INDEPENDENT PRACTICE

INDEPENDENT PRACTICE

04Animal Illustrations Showcasing the selected animals for the shop. I used the same techniques to draw them as I did with the Robots

05

‘The Extinction Shop’ is a witty, and contemporary

interactive, infographical design that aims to build

awareness surrounding the most endangered

species on the planet. ‘The Extinction Shop’ is made

in the form of a website and built in ‘Flash’ as a

mock-up to show how the design would appear.

The reason why I chose to make the final

infographics in website format is because of a

few reasons. Firstly I wanted to learn coding and

after learning the basics of html I realised that

constructing my idea in a short amount time was

not achievable. So in the process I learnt how to

code in flash, which is the simple alternative.

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The development Development showing various interfaces. Above is the map and location idea used for navigation. Click on the blimp to upload info. The image to the right shows sliding menus that would display the relevant information:

http://anicholls2.gdnm.org/ See: Possible idea for the animal slide / understanding Flash

Secondly I wanted to create something interactive

as I have never done this before and challenge the

idea of infographics in a more contemporary form

and this lead me to making ‘The Extinction Shop’.

The design was inspired by online shops and their

generic style and layout, I believe this hits my

target audience of 20+ and plays on wit well.

The animals I selected are well known but most

of them are becoming extinct because they are in

demand, hence the shop. I scaled their population to

smaller numbers to generate simpler perspective.

http://megaswf.com/simple_serve/94801/

THE EXTINCTION SHOPThe world’s most endangered species / Infographics

An

imals

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the

of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal

distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'Content here, content

here', making it look like readable English. Many desktop

publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum

as their default model text, and a search for 'lorem ipsum' will

uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions

have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes

on purpose (injected humour and the like).

Leatherback Turtle

Decreasing

Colour Index

TigerGiant Panda Polar BearPacific Walrus

Leatherback Turtle

Bluefin TunaMountain

Gorilla

Javan Rhinoceros

Monarch Butterfly

Black Rhinoceros

Red-crownedParrot

Magellanic Penguin

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Mock-up made in Flash This picture shows the coding , timeline and the final piecing together for the mock-up

An

imals

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the

of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal

distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'Content here, content

here', making it look like readable English. Many desktop

publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum

as their default model text, and a search for 'lorem ipsum' will

uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions

have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes

on purpose (injected humour and the like).

Leatherback Turtle

Decreasing

Colour Index

TigerGiant Panda Polar BearPacific Walrus

Leatherback Turtle

Bluefin TunaMountain

Gorilla

Javan Rhinoceros

Monarch Butterfly

Black Rhinoceros

Red-crownedParrot

Magellanic Penguin

Exogenetic is a monoline, sans-serif typeface suitable for display/headline purposes. It was influenced by circuit boards and robotics. Exogenetic is available in opentype format.

The meaning of exogenetic is (from the Greek words “exo” and “gen”, meaning “outside” and “production”) to influence something from the outside by external forces. For example altering the Earth’s surface. The modern, futuristic looking typeface that reflects the human race and technology affecting what is happening in current affairs.

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Font name and initial experimentation The name shows the final outcome of this type experiment all the way from the beginning experimentation

Typographic design, I have been practicing for a year and a half now and getting to grips with the whole FontLab Studio experience. It’s a very painstaking affair but one that gives me a buzz upon completing. This font is display, so didn’t take very long to complete, but still contains all the basic Latin glyphs.

EXOGENETIC

exogenetic

EXOGENETICA futuristic monoline, sans-serif display typeface / Typographic design

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After going to the Natural History museum I found the evolution of earth bit (forgot its name). Anyway it sends you through the journey of life and mentions the mass extinctions. Also other information such as climate change and so forth.

I devised together this quick infographics—each ring represents a mass extinction and what forms of life there was at the time represented by silhouettes. As you can see the sixth ring represents life today and that we’re currently living through an extinction.

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First initial infographics These two pictures show the development of the diagram

To reiterate, this is an idea. By collecting more data I’d be able to create more substantial designs. I think at the moment I am pushing towards animals. (Humans hunting animals, deforestation, landscape altering, leading to climate change etc).

I think a bit more research is required then to experiment with my new found knowledge.

(This idea lead me on to think I should do infographics after designing the initial diagram)

THE SIXTH EXTINCTIONWe are living through one now / Diagram Poster

THE SIXTH EXTINCTION

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The Diagram To the right is the diagram that represents the past and current extinction, the sixth extinction.

Starting with my theme of extinction I produced

this robot vector illustration. The reason behind it

is because extinction could happen in the future.

Reading extracts from a book called Wired for War, P W

Singer talks about the new technological age and the

possibilities of what future wars could become. Basically

building machines that will one-day turn on us.

I found it quite amusing but is also a realistic possibility,

a human error in our quest for laziness. As it’s in

the future and at the moment seems like fantasy, it

may be a good opportunity for me to illustrate robots

(something I have wanted to do). I have this– strange

attraction to robots and I don’t know why. It has

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given me more ideas on what to do next, but in the

mean time experiment and research maybe other

aspects of the theme, such as animals and species

to climate change and environmental impacts.

“In future, machines could decide

when to fire weapons”

“Now it is clear the military does not have enough

unmanned vehicles. We’re entering an era in

which unmanned vehicles of all kinds will take on

greater importance – in space, on land, in the air,

and at sea.” (Wired for War by P W Singer)

ROBOTSWe are now wired for war / Illustration

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The Illustrations Three robot illustrations conveying that with ‘personality’ robots would be able to fire weapons from sea, space & land

This video was created in collaboration with Ben Wood.

In terms of the style, we have both never created a

video before and found it a real challenge to make.

In terms of the content, we chose the words do

something impossible and used that to convey the

content. Somehow we ended up with trying to fly to

the moon in a supercar. From there our idea developed.

There was a vast amount of research prior to the

shooting that took a lot longer than anticipated.

However we believe if this wasn’t done there

would of been far too much video editing.

I like the idea of video editing but I think I would

only video maybe to test out new ideas or for

research purposes. To help initiate more ideas by

using the different media. For example my prior

stop-motion animation would now experiment

with drawing on walls or something.

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Aaron’s Roles:

RESEARCH–Into film clichés, story boarding, film

trailers (film intro)

EDITING – Final Cut Pro, (both took turns)

SOUND – researched into sound and choosing the

music

CAMERA MAN – recorded the footage

SCRIPT WRITING – Brainstorming,

bouncing ideas, collaborative effort.

Ben’s roles:

RESEARCH – film trailers, car trailers, film shooting.

LOCATION SCOUT – to quite simply find the

appropriate locations for shooting

EDITING – Final Cut Pro, (both took turns)

ACTING – Play-role, driving the car.

SCRIPT WRITING – collaborative effort

JOURNEY TO THE MOON BY CARAn epic trailer about one man and his car / Film Editing

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Two screenshots from the trailer http://anicholls2.gdnm.org/2010/10/17/to-the-moon-by-car/#more-65

4500 photos over the course of four days. Whiteboard

pens used to draw around the bathroom. It’s a

complete improvisation, due to time. Tedious but

very satisfying. It’s a process that I’d definitely use

again but only when the content is relevant.

http://anicholls2.gdnm.org/2010/10/12/boxlegs/

BOX LEGS IN THE BATHROOM

This is the fanzine I created within a couple of hours.

The idea was quite spontaneous of deciding to

personify the visual illusion of faces you see in everyday

things. The process was to cut shapes out of coloured

paper and blue-tack them, photograph them and lay

them out extremely quickly in InDesign for print.

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I have always liked layout, but in this case I don’t

think I could challenge myself enough because

of the short time frame. Upon reflection though

I think I would make a zine of some sort, but

maybe not a fanzine. This is because I want to

challenge the content with the layout and design.

CREATING A QUICK FANZINEThat’s a familiar face / Fanzine Publication

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From the beginning it was all about the experimentation. The idea was

to create a collection of work via different processes and strategies,

which would then start the ball rolling with my project.

To create a Fanzine was a new experience as its something I have never done

before. The content was quite spontaneous but then again not very original;

cutting out faces from paper that I would stick onto light switches.

When the project got underway I thought I’d start with the theme ‘extinction’. I didn’t

know where this would lead or have a clue what the content and form would turn out

to be. In the early stages I started to research into future theories and predictions.

Looking into the past to see the future. This lead me onto reading extracts from the book

‘Wired for War’; which then developed into drawing robots. As it’s in the future and at

the moment fantasy, it may be a good opportunity for me to illustrate future warfare.

Researching into my topic and trying to find deeper content I found out that we’re

living through the sixth extinction now. Having learnt that the previous five had

been all natural causes, the sixth seems to be manufactured. Finding all of this

information out is actually quite scary if you where to look at the statistics.

About a third of the way down the project I struggled, but having a mental

block I still produced something that ended up to be a happy accident

in the form of Exogenetic. Also it lead me away slightly away from my

overall project enough to clearly think how to resolve my ideas.

Developing to bind all of my experiments together, with all the data that I’ve collected,

from the illustrations, diagrams, and typography. Also the research using ‘Red List’ for

species, ‘The National Geographic’ and ‘ICSU’ are all great resources for the facts and

figures, I developed ‘The Extinction Shop’. I believe it hits my target audience of the

more mature crowd (20 years and upwards), and the content is in-depth but also very

simple. I’m actually very pleased with this outcome and have gained a lot of new skills

in the process. It has given me more confidence to pursue a strong final major project.

EVALUATION

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Independent practice My overall thoughts and feelings towards this project

–http://www.independent.co.uk/environment

animal-extinction–the-greatest-threat-to-mankind-397939.

html. Julia Whitty, 30th April, 2007

– http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/eldredge2.html

–THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

– http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Extinction-Fears-A-Fifth-Of-

Worlds-Animals-Face-Extinction-Says-Major-New-Report/Article/201010415776464

– http://www.postcardsfromthefuture.co.uk/

–http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/

EventsExhibitions/Special/LondonFutures.htm

– mpressive:printmaking, letterpress and graphic design. R. Klanten. 2010

–Arabesque:Graphic design from the Arab world and Persia. B. Wittner. 2009

–Area 2. Phaidon Editors. 2008

– http://anicholls2.gdnm.org/2010/10/17/to-the-moon-by-car/#more-65

– http://anicholls2.gdnm.org/2010/10/12/boxlegs/

– http://istockphoto.com

– http://asos.co.uk

– http://topshop.co.uk

– http://lynda.com (online resource for tutorials)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Independent practice The list of sources that gave me the relevant information

Aaron Nicholls