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"The big fallacy is that you can make something go viral. If you produce good work, people will want to see it." Ron Lim, ATTIK, see page 20
£6.00 September 2011 computerarts.co.uk
MAKE MONEY FROM PERSONAL WORK
Turn design experiments into cold, hard cash…
Inside__ Good Wives And Warriors • Ben Turnbull Ben Secret • Frédérique Daubal • James Wignall Tom Mac • Chermayeff & Geismar • Thiago Maia POGO • Ice Cream For Free • Mateusz Sypien 12foot6 • Luke Hayman • Andreas Rothaug Add instant depth with transparency ustwo • The Light Surgeons • W&K New design talent & more
MAKE YOUR LOGOS BRILLIANT Design your best branding yet with our guide to long-lasting logos and magnificent marques
DESIgN FOR ANDROID
How to create killer apps for the world's most popular mobile OS
10 jOb-WINNINg WAYS TO IMPROvE YOuR PORTFOLIO
Both online and off!
Welcome Issue 192
w E l c O m E
The design manual:portfolio secrets _page 51
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ISSUE 192 SEPTEMBER 2011
Food for creative thought:the things to eat at your desk to keep the creative juices flowing _page 55
Hello.What are you working on this month?
Our revamped Creative Skills section has more techniques and includes video walkthroughs _page 68
Studio Life.This month’s Studio Life documentary takes you behind the scenes at ustwo. Prepare to be ‘Wonka-ed’!
ON THE DVD
Subscribe online at www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/coap17 or see page 66
Whatever it is,I hope we can inspire you and bring you the know-how to make it your best project yet.Last month saw a few changes to Computer Arts – and this is usually the place editors say the feedback has been great, but I’m not going to do that as I hope as you flick through the issue you can guess what the response has been (OK, I’ll tell you a secret, it was great). Just to reiterate in case you missed us last time:The design manual (starting on page 51 this issue) is aimed at making your life as a designer an easier one.Think of it as a miscellany of design advice – everything from portfolios to typography to web design to selling your work. Studio Life has also been a rip-roaring success for us – and I’m really happy to introduce this issue’s episode on the DVD. We pay a visit to ustwo, a studio that really does have to be seen to be believed. We even threw in some Sergio Leone-inspired end credits. See what you think. Oh, and also on the DVD we bring you Heroic Condensed Ltd Bold – a really usable headline font designed by Silas Dilworth.You never know when it’ll come in useful. Finally, you may have noticed the Graduate Showcase free with this issue.The work featured is truly brilliant and, if this is anything to go by, the design industry has a great future.Thanks to all our judges, sponsors and entrants. As always, let me know what you think of the issue, and anything else for that matter (preferably design-related and nothing kinky) by email, on Twitter or on Facebook. Rob Carney Editor rob.carney@futurenet.com twitter.com/computerarts facebook.com/computerarts
Computer Arts September 2011
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C O N t E N t S Output
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INDuStRY ANALYSIS
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This month’s best new design, illustration and motion work from the global creative scene
In a digital world where your work is out there for anyone to see, how can you protect your own intellectual property?
OpINION
Justin Harder:why designer crushes are a good thing
28-32
Daniel Rhatigan:the new era of typography is upon us Dan Rose:are designers the least organised species?
DESIGN BEttER LOGOS
34
MOutHING OFF ABOut AppS
40
WEAVING A pAtH OF HER OWN
46
tHE DESIGN MANuAL
51
CREAtIVE SKILLS
68
COLORIMEtERS
100
ExpOSuRE
106
MY DESIGN CLASSIC
114
The leading authorities in logo design get together to discuss the process behind magnificent marques
We visit ustwo – and meet the self-proclaimed Wonka of the app industry – as the studio prepares to launch its new game. Check out the documentary going behind the scenes at the studio on your DVD
Mixed media artist Frédérique Daubal has spun a successful freelance career fusing thread and graphic design
The modern designer’s guide to everything continues with 10 job-winning tips to improve your portfolio
Discover new Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, InDesign and After Effects skills in print and on video. Full listing on page 68
They’re certainly not sexy, but they are essential to maintain a colour-accurate workflow. We look at the options
The best reader-submitted portfolios on show
Airside’s co-founder Nat Hunter on a timeless piece of design that has lit up her creative life
SuBSCRIBE
66
Save an amazing 50 per cent when you subscribe to the new and improved Computer Arts
Computer Arts September 2011
Who’s the man mouthing off in the mask? Find out in our ustwo profile _Page 40
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Contents Issue 192
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The desi n
The design manual – the modern designer’s guide to everything _Page 51
manual
The work of mixed media artist Frédérique Daubal _Page 46
How to protect yourself from the IP thieves _Page 26
Ben Turnbull’s heroic collage work _Page 12
Layer up effects in Illustrator _Page 80
Treat type with colour in Photoshop _Page 74
Calibrate your monitor for colour consistency _Page 100
Design long-lasting logos _Page 34
Daniel Rhatigan’s future of type _Page 30
Subscribe online at www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/coap17 or see page 66
Computer Arts September 2011
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On the DVD Issue 192
on the dVd
NEW! Wherever you see this icon there’s a video on the DVD
d e S i g n d o c u M e n ta r Y
Studio life
In this episode of our exclusive HD short films, we pay a visit to ustwo and meet Mills – the self-proclaimed Chief Wonka of the app industry
Pro training
PhotoShoP
High Pass techniques for retouching
illuStrator
Transparency secrets
indeSign
Master nested styles
after effectS
Animate with nulls
flaSh
Use procedural graphics
Studio Life:You, I and ustwo.The prolific agency on what it takes to conquer the App Store
ShoWreelS
adaM roWe
The 3D motion designer and design director’s incredible showreel
andY Martin
Lovely animated work from the London-based freelancer
Andy Martin’s sublime character animation
Ben adaM
The creative known as Broken Antler shows off his motion skills
See Thomas Lucas’ Botanical Nightmare short film in full
calango
The Amsterdam-based agency’s captivating new reel
chriS JeVronS/aY-Pe
Calango’s stunning showreel
Check out this sleek sting for E4 – a collaboration between Chris Jevrons and animator ay-pe
Sara Bennett
A fusion of different techniques in Sara Bennett’s motion showreel
thoMaS lucaS
Botanical Nightmare short film
Smooth motion graphics work from Sara Bennett
Stunning new motion work from Adam Rowe
reSourceS & eXtraS
FREE FonT
PhotoShoP BruSheS
on your dVd you’ll find heroic condensed ltd Bold, a versatile and workhorse of a font designed by Silas dilworth at typetrust.
Use these 15 free brushes in your design and illustration projects Plus:creative skills tutorial starter files, trial software and more…
Computer Arts September 2011
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Behind the Brief
the making of Zeus & the High Voltage tC
the gods were on Attik’s side when the creative agency produced an inventive campaign for the latest Scion sports coupé...
The studio
Attik
Simon Needham (above left) co-founded Attik in 1986 with creative director James Sommerville. Their first location, famously, was an attic in Huddersfield, UK – hence the name. A key force in the company’s expansion, Needham has led Attik studios in London, New York, Sydney and San Francisco, and spends much of his time on the US west coast. Creative director Ron Lim (above right) began his career with the company as a freelance art director in 2005. His work has been recognised by an array of awards bodies, including D&AD, Cannes Lions and Clio. He is a key contributor on Attik’s Scion account. www.attik.com The brief
High Voltage
The Scion tC High Voltage RS is one of the Toyota-owned company’s special Release Series vehicles – a much sportier version of the car – and only 2,200 of the model have been manufactured.This particular RS version boasts a bright-yellow paint job, customised TRD body kit, push-button ignition, black alloy wheels and design accents inspired by the Greek god of the sky and thunder, Zeus. Attik has worked with Scion for a number of years and knows the market for the company’s cars.This campaign involved TV, social media, the web and print, as well as the skills of Brewster Parsons VFX supervisor Andrew Eksner (www.brewsterparsons.com), and talented cinematographer Jordan Valenti (www.lspagency.net). Attik helped name the vehicle: ‘High Voltage’ was inspired by lightning bolts associated with Zeus.The brief was simply to sell the vehicle and Attik’s approach was to highlight everything that was different about the car: its yellow colour and its attitude.The team used humour,YouTube and the king of the gods to make it happen. Simon Needham explains…
Computer Arts September 2011
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Behind the brief the making of Zeus & the High Voltage tC 01 Zeus creates the tC high Voltage rC with a lightning bolt, before highlighting its key features
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On the set with Attik
Being on the set during an Attik shoot is exciting. Simon needham is a self-confessed perfectionist, so early on in a project his attention is on making sure everyone’s completely focused on their role during the shoot. following this build-up, once the shots are being taken and it feels as though things are progressing, the vibe becomes more relaxed.“the final pieces reflect the fun atmosphere created,” says needham.“this was definitely an entertaining project to work on.”
02 Zeus unleashes the same lightning powers that he purportedly used to create the yellow Scion coupe
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Several concepts for the High Voltage RS were presented to Scion and we honed them down to two favourites. Having done some research within Toyota, we decided that the idea centred on the Greek god Zeus would work best.The main theme is that Zeus created the Scion. As opposed to just showing running footage of a car with a family in it, this campaign has a youthful tone to it, in line with the Scion brand, and is fairly daring.The client liked the humour, too. While developing Zeus, we found many ways to have fun with him. After all, he’s a legendary god and most people know a bit about him, so we could draw entertainment value from that while putting him in the context of the campaign. Plus, Zeus and his lightning-bolt power fit perfectly with the High Voltage name. However, we kept things really simple so viewers don’t have to know that much about him to understand the idea we’re putting forward: in the TV ad, Zeus has come down to present his car to mortals, while the YouTube footage takes you behind the scenes, where he continues to play the role of god of gods but struggles to be taken seriously.The concept is easy to pick up at any point in the campaign, and aims to stir up some curiosity so that people want to see what funny things will transpire.
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Computer Arts September 2011
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03 Wide shots of the ad set before the video compositor art was implemented
04 With Andrew eksner’s skills and some Autodesk flame, the scene truly seems like it’s taking place on Mount Olympus
05 Zeus gets his juice. Simple props were used during the filming process, to be replaced later by heroic effects
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I storyboarded every frame in the commercial but the behind-the-scenes bits were shot from the hip. Brad Norman – who played Zeus – was a great improviser and gave the material his own spin, which worked really well. We prepped for a three-day shoot – covering our main setups and the behind-the-scenes vignettes, which were all on the set or outside the sound stage – as well as a day of shooting on location in downtown Los Angeles.
The rig wasn’t stabilised, so we chose our locations not only for their aesthetics but for the smooth pavements. One happy accident during shooting was that we got some great late-evening sunlight after several days of cloud cover, so we shot from an optimum angle to capture this.
Cinematographer Jordan Valenti shot the commercial… This was a high-profile spot, so I went for 35mm film because of its rich, beautiful and cinematic attributes. It offers a huge dynamic range compared to other formats, which was very important when shooting the Scion in full sunlit environments. I believe less is more when it comes to equipment, and prefer to move fast, lean and mean rather than carrying unnecessary gear. We decided on a basic approach, consisting of a hard-mounted 35mm camera on the front platform of a camera car.The lens height was carefully chosen to be most flattering to the Scion vehicle, which is important because adjusting the lens height once the camera was rigged would be time consuming.
Computer Arts September 2011
06 While the VFX on the lightning, for instance,had to look fantastic, the challenge was to keep it believable
Visual effects with Andrew Eksner… Simon and the folks from Attik asked Brewster Parsons to collaborate with them on the special effects. My main task was creating the Mount Olympus environment and the sky around it, which drops in behind the set. As a traveller and photographer I have an extensive library of images so, working with sunsets from Patagonia to Polynesia, I created a ‘hero look’ – the warm, rich, evening sky. Simon liked the idea of backlight and ‘god rays’, so he shot his green-screen stage to accommodate that. Some extra elements helped me show Mount Olympus high in the clouds, including aerial images, mountains and a sea of clouds. The second major task was designing the lightning bolt that Zeus holds and occasionally throws. It had to be alive with sparking energy, but at the same time it needed to be defined enough to be recognisable. We created the final
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Behind the brief the making of Zeus & the High Voltage tC 07 Attik executed various print ads for the car.this large-scale poster was designed for outdoor usage
08 Early prototypes of the decision points made in London let the Less rain team finesse the interaction before travelling to LA
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08 the high Voltage digital strategy is circular:car fans who discover the Zeus phenomenon on facebook or Youtube can find their way to other sticky content on the website,and vice versa
09 As well as the print ads,Attik also created a classic, wide billboard ad for Scion’s latest release Series vehicle
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aesthetic with Simon, experimenting with various zap designs, fluid edges and so on. I think the outcome looks funny, while still being as real as possible. Finally, we treated part of the footage of the car running. I tried to blend those shots with the overall mood of the spot by replacing the background skies. Using some cleaner photography of some of the locations, I was able to retrack the Los Angeles skyline and replace or remove unwanted elements. Our end of the project was completed in Autodesk Flame using Photoshop extensively. Ron Lim on the final details… Our spot is pretty unusual for a US car ad; often, they focus on performance and value. Scion has done a little humour in the past, but nothing overt. We did play up the special features of this tC, along with the price, so the value message is still there just done in a comical manner. While the TV ad is going out to the likes of Adult Swim, CBS Sports, Comedy Central, Fuel TV, MTV and several others, the behind-the-scenes segments were posted to YouTube and we also reached out via Facebook and several other websites. We had a plan in place on how to tag the
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spots, the order they were to be viewed in, and so on. Copywriter Andy Sciamanna and art director Mike Cornell came up with the whole Zeus concept, then worked with Jacob Ford, our interactive creative director, and Jeff Fang, our senior interactive art director, to do all the digital elements.They thought out how they wanted everything seeded, uploaded and tagged. Scion’s social media team was extremely proactive in getting the work out to bloggers and the news media. The big fallacy is that you can make something go viral. If you produce interesting work, people will want to see it. So far, Zeus has been really well received.The press has been favourable and the online hits have been great. Even the tweets have been kind, generally, which is nice. The clients and the dealers love the work, so that’s always good when you finish a project. Of course, it’s still early days so it’s difficult to measure the overall success of the campaign.The great thing is that we’ve been able to make it work cohesively across all media. No elements were added as afterthoughts: it’s all been truly integrated together.
Computer Arts September 2011
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InDesign CS5 or later
Master the Page tool
Neshantheny Kumana demonstrates an easy way to control multiple page sizes within a single document
InDesign is typically useful for laying out large documents that contain more than one page.However, CS5 and 5.5 have opened the door to new possibilities, with features that make some tasks much more intuitive. In previous iterations, for example, there was always the need to start a new document when creating a different page size. Now, Adobe has made our lives a lot easier with the Page tool. Using a fake magazine layout as an example,we’ll look at how to manipulate page size, create gatefolds and add a spine to an editorial design. After mastering these simple steps, you’ll be able to apply the Page tool in many different ways to any project.
Neshantheny Kumana Canada-based designer and art director Neshantheny has worked on large exhibit design and print projects for Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre, and is currently working as a freelance designer on a range of different projects. www.neshak.com
Time needed 1 hour On the disc You’ll find the full size screengrabs for each step of this project in the Resources section of the DVD
Computer Arts September 2011
Skills Manipulate page sizes Create gatefolds and centrefolds Add a spine Master basic editorial design
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Start by designing the front and back cover for your magazine. Switch your screen workspace to the Typography setting under Workspace or through the drop-down menu. I prefer using this because it gives you access to more options when typesetting an editorial piece. All the tools are under your fingertips and enable you to work efficiently.
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Creative skills Pro layout techniques
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Let’s give the magazine some dimension by adding a gatefold to the cover. First, select the drop-down menu from Pages and turn off ‘Allow Document Pages to Shuffle’. This prevents the page from automatically dropping down to the next spread and attaches it to where you’d like it to go instead.
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Select page two to insert the gatefold after it. Click on Insert Pages under the same drop-down menu. Set Pages to 1, Insert to After Page, choose 2 and set Master to A-Master. Click OK and you should see a new page appear beside page two.
This page is too large for a gatefold, so let’s change the size by clicking the Page tool on the toolbar and selecting the new page that we just created. When you select it, you get a blue overlay and the Control panel changes. You’ll notice that you’re able to set it to either a specific size given by InDesign or a custom size. In this case, we’ll go with a custom size.
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Select the Reference Point to be on the right-hand side, as you specifically want it to shrink horizontally. Enter 15p in the Width field and the page size will change. You now have a flap to work with.
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You can then expand the content to cover the gatefold that was created or add new content. In this case, we’re choosing to highlight the story behind the cover image seen on the gatefold.
Now that our gatefold is done, let’s add a spine to the magazine.This time, select the Page tool and click on the back cover of the publication. In the Control panel, uncheck the ‘Objects Move With Page’ box to prevent the elements on your layout from shifting around or dropping out of the page.
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Next, let’s set the Reference Point to be on the left side, because we want our spine to appear between the back and front cover. If this isn’t set then you’ll end up with a back cover that’s expanded equally on both sides. Now set the Width to 38p and you’ll notice that your layout automatically shifts to the left, with the spine appearing in the centre.
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Choose the Selection tool and then click on the back cover to continue designing the spine with the magazine name and date of publication.
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Let’s now add pages to our magazine by dragging and dropping the A-Master spread into the Pages window, so we can see the different possibilities for a magazine layout. Click on the Page tool and select pages five and six, so you can manipulate the page size at the same time. Select a set size of 600x300 in the drop-down menu.This might just turn out to be a unique size for an ad in the magazine.You can continue using the Page tool to manipulate multiple page sizes within this single document.
Computer Arts September 2011