MFA Journey: 2011-2014

Posted on July 1, 2014 by gladys

Last month I finally finished my MFA Thesis Book. It’s been uploaded to Blurb.com and can be previewed by the following link:MFA Journey 2011-2014 by Gladys Chow

MFA Journey: 2011-2014
MFA Thesis Exhibition + Written Component
(Cover Design)

MFA Journey: 2011-2014 can also be viewed on the ISSUU website.

The book discusses the experiences, projects, activities, and design processes while obtaining a Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Texas at Arlington. It went through several revisions throughout the last semester, and it was definitely challenging putting it all together. Thank you to my professors, colleagues, friends, and family for their input, guidance and help during this process. The past three years have gone by so quickly and the book is only a short summary of this rewarding experience of obtaining an MFA.

Also wishing a Happy Canada Day to friends and family back home!

missing mooncakes: animations

Posted on December 16, 2013 by gladys

Been working a little further into the scenes of Missing Mooncakes and looking at tutorials for specific animations. For example, for the scene where Sophie and Grandma take the bus home, I thought about how it might be fun to have the windows slightly fogged up and then the user would have the option to ‘de-fog’ the window by touching across the window graphic. This tutorial on webdesign.org: Creating an Animating Scratch Card Effect to Reveal a Photo, discusses the use of Photoshop to create a frame by frame animation. I tried it out and came out with the following experiment:

‘de-fog’ animation frame 01

‘de-fog’ animation frame 02

‘de-fog’ animation frame 03

‘de-fog’ animation frame 04

‘de-fog’ animation frame 05

‘de-fog’ animation frame 06

‘de-fog’ animation frame 07

‘de-fog’ animation frame 08

I’ve been using mostly Adobe Flash for some of the animations in the story, so I attempted to create the ‘de-fogging’ effect:

may be difficult to see, but the animation just consists of three classic tweens, of a small stripe getting larger

the animated stripes are masked to simulate a wiping/de-frosting window behaviour, but wasn’t successful at achieving the desired quality

I also used Flash to create the animation on Sophie’s eyes.

animating the blinking in eyes

animating the blinking in Sophie’s eyes

Adobe MAX Conference: Day 3

Posted on May 18, 2013 by gladys

Last day of the conference–I was only able to attend the first half of the day because of my flight time. Still an eventful day, see below for some pics:

first lab in the morning: “How to Create and Work Quickly with 3D in Photoshop” presented byCorey Barker; an image of my computer screen, working with text

Red Bull Collective Art Exhibition

information on the Red Bull Collective Art project

always a long lineup for printing your own design on a tshirt (I only left with a blank tshirt because the wait was too long)

poster advertisement on the printer

Get Inspired at MAX!

Second lab of the day: “Designing for Mobile Devices Without Writing Code”, presented by Brian Wood

following along in the lab on my computer screen

the board got more busy on the last day

wonder where the pig statue came from?

last session at MAX, “Designing for Mobile Devices with Adobe Muse”, presented by Dani Beaumont, Group Product Manager at Adobe Systems, Inc.

information on Adobe Muse

last glance of the MAX conference registration desk before boarding the shuttle to LAX

First time being at the MAX conference has been a positive experience in learning new techniques, getting inspired by artist/designer talks, and participating in the labs.

Adobe MAX 2013 conference: Day 2

Posted on May 18, 2013 by gladys

Day 2 was full of sessions, with breakfast, lunch, and sneak peek at what Adobe has to offer in Adobe Creative Cloud. Below are some images:

First lab of the day: Designing for iPad: A Step-by-Step Guide for Print Designers, presented by Keith Gilbert

going to the General Session on Day 2: Community Inspires Creativity at the Nokia Center

waiting for the general session to start, images from artists’ works from behance.net were shown

waiting for the general session to start, images from artists’ works from behance.net were shown

Guest speaker Paula Scher, an iconic graphic designer and illustrator

Guest speaker Paula Scher discusses her current projects

Guest speaker Phil Hansen discusses how limitations drive his creativity

Guest speaker Phil Hansen discusses his past and current projects

Guest speaker Erik Johansson, photographer and retouch artist

Guest speaker Erik Johansson discusses his work flow and process

Guest speaker Erik Johansson

Guest speaker Rob Legato, an Oscar winning visual effects supervisor

Rob Legato discusses some of his work on the Titanic movie

Guest speaker Scott Belsky, founder and CEO of Behance

Guest speaker Scott Belsky

Afternoon session: Designing for iPads with InDesign and Digital Publishing Suite, presented by Rufus Deuchler

Rufus Deuchler, Sr. Worldwide Evangelist at Adobe Systems, Inc. talks about InDesign articles and folios

Session: Beyond Print: Digital Content from InDeisgn (PDF, EPUB, DPS, HTML), presented by David Blatner, co-creator of InDesignSecrets.com

viewing the Adobe Design Achievement Awards at the Community Pavilion

Guest speaker Rainn Wilson at the Adobe MAX Sneak Peeks session

Guest speaker Rainn Wilson

The beginning of the MAX Sneak Peeks–Adobe engineers discussed briefly some of the new features to be offered in Adobe Creative Cloud

looking at changing the perspectives of images in Photoshop CC (along with Rainn Wilson, Mary Lynn Rajskub was also part of the guest panel to view the MAX Sneak Peeks)

Day 2 was full of sessions, labs and events. The sessions I signed up for focused on the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, which is a new area with an extensive amount of information to dive into and learn about. Day 3 of the MAX conference to follow in the next blog!

MFA open studio event

Posted on May 9, 2013 by gladys

On April 17 we had an MFA open studio event where we open our studio doors (literally) to students, faculty, and staff in other departments. It’s an opportunity to talk about our work and ask for suggestions and feedback regarding what we’ve been working on. It was a good opportunity to see the work of other graduate students as we seldom have the chance during the busy semester. My studio mates decided to create a wall of horizontal strings–to make it easier to hang our work…

may be a little hard to see, but we put horizontal string from the end of one wall to another (string held by thumbtacks)

we filled up the wall space with our work (work starting from left: Shaban, Josh, Gladys)

setting up the iPads for demos during the MFA open studio event

Sam tiger faces

Posted on March 23, 2013 by gladys

I’ve been struggling to try to make the face of Sam tiger cub a little more dimensional, but it’s a little difficult for me to break out of the 2D mode. Some attempts below but still feels that none are really successful.

various Photoshop effects applied to Sam tiger cub’s face

redesigning Canada

Posted on February 27, 2013 by gladys

Came across some articles in regards to Canadian perceptions and understanding Canada among its neighbors. Bruce Mau Design and STUDIO 360 have collaborated on a project to potentially change American perceptions about Canada.

Redesigning Canada for the 21st Century, on Bruce Mau Design

Canada: Your Slogan Here, on STUDIO 360

http://www.redesigningcanada.com/

Sound Group Project: The Recording Sessions of Pi

Posted on February 13, 2013 by gladys

We were tasked to create a sound piece in one week. Alison, Maryam, Shaban and I went straight to work. Since we all had an interest in languages, we went with a theme of numbers–specifically speaking the numbers of Pi in the languages we knew. We recorded in the sound studio saying zero to ten in 10 different languages: Kurdish, Persian, Spanish, French, Arabic, Laotian, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese and English. We also experimented saying the numbers in different emotive tones and speech–such as anger, joyful, singing, announcing, and animated voices…just to name few. Different object sounds were also recorded–sounds that related to the application of numbers, such as the dialing of a telephone, ticking of a clock, and the rolling and snapping of a tape measure. We recorded over 50 sound files–

the sound files we recorded on our group project

Alison beside Maryam in the sound booth

Shaban records Alison’s voice in the sound booth

Importing all our sound files in Audacity

CD jacket to the intro recordings of Pi (designed by Shaban)

after folding the cd jackets

We recorded all our sound files in Adobe Audition, but are using Audacity to edit the sounds. We decided to submit one track with all the layers playing simultaneously and also each record our own sound compilation using the data we collected as a group.

For my own version, I cut out the sounds of specific numbers of the various languages for the first eleven digits of pi: 3.1415926535. Created three versions of this number section: version 1 sound order: English, Kurdish, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, Cantonese, French, Persian, Laotian, Mandarin, and British; version 2 sound order: English (animated voice); Persian, French, Cantonese, Laotian, Spanish, Japanese, English (angry voice), Mandarin, Kurdish, and Arabic; version 3 sound order: Persian (singing), Laotian (singing), English (angry voice), Cantonese (low voice), Spanish, Persian (angry voice), Kurdish (singing), Laotian (singing), French, Cantonese, and English (animated voice). Below are screenshots of compiling the sound files in Audacity:

Layering found files in Audacity

Experimenting with sound effects in Audacity

Mid Program Review

Posted on February 13, 2013 by gladys

The Mid Program Review is conducted halfway through the MFA program. I met with my MFA committee members on 02.11.2013 to review my past research and discussion of my proposed project research. I received feedback what my work has been about, and what improvements and enhancements to think about. I do need to revise the details of my project proposal, some of what was discussed was not included in the proposal. Some of the feedback I received regarded how the process can be adapted to a different culture; could similar results of the process/project relate to other cultures?; looking at past fairy tales; linguistics; how to further enhance the visual storytelling aspect?; enhancing the bicultural experience; limit ages to 2-5; thinking about the perspectives of the audience–how do they feel?; is there more link to the future?; learning is not just a solo action; relationship/learning shared between different generations (grandparents and grandchildren); more to maintain the tie/connection than just linguistics; perhaps words should be in the heritage language learn the English words for them; eBooks interactive pieces; app studio (apply InDesign/PDF files); create a launching campaign–promotional items, limited iPad covers?; needs to be more than a language learning app; rethink roots; what does it mean to be a CBC?; more of a celebration to be a CBC?; how to enrich the experience of a CBC?; need to rehash the proposal; background and specifics are unclear–VISUAL STORYTELLING.

Outline of the Mid Program Review presentation

thesis project outline, research process

The bunny is wearing a toque.

Posted on February 11, 2013 by gladys

Started a quick comp on potential style for sentences in the interactive story. More to continue, below is just a beginning concept of the kind of interactivity that could take place. Toque (or tuque) is a popular term used in Canada and northern areas of the US. A toque is a wool hat, similar to a beanie.