The show runs from May 15-22, but I wanted to be among the first to see it. I arrived at the exhibit just 2 hours after it had officially opened, but to my surprise, the students were still setting up! At first I was slightly disappointed that my long journey was rewarded by a half finished show. Fortunately, most of the work was there to be viewed as the pieces were still in the process of being arranged. The majority of the students were present, working hard to complete their show. It was actually quite a laid-back environment and many students were kind enough to walk me through the show and explain their ideas about the exhibit - an opportunity I may not have experience had I visited during the reception.

Off the Wall is a unique kind of exhibit where, as the name would imply, all of the work is off of the wall - it’s on the floor instead. This model distributes student work randomly throughout the gallery, thereby flattening any hierarchy that may occur in a traditional gallery setting. The idea behind this approach is that design is not art; it does not need to be place on a pedestal (maybe just two-inch thick foam platforms). It also encourages the idea that design needs to be presented in its true form and that is has to be accessible to the viewer.

One technical drawback to this set-up was that due to the overhead lighting, all of the pieces printed on glossy paper was difficult to view straight on - some things just don’t become apparent until they’ve finally been executed.



In a traditional gallery setting where work is hung on a wall, there is a predetermined orientation from which the work should be viewed, but since having the work on the floors allows viewers to walk around the work, the orientation of the work is left to the viewer’s interpretation.




Thesis books produced by each of the students of the graduating class.

Gallery window display, using Replica.

I should mention that screen work will also be presented on digital screens, laying flat on the ground, just like the print work. Unfortunately that portion was not fully complete by the time I had to catch my train back to NYC. You can view all the pieces on the Off the Wall website.

You can watch the full interview I did with Daniel Koppich, who was part of the space planning group for the show.

A warm thank you and congratulations goes out to all of the graduating students who welcomed me into the setting up process that day. Your hospitality and passion for the show made it an afternoon I will not soon forget. I wish you all the best.

Collaboration with Jared Polowick, Man Wai Wong, Andrew Conlon & Johnathan Fong.

And here are some more music videos:

I recently came across the work of Kyle Cooper while browsing on Motionographer. His work on the OFFF 2009 Main Titles absolutely blew me away. The harmony between skillful typography, graphic forms and beautiful cinematography create a hybrid that makes me drool!

Cooper earned a M.F.A. in Graphic Design from the Yale School of Art (what I currently consider to be the best place in the world to study design, and a place I wish to study at one day), where he studied independently with Paul Rand. He is responsible for starting Imaginary Forces in 1996, and Prologue in 2003, and has since been credited with almost single-handedly revitalizing the main title sequence as an art form.

I had the great pleasure of attending Cooper’s keynote presentation at Design Thinkers 2009, and had a chance to hear his stories from his days back in Yale, as well as his views about his career. Perhaps the most inspiring thing I took away from the keynote was this: Cooper used to feel like a frustrated director, wishing he could be a filmmaker, but feeling like he had not fully achieved his dreams since he was only doing open title sequences for movies. However he now feels the open title sequences are essential to setting the tone and the mood for a film, and therefore he has devoted his career to producing a ‘Prologue’ for some of the best films made today.

I had been getting quite tired and bored with conventional print graphic design, and was considering just becoming a photographer after I graduate this year. But after experiencing Cooper’s work, I have once again seen the light; maybe there is a way to do both design and photography. I want to take my love for photography (light/composition/cinematography) and output it as a time based medium - video. I want to combine this with what I have learned about typography and graphic design, to create the ultimate medium of story telling. I don’t necessarily want to create open title sequences, but over the next few years I would like to experiment with different ways of telling a story through time-based media. I have almost undoubtedly decided to pursue a career in this field, rather that print.

Thank you Kyle Cooper; I hope to have the privilege of working with you one day.

For project 2, we were given the challenge of creating an academy leader. I had been wanting to experiment with geometric perspective-localized paintings of typography on three-dimensional spaces, using projector-stencil techniques. This was inspired by artists such as George Rousse and Felice Varini, whose works I studied years ago. My goal was to create a motion sequence, utilizing this technique over a period of time, to create an optical illusion, ultimately blurring the line between 2D and 3D. By moving the camera away from its optimal perspective, I was able to warp the numbers and create a unique series of forms.

Process


I had to choose a space with simple forms to act as a neutral canvas, but one that would offer numerous geometric shapes and angle variations to create an interesting opportunity for this technique. The Ross Building at York University came to mind. I started going there to make photographs when I was in high school and I have been in love with this concrete jungle ever since. If you’re around the York campus, take a walk through the area and see the drawings for yourself.

I spent a full weekend projecting numbers onto my chosen surfaces and tracing them with chalk, then filled them in - thank you, Cheryl, Jared and Shane for the help!

This was a very rough first test run. I simply filmed the path I wanted to travel in and chopped in up in Final Cut to create equal 1-second intervals between numbers.

This was my second approach, in which I only focused on forming one number at a time, instead of trying consecutively move from one number to the next. This option allots more frames for a smoother transition, but is arguably less interesting that the previous take.

This was shot at night with a burst of flash for each shot. I still moved the camera around, but the light created more contrast between the light and its surroundings, isolating it from any other factors. Although I felt that this was effective, it did not convey the true essence of what the wall drawings were about.

In this final experiment, the camera was actually placed in a consistent position, and instead the position of the light was changed to show the effect of the drawing of a 3D surface. However, again, I did not feel it did the drawings justice.

This was one of the most ambitious projects I have taken on since I have been in YSDN, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was great to be spending a lot of time outdoors and using my hands to create something, rather than being on the computer from start to finish.

I was really inspired by the treatment of type in this video. I have always considered video or photography as flat, two-dimensional images, but as this sequence clearly shows, they can be interpreted as three-dimensional spaces. All it takes it some imagination. They have the images and drawn imaginary angles that extend from objects, and use those lines as the foundation for text. I also admire the close relationship between type and image. Type has been treated as an element in the atmosphere, therefore if, for example, the view is obstructed by a pillar, the type is as well. I do, however, feel that the choice of typography could have been better.

For the first exercise, we got into groups and were assigned the task of capturing 60 images to create a time-lapse sequence. My group and I interpreted this as an opportunity to play with stop motion photography, so we photographed Kyle jumping at a consistent distance from the camera, on every 6-degree interval, 360 degrees around the camera.

In this exercise, that criteria was to create a sequence of similarly shaped objects to play with transitions between forms. My partner Kyle and I filmed the faces of different people sitting in a consistent location in the frame, and I played with the editing to create a transiting between their faces.

For the next part of the assignment, we were supposed to create a 1-minute sound sequence which would convey a certain mood or emotion, to create an auditory experience. I wanted to create the feeling of space travel and suspense. I got great help from my friend Anas, who is a DJ/electronic music producer, to create this original soundtrack on Ableton Live.

The last part of the challenge was to produce a 1-minute visual sequence that would strengthen the mood that the audio was trying to create. My initial ideas were very literal, and quite boring, but one night while enjoying an afternoon snack of baguette bread with an olive oil and vinegar dip, I noticed the beautiful forms that appeared in the olive oil and vinegar mix. When mixed, it appeared like a microcosm of the cosmos. Its simplicity leave a lot for the imagination, but the solid forms create emphasis of the sounds and build of suspense.

These are frames from some other textures that were filmed, but did not make it into the final piece. Although many are more complex and interesting than the ones that were chosen, I felt the simplicity of shapes in the final movie were more fitting to the soundtrack.




















Some of the videos where altered in Color, a very interesting application in Final Cut Studio which I am starting to learn. However none of those altered videos were using in the final video.



I produced the visuals by mixing various ingredients (such as olive oil, vinegar, lime juice, cream, alka seltzer, food colouring, etc) on a plane, and filmed them using a Canon 7D with the EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens.