Fiction records | Unit X

During this project I have learned new skills in film-making and new software, especially After Effects. Gaining new skills in After Effects is especially useful as I am an Illustration with Animation student, so it has come in useful in my animation practice. I also decided to improve my Photoshop skills by trying digital drawing properly for the first time, which again is useful for my own illustrations and animation work. As well as After-Effects workshops, we also had workshops in projection which was useful as it helped us when it came to choosing how we'd display our final outcome at Night and Day. This was interesting as it opened us up to all the different possibilities of presenting and showcasing your work. I also attended the 'I Swear to Tell The Truth' exhibition at the Imperial War Museum which was also super useful to see different ways that video and film is projected and displayed. Working collaboratively has been interesting as everyone's diffe...

The main things that I developed in this project was my digital drawing skills, use of After Effects and animation skills. However I feel I have spent more time doing digital drawing than the other areas, so for that reason I feel I could have improved my animation and After Effects skills had given more time. However, my digital drawing skills tie into animation as I did all of the animation drawing digitally and my drawings can be further animated. After doing my guitar illustrations I decided to draw some other instruments and while digitally drawing a Saxophone I decided to keep the drawing as just outlines/linework and play around with changing the line colours on different coloured background. I especially like the ones with the black backgrounds as the Saxophone's look neon/lit up. However my favourite would probably be the yellow background and red and blue Saxophone's overlapping as it reminds me of a Jazz poster, similar to the w...

We have decided to run with the idea of celebrating the 40 years of Fiction Records in a narrative response featuring all the bands they've worked with in different eras and taking inspiration from how their design and aesthetic has developed and changed over the years. Collaboration in the creative industry is extremely important as some artists/creatives may need some work created for them that they don’t have the skills to do themselves. For example, a musician would like help when creating their music videos and tour videos. So their label would also have a say in this. But a musician would also need an illustrator/graphic designer/photographer to design their album artworks, tour posters, logos etc. They might have multiple creatives doing different things therefore they’d have to collaborate and get rights so they can all create work together. In this project I collaborated with my group by trying out animation doodles over film and video that the filmmaker came up wi...

I thought it would be useful to look at some of the creatives that came up with the artwork for some of the bands on Fiction Records. I first looked at Crystal Castles' albums. Their albums are often photography more than artwork/design based. The album cover for III was by Samuel Aranda, a photojournalist. This shows that photographers also have their work used as album covers, not just illustrators and graphic designers.  In contrast to this, Kaiser Chiefs often use illustrators and designers for their album covers. I particularly like the album cover for their latest release "Stay Together" as it ties in with my other research - show by bold, bright colours and funky shapes and patterns. It was created by Salvador Design  who also helped create some music videos with the band.  I also looked at Tame Impala's album "Currents". The album art and its accompanying singles were by Robert Beatty.   Kevin Parker has said  '' ...

I decided to look at some of the music videos by bands/artists on Fiction Records to get some inspiration and ideas from film rather than posters/artwork. I particularly liked ‘The Amazon’s’ video for ‘Ultraviolet’ as I enjoyed the different lighting effects and the animation work of different shapes and patterns that bounced off the musicians at different points throughout the video. I thought that this would be a fun thing to try in my own work so I would like to try out some animation like this, maybe some over our own videos. As I go to a lot of gigs and festivals I thought maybe looking at some of the advertising/promo videos would also be useful. I decided to look at some Download festival promo first as it is a festival I am familiar with and regularly attend. I like how the video includes the logo and general aesthetic of the festival.  I wanted to also look at a different festival so I can compare the different promo videos for different kind of festi...