Motion graphics meets alcohol and substance misuse

How much do you know about alcohol and substance misuse and it's affect on society? Maybe it's one of those "out of sight, out of mind" things for you. It certainly was for me until I was given an opportunity to create a video that explains to health care professionals why they should care and what they can do about alcohol and substance misuse in their patients. Before you click away from this thinking "I'm not a health care professional, that's not for me," let me just tell you that it impacts you... even if not directly.

Someday, I'd like to see this become a PSA, but while I'm dreaming that vision away, here's the video I created that is now the first part of a training series:

ADEPT: an introduction from Academic Support Center on Vimeo.
An introduction to why health care providers should care about alcohol and substance misuse in their practice. The ADEPT training teaches health care providers what they can do about alcohol and substance misuse. MU-ADEPT (Alcohol and Drug Education for Prevention and Treatment) is funded by a grant from SAMHSA and utilizes SBIRT (Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment).

This is a perfect example of the kind of project I've been waiting for and why I wanted to work for an educational institution. The creators of this training series needed a way to convince their audience that this training is important. They were passionate about the information but it just wasn't coming across in their peruse-on-your-own powerpoint presentations. The hope is that this video is both educational and engaging.

For screen shots and more information about the creation of this video, visit the project on my behance portfolio.

Creative Environmental Ads

What Lies Under by Ferdi Rizkiyanto

(First, I saw it on Facebook and tracked it down via Advertisers Without Borders)

Global Warming Ad by Ferdi Rizkiyanto

Beached "Whale" for Miraflores Municipality found on Advertisers Without Borders

Whatever you do to the world, you do to yourself by Advertisers Without Borders

Breathe In, Breathe Out from Greenpeace

Inspiration Research is the path to Where?

At work we are about to begin an ongoing project and though I can't say much (anything) about it, I will say that I went looking for design inspiration directly for this project. I'm not sure I know how to design something that has a style that will last for many many videos and over a period of many years! Anything for that long will eventually get boring and old. It's interesting that in my TAM class we learned about classic styles that never truly go out of style - pea coats, jeans, Chanel jackets, trench coats, etc - they get re-invented or re-invigorated but they remain in style. So that's what we are challenged to do in this multimedia video project.

I found little in my search that truly helped me solve this current conundrum, however I did come across some inspiring videos. I wound up on a website called MographTV and there I watched a well-told and beautifully shot short called Apricot by Ben Briand, which is hosted by Vimeo:

APRICOT — A Short Film by Ben Briand from Moonwalk Films on Vimeo.


After stumbling on Mograph, I decided to stick around and see what I could find. There was a link to a nice talk by designer Cameron Moll giving a lecture about good design versus great design. So far, I've only found time to watch about 15 minutes of it, but it seems worth my time to revisit and watch the rest of the lecture.

Spiritual Design

After finding out about a contemporary miracle - that of Melanie Pritchard, wife of a friend of my brother's, who came back from the dead less than a month ago - I am finding myself interested in the spiritual stories of women. And it couldn't be better timing. John Henry Cardinal Newman will be beatified next month and to give the people of my church a message from the Cardinal, I've been commissioned to design an inspiring postcard. Below are some simple designs I did today and will present tomorrow:

The quotes, if you can't read them are:
"To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often."
"Faith is the result of the act of the will, following upon a conviction that to believe is a duty."
"I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: 'Go down again - I dwell among the people.'"
"Learn to do thy part and leave the rest to heaven."

Among other pretty things, here is a lovely video made entirely in AfterEffects:

Futurist from Tony Legolas on Vimeo.

Behance: A Site to Join?

There's something about working at a computer during the week that makes me not want to post a blog on the weekend. Never-the-less, today I found myself on websites I'd never been to, looking at marvelous graphic design. I started on designm.ag and was attracted to:

 

by Mike Campau at SeventhStreetStudio

by Mike Campau at SeventhStreetStudio

But these images led me to another site I'd never seen for creative professionals to post their work and get noticed! Hmmm, methinks I need to sign up. I wonder how much I could post of my on-the-job work since I don't personally own the copyright. Anyone know? More fascinating, impressive things were found on behance.net

"Resonate" by Si Scott

The only problem is that I can't embed any of the videos uploaded to the site, so you'll have to click on the link to check this one out:

"Aregak" in the portfolio of Lilit Hayrapetyan

Advertising!

Today I began watching a documentary called "Art & Copy" about the advertising business, but really it's more than that. It's creative, successful people talking about what it's like to be just that. Below are quotes I found inspirational and decided to pull from the film:

 "The frightening and most difficult thing about being what somebody calls a creative person is that you have absolutely no idea where any of your thoughts come from really and especially you don't have idea about where they're going to come from tomorrow." - Hal Riney

"If you can find that kernel, the core of what that product is, so that when you talk about it, no matter how you talk about it, people respond and say 'yes, that's right.' Then if you talk about it in a strong, interesting, memorable way they say 'yeah, that's right. I'm going to buy it.' It's a challenge to say the right thing the right way to get a person to do something you want him to do." - Jim Durfee

 "I grew up in art school in New York and I would see ugliness and I knew it was ugly and I wanted to fix it, and that's a curse because when you see those things that's all you see." - Rich Silverstein

I found out very quickly in my undergraduate studies that I had little interest in trying to sell people things they don't need and therefore thought I couldn't go into advertising. But I'd never really thought about the fact that advertisers get the opportunity to sell ideas like no one else. That I could go for!

The Daily Green has made a list of the top eleven environmental ads. Below are two of my favorites:

"Under the Sea" for Greenpeace
Switzerland
By Lowe Zurich
The message: "The greatest wonder of the sea is that it's still alive."

  "Alligator" for Fundacao O Boticario de Protecao a Natureza
Brazil
By Almap BBDO
The message: "The devastation of nature threatens more animals than you think."

After finding the daily green's list, I went looking for more. From The Guardian:

Title: Automotive Pollution

Agency: JWT
Made For: China Environment Protection Foundation (RPC)
Tag line: Mountains without mountain. Water without water.  

Photograph: China Environment Protection Foundation /ACT Responsible

 Title: Books
Agency: Neogama BBH
Made for: Bank of the Planet (Brazil)  

Photograph: Bank of the Planet /ACT Responsible

 

And now from Tree Hugger (though it also can be found on other sites - many of these ads also appeared on other sites): 

Image: Flickr, Sepultura By Christine Lepisto, Berlin
on June 27, 2009