Eva: Exploring Type & Motion
Communications Mini Project 4
Objective: In a 2-part typeface project, in our next step we design a 60-second video that highlights the unique characteristics and personality of your typeface in the context of its use and in relation to its larger type family, if that exists.
Time Frame: 2 weeks
Typeface: Eva
Logistics: 60-second video, Using After Effects and Illustrator
Day 1: Music & Developing Storyboards
Before deciding on music, I revisited what adjectives and emotions my typeface exude, and the tone I want to portray in my video. I searched for music that is both bold and empowering but also reminiscent of the mid-century 1950’s, since the protests that originated the font Eva were rooted in women’s suffrage demonstrations occurring in 1957. I also searched for music that would gradually but dramatically set up the story with repetitive beats and lead into a climax where I could introduce the typeface Eva. After introducing the typeface and its historical context, I could then analyze its typographic components.
Adjectives:
- Empowering
- Resilient
- Undaunted — prominent
- Bold
- Strength
- Historical/ Deep-rooted history
- Consistent
- Dramatic (Peron style)
- Versatile (3 styles)
Revising 50-word statement
- I noticed I needed to split up the long phrases to make it understandable and so there’s not too much text on the screen at one time.
- I needed to have history and context but also snippets about the typeface typographic elements which I tried to incorporate into the second half through short phrases.
- I decided to focus on just one style (Eva Peron style) to analyze typographically since I can’t thoroughly do all 3.
- I might need to condense words even more and remove some content.
Choosing Music
Top contenders (Initial Observations):
*Optic Yellow https://composerly.com/bromeliadmusic?t=1043122459
The beginning is ominous (old style/ seeming with percussion and violin), leading up, dramatic, starts to speed up, sounds like hope is rising, calming beat, violin emphasis, the ending is novel- hopeful and captivating — hard to split, the climax occurs 34 seconds and 46 seconds
*Palace Intrigue https://composerly.com/bromeliadmusic?t=982155817
Bold, strong beats, fitting tone to represent a strong movement, in the beginning, slow 4 beats at a time (can’t fit that much content), piano incorporated for the climax, speeds up, the piano starts 28 seconds in, very calming, strong heavy build up to 53 seconds — too long, total 1 minute 24 seconds.
Chocolate Rabbit https://composerly.com/bromeliadmusic?t=969355909
In the beginning, little childish tone, not the most fitting, seems orchestral in the beginning, the second half is really fitting, strong percussion beats, builds up strongly to climax at the very end — easy split with 3 sections
*Outer Accelerator https://composerly.com/bromeliadmusic?t=823058845
Really good split — ominous beginning, dark, 16 seconds new tune section, 27 new section, 38 seconds new section — would work good for the different sections of my story, ending half sounds like new rising hope, pleasant heartwarming music, but not enough beats in the beginning. Total 1 minute 9 seconds, almost perfect.
Trigger Cut https://composerly.com/bromeliadmusic?t=575947197
Good split- 10 seconds new tune, 22 new tune, 33 seconds new tune, 46 twinkling piano series. Really good beat in the beginning but when the piano starts it seems like its twinkling -> ascending in the story instead of stagnant in the ending half, would need to change my story to fit that concept, also the beats at the end are too fast
*Dark Tetrad https://composerly.com/bromeliadmusic?t=424717467
Music fits the era and the idea of the movement, but not that good of a split — near the ending its all the same, 19 seconds new section, 31 seconds new section
Storyboarding
Refining Storyboard
Added some more specific animations, removed unnecessary frames/ brainstorming ones, trying to cut out scenes to save time, changed color scheme to stray away from the same colors used in my spread and appear more lively
Revising the latter half of my storyboard: Made it shorter (removing duplicate elements) and fit with 3 components of the music.
Final Music Choice
Palace Intrigue https://composerly.com/bromeliadmusic?t=982155817
- Trimmed the audio to be 1 minute and 10 seconds.
- Fits the 3 components of my storyboard story (context/history, typeface info, typographic elements intro)
- Has a build-up to the Eva text. Bold, strong beats, fitting tone to represent a strong movement
- piano section is more hopefully- similar to “hope” with the movement growing
- Piano incorporated for the climax, speeds up, the piano starts 28 seconds in, very calming, strong heavy build up to 53 seconds — too long, total 1 minute 24 seconds.
Lab Tips
Making Illustrator Assets
Making one file for each scene with different layers overlapping to work with in after effects. Screen recordings of the layers in my illustrator files.
Animating Assets in Illustrator
12.03.2021: Critiques
Self-critique
- some of the scenes, in the end, are too fast to read
- the beginning is really slow and not very dynamic
- the animations at the end are a lot more dynamic — esp geometric
- the year at the beginning is too long
- the envelopes falling is a little long and boring/ repetitive
- make the beginning more engaging
- remove the large envelope?
- the images at the end should stay on the screen longer?
- need a new animation for “preserving historical moments”
Feedback from Vicki
- make the beginning more dynamic by starting dark, and adding 1957 showing up slowly or number by number
- Add the style names to “Eva”
- instead of bolding one word- maybe have them show up word at a time
- maybe have less time on the envelopes
- add “eva” at the ending beat instead of the envelope
- Only add a couple of images slowly for the ending, instead of a bunch
Feedback from Yoshi
- Use easy ease and then edit graph editor points to create more unique simple transitions
- Spend more time on the section where “eva” is extracted from the image, remove time from the envelopes
- The geometric animations seem similar, spend more time on the shapes
- For the beginning, 1957 text, could try things like changing the style of the year between fonts
- Instead of doing the dot expand thing for the “historical” scene, could just slide the text downwards (simulate the idea of something falling into an envelope for voting)
- Think about not expanding the images for socialism and anarchism, just having them pop up
- Switch the order of the “1 century later” and the clock turning
Feedback from Andrew
- Have the animations line up with the beats tighter (like making the pin drop) — really fast beats, some of the transitions are too long right now
- Learned how to do typewriter by word
- Learned how to make the envelope illustrations drawn with one line
12.04.2021: Refining Animation
Ending Section
Minor Changes
- Added the style names to “Eva” so that it’s not just repeating the same word over and over again
- Switch the order of the “1 century later” and the clock turning so that you have context for why the clock is turning
- Aligned stackable to be vertically centered as well as horizontally
Other Changes I made:
- Since the beginning seemed slower and less dynamic, and the year took up a whole 3 seconds, I started dark added the “in the year” text to have a better introduction into the story and also each of the words shows up on the beat, and then switched to 1957 which comes on-screen letter by letter.
- The envelopes scene is a little repetitive, so I added a trim path to make the initial intro more interesting, and also made them faster
- I needed a different animation for “preserving historical moments” instead of doing the same expanding dot scene, and did what Yoshi recommended with sliding the text downwards reminiscent of the action of voting but added the color pink following the path.
- Overall, I used easy ease and edited graph editor points to create more fluid transitions on the beat. I also made some of the scenes that are too fast to read a little slower and more even.
- To add some variety to the “fearlessly” section, instead of just bolding one word, I had them show up one at a time.
- Removed the 8 photos of different historical photos at the end and instead found 4 about these women’s suffrage protests. Fewer images allow for more time for each, where I was able to zoom up and then zoom in.
- I added “Eva” at the ending beat instead of the envelope because it makes more sense in the context of animation about a typeface. Since I already used the “Peron” style several times, I used the Maria style instead. In order to add some visual interest, I also clipping masked the text with the images of the protests from the previous scene.
- I’m considering duotoning those images in the same pink color so the grayscale colors aren’t such a strong contrast. I also think I need to photoshop the images so that the warm tint and saturation of all 4 images are the same-since are yellower and some bluer than the rest.
12.06.2021: Tightening/Refining animations
Feedback from Vicki
- Worked on making the times and music line up better in certain places (especially with the typography and eva sections)
- Changed some of the animations- tried a new ending without zooming in and out and without masking the text — duotoned the images, made them also align to the beat better
Final Video
Reflection
I really enjoyed this project even though it was a time crunch, and think if I had more time, I would like to remake more of the beginning of my video to have more dynamic and flowing interactions/ more interesting animations. I still think the beginning of my video is a little simple, but perhaps slow is good to lead viewers into the video. I really enjoyed exploring a typeface that contains so much historical significance, learning about its distinct and niche historical background, and next time I see an especially unique typeface I hope to be able to research its background and understand where it comes from. This project was very different from the others, since the video is somewhat a compilation of several graphics/ spreads/ posters/ frames, but isn’t displayed in isolation , and the interactions between each frame are crucial. Initially, I didn’t realize how critical the music is to the video, creating a pace and establishing an emotion/ feeling for the story. With the added element of time, this video made me think more about the tangible interactions between letters in space, and even how colors can enhance those interactions. I’m glad I chose a more relevant pink color scheme for my video from the original brown. I also found that making a storyboard was very helpful to plan events out before diving into After Effects and becoming overwhelmed- even if it is really rough and edited along the way. I ended up cutting out a lot of scenes I was initially hoping to have due to time and the music.
Looking back on the C mini as a whole, I learned how to more effectively present ideas to an audience, gaining graphic/ communication design skills that I would definitely be able to implement in different fields, tracks, or projects. I went in planning to do E but now I hope to do C because of how relevant the field is, and I hope to do UX design/ web design and development in the future. I also hope to integrate coding into my designs. I think I learned more in this mini because it was so structured, and taught me applicable elementary technical design elements. I can now place professional and field-specific names to design principles I sometimes intuitively use in my designs such as adjusting spacing, leading, and alignment, and can gauge where I can improve. I have also previously never used grids in my designs, and now I realize how critical and applicable they are in designs all around me. In the future C courses, I hope to be a little more fluid and flexible with my designs, perhaps exploring illustration with text since I also enjoy art.
