adjusting the tracking of the type. 

Although I doubt I will use this feature in my design practice, as well as the fact that GIFs are becoming more and more obsolete on the web, I think it is useful to know an easy way to create GIFs. 

We also used photoshop to export a movie made from different frames. This is useful because photoshop could be used to edit the frames before it is exported. In this instance we used an animation of a stick man jumping.

https://vimeo.com/127479843

Type Transcription

Recently, we have been working on creating our own typeface. I designed a futuristic-looking typeface which integrates a variety of curves and right angles in the letterforms. I think the typeface would be more suited to display purposes, rather than body text.

To say that this was my first experience at designing letterforms, I think the outcome was reasonably well. One of the most challenging aspects of this task was to keep the aesthetic of each letterform consistent with each other letterform. In some aspects, I felt like I achieved this in regards to how the P and the Q look, but the weight difference between the U and the W could be improved.