Brainstorm: One World Flag

1. The average flag has about 3 colours. Characteristics of flags include colours that contrast well with each other, such as the French flag or the German flag. Colours do not blend with each other. Many flags hold animals and nature in them, others are based around simple shapes and colours. The most notable shapes are rectangles and circles. In order to make a realistic flag using stars or stripes I'll have to turn up the contrast until the stars have completely lost any tones. The milky way may be difficult to incorporate unless I can somehow make the characteristic swirl into a simple shape.

2.

Universal

Together

Complete

Undivided

Obamacare

I'm going to have a dark blue circle in the center that contains the world countries, the outline of the countries are going to be there but replacing the solid ground will be the stars of our sky. Might even change it to the Milky Way to represent ourselves. On the top left will be our sun peeking out and the background will be green, possibly cut into the basic outline of our countries to drive the fact home. It depends on how cluttered it will look.
Kudos to Brazil for making a great, inspirational flag.



Interactive Architechture Assignment Reflection

Technical
I have done a LOT on the technical side in this assignment. It's crazy, so I'll break it up a bit.

Photoshop
Adjusting colours to get brighter whites and less yellows. Adjusting the lights to be singular (so I can move them around in flash) and tweaking the blur to look better (coming clearly from the roof, and blurry near the floor). I had to re-blur and select a smaller area about 10 times in order to have the "gradual" blur effect. I separated the equalizer, lights and letters to be manipulated later in flash. I had to make sure they were opaque (so I could adjust transparency later in flash, simpler) and resized them to fit the image better.

Flash
From the get-go I wanted everything on as few frames as possible. I was tired of dealing with frames 1-300 just to get a simple effect. Therefore from the start I knew I had to start using/abusing graphics and movie clips. I also had to learn a bit of actionscript in order to get the flashing letters to pop up only when holding down the button. In order for that I had to use functions wherein 0 meant the light was off, and 1 represented completing 1 animation. After letting go of the light it will complete its revolution and revert back to 0, turning off. The buttons were easy frame switches, goto-3, goto-5, easy stuff. The sounds were actually the worst part of the animation, and I could have kept it to 4 frames had it not been for them. In order to get the sounds to stop playing when switching between frames I had to insert a "stopallsounds" script. This script got in the way of all sounds on that frame though, so I had to make one frame into "stopallsounds" and the next frame to "playsound-1". Most of everything else shown is clever use of movie clips and loops. They're simple enough and controlled by the frame you're on.

Idea or Concept
My idea barely changed throughout the creation of my piece. I added small modifications and adjusted the disco-floor idea, but otherwise it's mostly interacting through sound and touch. The disco-floor looked horrible. Honestly terrible. I couldn't make the floor look realistic and I couldn't make it look GOOD, or fun to be on. So I scrapped that idea and turned it into a panel of flashing lights that the viewer could hold down and see the SACRED HEART flash in their colour of choice. Another slight adjustment was the stage lights that changed colour based on the volume of the viewer. This matched well with the equalizer to show just how much the viewer can interact with the medium.

Influences
Matt barely influenced me this time. He was well and busy. In fact I was my own inspiration for the majority of the project. I'd be pensive and wait for a good idea and spring into action when I thought of delivering the concept well. I was my own motif, my own idol.

Composition
The art was mostly symmetrical. Looking at the panel you see a solid grid, the equalizer was a large solid line, the lights were all in a nice even row, even Matt (hopefully the viewer projects themselves unto Matt) stood directly in the center of the piece. The piece is assymetrical with the angle and how the lights and panel are placed awkwardly around one another, but at its heart it's a symmetrical piece. I believe the sides compliment each other. The viewer feels safe knowing each side is comfortable being around the other, which in turn makes the viewer feel comfortable. It's in this state of comfort that my art piece truly feels appreciated.

Motivation
My motivation was the pursuit of bettering myself in Flash. Despite having an older program I still pulled off some good feats. Being better at an older program lets me be even better in newer programs with more features. I'm glad to have improved this much in Flash, and I know this is solid ground to start working on my portfolio. I'll most likely bring a newer version of Flash to school though, at minimum Macromedia Flash 8 (most reliable version). Though I was glad to work simply for the goal of bettering the work. Making my art stand out in a crowd is pleasing and is its own reward. Were I not able to motivate myself to animate I would not pursue art, I would pursue a desk-job that I wouldn't need motivation for.

Part 6: Idea board for portfolio

I'm not sure if I should write anything.

Whoops, guess I did anyway.
Here's a link to the image in a higher res: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe3rptPakIB5ATLjw0e__EJmhkOZ1h5kAw8u1eTSp4OCg_9arJ-pr7AQQuARfjawrlMTpuDYV36f8hmFq3bNwrG4ifCXCdlnP9oLXiB1scGbN9wVEIUbEj1zAz8kb1y-x19drm6CGN36E/s1600/idea+board.png

Part 5: Creative Portfolios

http://salleedesign.com/home/
Sallee has a lot of cute graphics throughout his blog that mix well with his professional side. He seems to be aiming for simplicity while keeping a light tone. His blog is creative for having the moustaches, moving parts and unnecessary fun bits, but it also maintains an air of professionalism and isn't difficult to navigate.

http://www.jamesgarner.co.uk/
Garner has little animations and he blends all of his links with his artwork. He even made it possible to scroll through his entire portfolio, all of his links are on one big page.  His art is in there too, specifically "Doug" and how you shouldn't mind him being there at the bottom of the sea. This work is littered with small animations and other creative pieces.

http://andrewhandley.com/
The perfect example of a creative portfolio that stops using simple text and easy navigation. Most useable buttons are in the same area, but they're not listed with text. Some things don't even make sense, such as the atom in the center leading to the comic. This portolio presents the artist's style alongside his actual art.

http://www.hugosocie.fr/
Hugo uses a newer style in their portfolio. It reflects the style Windows has chosen in their new Windows 8 operating system. Large squares of art with colours that contrast greatly. Thankfully text is shown in this portfolio and it's easier to navigate than other harder portfolios. The squares have bright little triangles that rise when hovered over, showing how simple and elegant the artist is.

http://s19382.gridserver.com/
This artist has a really incredible 3D navigation that can be controlled entirely with your mouse. Moving around you can see every bit of their art all in a big circle, scroll through and choose exactly which pieces you'd like to see. The background is a viginette (which is coming back in style) and it helps to highlight the art in the center. Clicking on any of the art takes you to a separate page where it's shown fullscreen. This is an amazing, simple creative blog that's also easy to navigate.

Part 3: KROP portfolio

http://www.krop.com/quintonb/

Part 4: Professional Design

http://lisasolonynko.com/
The site is easy to navigate with the images being the center of attention. Eyes are directed toward the box scrolling through her recent works, but it's easy to navigate away from using the tabs on the left. You're also able to scroll through her art easily and comfortably using the scroll wheel when hovering over the box. Interesting, simple, and professional looking!

http://www.sharonruttonsha.com/
Clean interface with no transitions between the art. Everything is simple and layed out professionally on the left. There's often only one or two clicks between seeing any art on her portfolio. The colours are muted compared to her works and the text is all easy to read.

http://www.ellacharette.com/realism-artwork/
The site's important links are all layed out at the top in an easy-to-use format. Nothing is out of the way and when clicking on one of her listed arts, you're immediately directed to all of the art with no text separating them. It's all clean and efficient, nothing confusing or hard to navigate. The font is also pretty clean and easier to read than Sharon Ruttonsha's.

http://www.ddgadjanski.com/index.html
DD Gadgjanski is looking for the cleanest, simplest portfolio. The fewest words possible separate the viewer from the art. The interface is clean and the images change with a soft blur. Font is clean as it's white with a black border, easy-to-read on all colours.

http://www.biankaguna.com/
This may be the best looking interface. A plain white background with everything perfectly centered, the text looks nice (despite it saying "collections" instead of "gallery") and all of her art is all displayed on the appropriate page. All information is simple and it's obvious that her art is the main focus.