Updates from MusicToday
My internet has been down for two days ( just realized that the cable was unplugged- dah!) so I go through my e-mail this morning and I get this “exclusive John Mayer holiday bundle” kind of email that I receive every week and I dont read because it’s always the same. but I don’t know how it is for you but when I’m away from my computer for a while and I go back on it, I just want to click everything. so I open this e-mail, click through the links to see whats new on the site and HOLY SHIT! I end up on the first page of the John Mayer Online store and my t-shirt design is sitting there smiling at me. THAT.FELT.GOOD. I knew I won the contest a while back but it’s the kind of thing you don’t really realize until it’s official. So its available. feels like a real breakthrough in the real world. I can officially brag about it in my portfolio without being called a liar. And its perfect timing cause the last couple days has been the toughest of the year so far.Cool reward.
screenshot!:
Nicolas Alexander G.
December 14, 2007
Unconventional
I don’t usually put other peoples things on my blog because I think internet superfluity and repetition is killing good content and interesting webexperience but once in a while you really have to give credits to good work.
The first one I want direct your attention to is a video from Yaniv Fridman which is called uptempo. Not because I’m playing in it , I know the final product would’ve been amazing with or without me ( I know it’s hard to believe). I have been watching the evolution of this video for a month now and it’s not that i’m surprised by fridman’s work cause its always good but this is really impressive for a near-no budget piece ( in comparison to this(Simple plan new video) piece of crap video that probably cost 200K +)
check this one out for yourself , up tempo by Yaniv Fridman
Up Tempo from Yaniv Fridman on Vimeo.
The second one I have nothing to do with but the fact that I know its been done in record time from pre-prod to delivery ( probably less than a week) just crushes me. its the kind of work that you don’t expect and when you see it, it makes you wanna say “I wish I was an asian-american alcoholic”
Nicolas Alexander G.
Unconditional
Ok I didnt want to post this until I’m done with it but my friend at melonfreshpdx.com has been harassing me to post it so here it is. The whole thing is there but I just need to change some things like adding some sound effects, changing the title and there still some details that bugs me. I’ll post it when I’m done.
Motion graphic project for the second term at VFS.
>> I keep watching it and can’t think of what to do to fix it. I need some suggestions. I don’t know if i should include typography or narration …whatever u think of. i want to change the title too so ill take any suggestions.
thanks for watching.
Motion Graphic 2 @ VFS from Nicolas A.G. on Vimeo.
Nicolas Alexander G.
Final Countdown
Here it is , the final artwork for the t-shirt design assignment of my 2dclass. I don’t know if I had the right to use photoshop or not but I think that all the time I spent in Illustrator (see process in posts below) for this artwork is a good enough excuse for going a little crazy with photoshop bling bling…
I had a couple request asking how I did the highlights so Ill try putting together a tutorial during the holiday if i have a minute.
Nicolas Alexander G.
November 24, 2007
Infographic
This is an infographic for the flash project I am working on with Shal . Even though I know this project is going to be my worst nightmare in the next couple of weeks, I love the feel&look of this first “attempt” and I can’t wait to start working on stuff. This is a good example of Illustrator/photoshop workflow. It was created using both software at the same time going back and forth updating files automatically.everything except for the 3d model as been built from scratch…
Flash craziness coming soon….
Click for Fullview
Nicolas Alexander G.
Nostalgia
I’m probably the least patriotic or sovereigntist guy in québec but for some reason I felt nostalgic yesterday…I came out with this…
Nicolas Alexander G.
Madly in anger with you
I’m starting to get really mad at this project. First I have already spend more time than I was suppose to and I’m still not happy with it. These are the color tests I’ve made today. some of them are ok I guess but the composition just seems “empty”. as for the three nines, I don’t like the highlights, looks too much like bevel & emboss even though it’s NOT. I’m goign back to the drawing board…
Nicolas Alexander G.
November 18, 2007
Digital Desing Slam
Yesterday was my first Digital Design Slam at VFS which is held every 4 months or so. The concept of the event was to create a teaser trailer for a horror movie ,having no assets,video or budget in less than 8 hours with a group of 5 people from different digital design classes that you never worked with or met before.
Luckily for me, I had a great team, Gill from DD08, Sara and Moises from DD09 and super-cool/creepy/talented Jenny Kim from my class, DD10. It took us about 1 hour to decide what to do and we met with the digital design faculty for a greenlight around 10am. The greenlight never happened. After having our idea ripped apart by the instructors, we restarted from scratch and finally started shooting around 12h-12h30.
The team went scouting location and after finding a swing they started filming while I was working on the soundtrack and the titles which I’m quite happy with. Moises and Gill did the main editing while Sara advised them with her exceptional After Effect knowledge. Jenny worked with me on deciding the kind of look we needed for the titles and she did an amazing job being the actress for the trailer.
After turning our video late like most of the groups, we finally went for the screening of all the trailers created during the day and our trailer won the scream award of both the audience and the jury. It was an amazing learning/stressful experience and I can’t wait for the next one. Thanks everybody who attended and screamed so loud when you saw swinging Jenny being creepy.
for those who weren’t there or for those who can’t get enough of crapping their pants, here’s what it looked like…
BloodCity trailer from Nicolas A.G. on Vimeo.
Created by Gill Decher, Moises Flores, Sarah Cheung, Jenny Kim and Nicolas Alexander Girard.
Nicolas Alexander G.
November 17, 2007
TShirt First Color Test
These are the first vector/color test I do for the t-shirt design and I like the feel of the color on the dark background a lot. I tried to make the paint splashes different color but I didn’t like it so I’m gonna stick to 1 color for each number and the paint is gonna overlap on the others to make them fit together…
Nicolas Alexander G.
the pen & paper approach
I am working on a t-shirt design influenced by pop artist jasper johns. The original artpiece is called zero-nine and looks like this:
The idea behind the artwork is kind of an hommage of the original piece but for the digital age. It will be a countdown from 9 to 0 instead of the original ascending number 0-9 and the zero will be missing. As for the message, I prefer to leave everything to interpretation because your probably going to read it a different way than I do. I’m not sure if I will replace the zero with a vectorized image or simply leave the box empty. So far I like the empty box idea because It’s not to opinion driven and leave place to interpretation a lot more.
As far as the style goes, my original idea was to trace over it and simply giving it a more “vector-digital-age-kind-of-look”. unfortunately the test I did weren’t helpful at all so I decided to go back to the pencils
and actually study and build the look I want to give to the numbers. So far I’m only working on the number nine to establish the style I’m looking for. It’s in my head somewhere but I can’t figure out how to make it perfect on paper. There is some elements in there that I really like and the final look will probably be a combination of those parts. I’m trying to make some kind of sticky-paint effect which i think I captured pretty well in A-3 and BC-4 but my biggest problem so far is applying shapes in the background that follows the flow of the foreground.it is due next week so maybe i will post 1 last follow up before revealing the final so come back in couple days.
