I miss motion graphics.

I absolutely love my job! Lest you not believe me, I shall proclaim it again: I LOVE MY JOB. And my workplace and my boss and my coworkers (I work with my best friend every day, how cool is that?). But I miss one little piece of my previous job. I miss creating motion graphics. I miss stretching my ideas and inspiration in that way. I still believe it's better to be somewhere I like surrounded by people I want to be around than to be doing the work that I love, don't get me wrong. But I can't say that I don't miss the type of creative work I used to do. And though I know that I can always do that work for fun/me, I never realized quite how much time would go to watching my newborn baby, holding baby, and when I get time away from baby, doing laundry, housework and all those other undesirable things.

There's this very nice graphic video that I don't 100% agree with (I don't think it covers enough of the necessity to produce a quantity of work not just quality):

Here's to getting back to the work I love doing, soon I hope. How? I dunno. Ideas?

Magic Realism painter Rob Gonsalves

While on our way home from California, we stopped in Lake Tahoe and found our way into a gallery there. They had many beautiful things, but I saw this painting on the wall and was stunned into just standing there and looking at it.

Widow's Walk by Rob Gonsalves

This painting, and many of the others around it, were created by Rob Gonsalves. Though others were just as stunning, if not more, this was the one that caught my attention and I realized the beautiful magic of it. I couldn't afford to buy one of his prints (and worried about getting it home if I had), but I could afford one of the beautiful "Imagine" books illustrated by Gonsalves. I purchased Imagine a Place.

Here are some of my other favorite images that I saw in the gallery or have found (online) since:

Medieval Moonlight

Stepping Stones

Carved in Stone

Doll's Dreamhouse

Be sure to check out Gonsalves' facebook page and official webpage, or purchase one of his books or calendars.

All photo copyrights belong to the artist. If he chooses to take them off facebook, they will also disappear here.

Favorite Motion Graphic Videos

Back when I was working on an Infographic for UM System (previous post) and the ADEPT introduction (previous post), I went through all my favorite motion graphic and infographic videos. Here are some of the motion graphic videos that helped inspire me... some have been around for a while and I continually come back to them, others are new finds for me:

7 Billion: Are You Typical?


Google - Introducing the Chromebook
Google - Introducing the Chromebook from Devon Hong on Vimeo.

Crisis of Credit


Oil'd
Oil'd from Chris Harmon on Vimeo.

Getting Lost
Getting Lost from Marco Bagni | LostConversation on Vimeo.

Don't Worry, Drive On: Fossil Fools & Fracking Lies
DON'T WORRY, DRIVE ON: Fossil Fools & Fracking Lies from MONSTRO on Vimeo.

The World is Obsessed with Facebook


Psychatric Answering Machine Typography Annimation


The Girl Effect
The Girl Effect from alexnbc on Vimeo.

Good: The Hidden Cost of War

A book on Mindful Creativity

Before I read Imagine: How Creativity Works, I was about half-way through a book on creativity told from a very different perspective. I came back to On Becoming an Artist: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity by Ellen J. Langer after finishing Lehrer's book and am still really enjoying it!

Langer is a psychology professor and a painter. The book begins with the story of how she became an artist and her references are often personal, and it reads more like a self-help book, which I like. Each chapter and sections of chapters begin with a quote, and it's segmented into easily digestible sections. The title led me to think this was going to be a book about how to become an artist, to which my response is: I already am an artist so why do I need this book? But that is deceiving. It would be more accurate to say that it's a book about mindfulness for creative people.

I think the parts I have enjoyed the most are dealing with evaluation, comparison and criticism. For example, I really grabbed on to this quote on page 59:

"The important thing is never to let oneself be guided by the opinion of one's contemporaries; to continue steadfastly on one's way without letting oneself either be defeated by failure or diverted by applause." - Gustav Mahler

Langer goes on to talk about how compliments can act as confirmation of the artist's worth, but that is just as dangerous as not receiving compliments or winning awards. Later in the book she comes back to evaluation in the chapter on social comparison. I really liked this part:

"Social comparing is one way for us to gain validation. But there are other ways that are not so costly. Because a work of mindful art has so much of the person in it, it is no wonder that artists are eager to show their work and are so disappointed if it does not receive approval. It is hard at that point to separate oneself from the work." Langer, 142

She goes on to suggest that we consider asking better questions than "do you like it?" to learn more about how others see our work. Some of her suggestions include:

What does it mean to you?
Would you have added something (or left something out), and why?
What does this tell you about me?

The book as a whole is an encouraging lesson, one that all art school dropouts should read, that anyone who creates from the soul should read. It's so easy to talk yourself out of creating, so why not let someone who's been there talk you into creating? For me the take-away is: Don't be afraid to create. Create for yourself and don't be discouraged by others. They may not understand the work in the same way you do and that is ok.

If you are stuck in a mental block, trying to free yourself to be more creative, as I often do, search out and try keeping a list of sources for inspiration and encouragement. I keep a list of books/talks/etc to encourage myself to just go out there and create. You can find my haphazard study of creativity on this page. Now what are you waiting for? Go create something! Do it for you!


(If you are one of those people who were frustrated that Jonah Lehrer failed to cite sources in Imagine, and the fact that it used some of the same studies and stories as Malcom Gladwell's Blink, you will be pleased that Langer references her material and the bulk of the stories shared come from her own experiences as a psychologist.)

Imagine - A book worth reading!

Just imagine for a minute that there's a book out there that combines the wisdom of multiple creators/artists/entrepreneurs/engineers/etc with the knowledge of neurologists and scientists, simply explaining what it takes to be creative and where insights come from.

Jonah Lehrer's new book Imagine: How Creativity Works does just that. There are many ways to create, but perhaps if we understand where our brains and creativity intersect we can become more creative. Lehrer explains how insight and grit both lead to innovation and how we can work alone or together to make more and better things.

"I think people need to be reminded that creativity is a verb, a very time-consuming verb. It's about taking an idea in your head, and transforming that idea into something real. And that's always going to be a long and difficult process. If you're doing it right, it's going to feel like work." - Milton Glaser quote within Imagine, pg 69

I loved reading this book. It was inspirational, interesting and full of great takeaways.

"Knowledge can be a subtle curse. When we learn about the world, we also learn all the reasons why the world cannot be changed. We get used to our failures and imperfections. We become numb to the possibilities of something new. In fact, the only way to remain creative over time - to not be undone by our expertise - is to experiment with ignorance, to stare at things we don't fully understand." - Jonah Lehrer, Imagine, pg135

And now the 99% has posted the talk that Lehrer gave at their annual conference:

Jonah Lehrer: The Origins of Creative Insight & Why You Need Grit from 99% on Vimeo.

"It is the human friction that creates the sparks." - Jonah Lehrer, Imagine, pg212

I highly recommend this book. Get it on CD and listen to it while you work, or get ahold of a copy and read it bit by bit. It's digestible, interesting, and will make you think about how you create and how you could create more and better ideas.

Imagine by Jonah Lehrer Book Trailer from cosproductions on Vimeo.

Environmentalism and Art

sustentavel by felipeart

Found on Graphic Design Junction

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle by Summon-The-Wolves

Found on Graphic Design Junction

by Edina Tokodi

Found on Take Part

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

Old Things - inspiration for art

I love photographing old gears and metal things that were once useful. I find them absolutely fascinating and beautiful. This past weekend I had the chance to add to my collection of photos when I went to the Arrow Rock Heritage Festival with a couple of friends. We went into historic buildings, one of which housed a number of old printing presses and Linotype machines. These photos were taken with my Panasonic point-and-click camera. (I'm hoping to get a DSLR and a macro lens for shooting things like this in the future, but for now this is what I have.)

And since I believe I failed to post photos of the Dewey bridge in Utah from my trip last year, I will also include this photo I took of the rusted supports for the suspension bridge. With the wood planks gone, it was the strangest bridge I'd ever seen:

My thought is to somehow, someday use some of these things in my art...

All photos copyright Katrina Kouba Boles

Underwater Butterflies by photographer Alexander James

Today I came across a Alexander James' portfolio on behance and was enamored by his beautiful underwater butterfly series, called Swarm, and had to begin following him and his blog. Visit both to see more images. Here are some of my favorites:

Copyright for all photos belongs to the artist, Alexander James. Visit his websites for more!

To be in the Studio or on the computer?

Originally I began blogging last year as a way to get myself to continually look for inspiration and I created it as a place to put that inspiration for my own self-reference. Furthermore, often when I come across things that I find inspiring I can't wait to share them with people. Voila: blog. Lately this blog has also taken on another purpose: it's a place for me to share the personal creative work I've been doing. It also happens to be inspirational to me, so I see it as a WIN-WIN.

Though I have been working on personal projects, they've mostly been digital, which means my studio time has diminished to almost nothing. This makes me sad. The other day I was shopping at the fabric store, getting some muslin to begin dyeing new curtains... again (my first attempt with the snow dyes was less than fantastic and my second attempt was less than spectacular as well), and I found the perfect fabric for a skirt I've been wanting to make. I decided not to let myself get the fabric because I already have at least half a dozen garment projects at home waiting for my attention. I told myself if I made one of those then I could go out and buy the fabric. So on a Friday afternoon, I stopped by the library to get some audio books on my way home, and spent the weekend sewing a shirt together.

I listened to one of these books twice, and have since listened to it again. It's right up there with the Elizabeth Gilbert TED talk that I go back to often, which I have previously blogged about. The book is called Ignore Everybody and 39 Other Keys to Creativity by Hugh MacLeod. You can download the earlier version of his book for free and keep up with him on his blog.

Anyway, what I want to talk about here is the connection I made to one of the things Hugh MacLeod talks/writes about: Putting the hours in. This is where he mentions not being worried that someone might rip-off his idea of drawing on business cards because he does it for his own satisfaction and he's done so many of them that no-one could really overtake him in the sheer numbers produced AND it would be less satisfying for them because of whatever crazy reasoning they put behind it. I am relating to this in my process of creating puzzle photos as well as my more recent little planet creations (though sometimes I think of them as marbles because that's what they look like to me: a moment of time and space trapped in a glass sphere). Was I the first to come up with either of these ideas? No. And I probably won't be the last. My process has become my own and with each one I do, that process changes just a little bit. I create them for my own satisfaction.

I've been doing these puzzle photos for six years now, so I have quite a collection of them, and I'm always trying to figure out how to make them better. Sometimes I just don't get why one didn't work. Typically I can't really tell when I'm taking the photos how the final composition will look, so I've taken to increasing the number of photos and angles I take, which means that I end up producing even more of these final puzzles.

Well I've finally put all my puzzles and little planets from 2011 in one place: in my behance portfolio and I'm working on including all the puzzles I created from 2005-2010.

Beautiful Mixed Media Illustrations by Florian Nicolle

I stumbled on a design site I'd never seen before called Colossal, and though I was less thrilled by the posted artist that Stumble sent me to, I started looking around and found some really beautiful works by Florian Nicolle. Here are some of my favorites:

All images copyright Florian Nicolle > go check out her work, it's fabulous!

Ads really can be Beautiful

Most of the commercials I end up seeing are trying to sell me a drug for a problem I don't have that may lead to a side effect worse than the problem I'm trying to cure. No thanks! It's no wonder I change the channel, mute, or otherwise avoid commercial interruptions. But occasionally, I come across a real diamond in the ruff and those are the times that I want to call up the production company and say "Hey, I have degrees in both design and art, am a working designer-artist, and though I wouldn't normally want to work in advertising, I'd love to work for you!" The commercials I've watched on Buck's website make me want to do just that. The difference is that with these commercials, they're all diamonds and there is no ruff...what a beautiful thing!

Here are a couple of my favorites:

C-Tree from Own Your C on Vimeo.



Sherwin Williams - Bees from Buck on Vimeo.


Google eBooks from Buck on Vimeo.

TED's Ads Worth Spreading

TED, have I told you lately how much I admire you? Probably not. I am often amazed when I talk about TED videos to people and they have no idea what I'm talking about. It's almost inconceivable to me that there are people who don't know about TED. But that's not really what I intended to talk about today. I was merely going to praise the great people behind TED for starting a new thing called "Ads Worth Spreading" (it's a play on the tagline for TED, "ideas worth spreading"). Their first ten winners of this competition are posted here, but I thought I'd share my favorite with you. It's all graphics and music, which I love. All the pieces work together: the story, stylization, music, and execution bring about this really fabulous piece of work. Though I can't figure out how to embed the video, I encourage you to watch it:

TED | Ads Worth Spreading | Girl Effect: The Clock is Ticking

Blow Your Mind Animation

I shall say from the onset - so that no one gets the wrong idea - I did not find this video, it found me. By that, I mean that Mike sent me a link. And I was so blown away that I knew I just had to post it.


ShapeShifter from Charlex on Vimeo.

I haven't been doing 3D animation long enough to really even call myself a novice, but I think I can call myself an expert on watching animations since I have been doing that for nearly 30 years. And this is one of the most amazing 3D shorts I have come across.

Don't get me wrong, I really, really like all of the other 3D animations that I've referenced in my blog, but this one is flat-out stunning! Who needs the virtual 3D world that seems to be all the rage now, when there are people out there making the world break apart and put itself back together in 3D animation?

Progressive Animation...Again

As I continue to try and think my way through the creation of a progressive animation, I seem to keep coming back to the question of how do I create this thing without using 3D? I certainly could use Maya to create it, but that would take modeling a lot of aspects, which I probably don't have the time to do. So, once again, it's a question of how do I create a moving scene in 2D that is dynamic and illustrated beautifully? And...how do I do it all by myself?

Oh well I guess I'll have to invent my own wheel. Here's another beautiful animation by Psyop:


MTV HD Crow from mate on Vimeo.

Progressive Animation

I've been looking over old favorite examples of what I call progressive animation today, as one of the producers I work with has asked for an opening title sequence for one of the colleges at MU is having us produce a video overview/promo for their college. (The promo of the University that we did this summer went over very well with this particular college and they want their own awesome promo.) So, the producer came to me with an idea that, as he was explaining it, sounded a lot like an animated progression that would take the viewer through all of the majors and give a holistic overview of the college and how all of these majors are related.

We were talking about finding videos that would somewhat depict what he had in mind and I started showing him some of my favorites. I have wanted to figure out how to do one of these progressive animations but hadn't yet had a "story" to follow as my basis.

"Drift" by Psyop is an animation I came across several years ago when I began working here, and I think it still holds up:


Next is one I found more recently and was very intrigued by the Paula Scher look that they used with the text, and then really liked the simplicity of the shapes which enhance the story told by the narrator. It's by GOODMagazine and is called "The Hidden Cost of War":

What I am, what I am not

Contrary to what may be expected of me in my job, I am not the type of artist/designer who can come up with an idea or create some sort of graphics without inspiration and without the end product in mind. Early in my job, I somehow managed to force myself to create a whole bunch of meaningless backgrounds for use on any show, and I still have those backgrounds but they don't really do anything for me and they don't really add much to the shows that they end up in. I occasionally get credit for making particularly exciting and special graphics, but what is often not realized, I inevitably made those graphics with that particular show and particular underlying audio in mind.

I have come to see the creation of graphics or creation of art in much the same way I expect inventors came up with their inventions. First there was a need or idea for the invention. I can't imagine it came from the emptiness of nothing, rather I think of most inventions as fulfilling a particular need or some desire. In much the same way, I don't believe in creating motion graphics for a show without knowing a little something about the show first. If fantastic graphics are required, then I require some things as well: answers to certain questions for the parties involved about the preconceived notions for how said graphics will look and feel to an identified audience. I also need to know the interested party's definition of "spectacular" or "fantastic" or whatever adjective is used to describe these graphics I am to make. How can I succeed without a definition for success?

With that in mind, I wonder if there are any artists out there who can essentially work in a vacuum. Are there some incredibly gifted people out there who never need google images or vimeo's groups? Yes, occasionally, I will come up with an idea that is completely unrelated to any project I am currently working on and that may get used for a future project, but once again, that future project must have a need for that graphic.

I suppose you could say that I don't believe in graphics for graphic's sake. Perhaps that's because I've seen productions where the graphics get in the way and actually distract from the overall end product.

In seeking inspiration, I went to one of my trusty sources, a group on vimeo for motion graphic artists. There I found another fantastic animation called FLUX by candas sisman and after watching this beautiful thing, I read the description below. Lo and behold, this artist got inspiration from somewhere too (from İlhan Koman). No vacuum here.


F L U X from candas sisman on Vimeo.

No more imagination procrastination, please

At work I've had a few meetings about a potentially ongoing project for one of the colleges on campus. I was looking for inspiration to bring to my meeting today, thinking the project was essentially an ongoing retrospective told from the individuals who are part of the college's distinguished history, and was really trying to focus on how to make graphics for a prototype project about multiple people yet only having one person to begin with.

So I tried to focus on what the "many" could look like. I also began with something our client pointed out from the beginning - that it should have warmth and be human. I couldn't help but think of Dow Chemical's campaign "The Human Element" (Dow seemed to create this campaign to bury a shady past that has dolled out death and destruction for unknown thousands, but the ads themselves are quite good).

  

Just as as side-note, I can't think of Dow without thinking about the Yes Men who brought my attention to some of the atrocities of our generation. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend their documentary "The Yes Men Fix the World". It's very funny and poignant as well.

I also thought of the title sequence for In Plain Sight, a TV show that I've been watching on Netflix, which makes use of many pictures that come together to form one big picture - I've also seen this done in the movie Love, Actually.

However, I felt I would be coming to the meeting unprepared if I had not thought about how to incorporate ideas into something usable, which sent me down the road of procrastination by way of searching for more information. I found a couple of other images that could inspire a title sequence. The first is called "Houdini in plain sight", by blogger Ted Warnell:

And the second is an image of the HSBC history wall, found among images of cool places to work, on a UK site of "The 6 Coolest Offices in the World":

Surely, among all of these visuals I can transform these ideas into something else that is perfect for this project, right?

Calligraphy in motion

The idea of an image that draws itself through animation is not a new concept, but perhaps since I've never been able to accomplish it, or perhaps just because I'm drawn to it, can really look stunning. A video produced by Blind is one of the best I've seen to use calligraphy to send a beautifully crafted "poetry" (to use their words). To watch the video, directed by Vanessa Marzaroli, click here, and to see more images, go to the featured page.

(I found this site by going to Motionographer's Cream O' the Crop site. From there I found a link for an AIGA event that I think would be fabulous to attend, Type that Moves (You) and then I clicked on the first panelist's link, which sent me to the Blind website.)

Lights!!

I've been thinking a bit about how I'm drawn to images that have very distinct lighting. In art history classes, I favored the chiaroscuro paintings of Caravaggio, Velázquez, and Rembrandt to other pieces with less dimensionality. Can I help it that the first female artist to appear in art history class was also a chiaroscuro painter?

Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith and Her Maidservant, ca. 1625

I'm drawn to the eerie qualities of lighting figures so that most of them appears in shadow, a useful and beautifully effective way to wrap a character in mystery. But what happens when the light makes up more of the image than the darkness? I can attribute my first realization of this when I recognized the beauty in the titles of "Six Feet Under"

Though I didn't particularly get into the show, I thought the opening credits were simply stunning and they sent me into an imagery frenzy for a script idea I was contemplating at the time. The script never really turned into anything because I realized most of what I was "envisioning" was literally visual and required few spoken words.

So, when I began looking for inspiration today, I found myself looking through blogs that listed photoshop tutorials, and though I began this train of searching on smashingapps, I wound up looking through a blog from Vandelay Design of Photoshop tutorials and inspirational images. Interestingly enough on of my favorite images led me to this tutorial for creating neon effects by Tony Ariawan, which I am going to have to try out!

Stop Haunt Me Every Day 04 by Tony Ariawan