Monday, December 13, 2010

Animation Spotlight, Fall 2010

Luke Arens, Spotlight postcard design
Spotlight postcard design by DSU student Luke Arens

The Animation Department at Dakota State University will hold its first screening, Animation Spotlight, this week.

The Animation Spotlight is a showcase of DSU's student animation work. This semester the screening will showcase the work of students from the DAD 110 (Intro to Digital Arts and Design), ARTD 185 (Intro to Animation) and ARTD 292 (Special Topics: After Effects and motion Graphics) classes. The Animation Department hopes to have a screening every semester that highlights some of the awesome work created by students within the Animation Department.

What: Animation Spotlight, Fall 2010
Where: Science Center 135 (auditorium)
When: Wednesday, December 15th, 2-3pm
Details: Please attend a screening of film, animation and motion graphic work created by the students of DAD 110, ARTD 185 and ARTD 292. We will have audience voting and awards for Best Music Video, Best Lip Synch and Best Movie Titles.

Winning Postcard Design: Luke Arens

Luke Arens, Spotlight postcard design
Luke Arens created the winning postcard design for the Fall 2010, Animation Spotlight event.

Luke Arens is a 4th year Digital Art & Design major, with a Computer Graphics Specialization.

luke-0151-02
Tell us about yourself
I started taking an interest in computer graphics and design early on in high school and by the time I graduated in 2005 I was fluent in Photoshop and started experimenting in Illustrator. Here at DSU I've just acquired a new love for animation and am learning to put principles and techniques I've picked up over the years into motion.

What did you like about this project to create a postcard design for Spotlight?
My semester has been filled with designing for animation so it was nice to take a break and create something that isn't moving. Though I think the design lends itself pretty well to being put in motion. Maybe I'll take that idea and run with it later...

What was your inspiration for the project?
At first it started out as a big block of text of different sizes at right angles that was super hard to read, but it obviously didn't work so I took a little soda break and cruised through some of my favorite design bookmarks. I found a Layer Tennis match that I had seen between some very talented designers that started off with a weird yet awesome mix of election/constructivist propaganda. I loved the color palette and the strong type so I tried to emulate that while keeping it simple yet eye-catching. Here is what I'm talking about. It is definitely worth looking at if you are at all into graphics as an art form.

What did you learn from this project?
Readability is harder than you might think to achieve. Sure you might have a huge awesome font library, but that doesn't mean anything if you don't know how to use it. There is a time and a place for fancy swashes and busted up serifs, and it is the job of the designer to determine what to use and how to arrange an effective piece of design.

Thanks Luke !

Luke Arens on Tumblr
Luke Arens on YouTube
Luke Arens on Vimeo
Luke Arens on Flickr

Postcard Designs for Animation Spotlight 2010

Luke Arens, Spotlight postcard design

Tracy Booze, Spotlight postcard design

Rebecca Ziegler, Spotlight postcard design

Kim Ireland, Spotlight postcard design

These are the postcard designs submitted by students for Dakota State University's Animation Spotlight, Fall 2010.

The first design is by Luke Arens, a student from ARTD 292, Special Topics: After Effects.

The second design is by Tracy Booze, a student from DAD 110, Introduction to Digital Arts and Design.

The third design is by Rebecca Zielger, a student from ARTD 292, Special Topics: After Effects.

The fourth design is by Kim Ireland, a student from ARTD 185, Introduction to Animation.