thedumbwaiter

Seeing as my current project is heavily influenced by science and industry I thought I should do some primary research and where better than Manchesters Museum of Science and Industry. I spent a good 4 hours walking around, taking photographs and even managing to do the odd drawing. My time was rather limited, both by a lack of phone battery and a 5pm closing time, so I didn’t get as much drawing done as I’d have liked, but it was an enjoyable day nonetheless.

What stuck out in particular were the number of machines, mostly engines of sorts (steam, jet, diesel etc) that has been cut up to form cross-sections. This proved something of an inspiration and set in stone an idea I was already having (sketches, etc explaining this will be uploaded in a later post.)

I also wish I had a microphone to record the ambient machine noises. The clanking of many stationary engines forming a hypnotic rhythm, which was definitely in need of recording. Next time!

Ok, so the time for my final major project has arrived and after much deliberation and procrastination I have finally gotten around to writing up a (semi)coherent proposal for it. I have spent the past few weeks playing around with my new iPad, which has made actually doing work somewhat less of a chore - something it really shouldnt be. I came across a neat little app (I still loathe that term) called Paper by 53 and its like a digital sketchbook, and such fun to use. I will upload these sketches within the next few days. The FMP is a pretty big deal, and I want it to be something that I enjoy doing, yet also try and push the limits of what I can do. I’ve opted for the theme of robots, as I love robots as a concept. This has probably already been noticed through most of my work. My main idea behind this project is to explore how digital media can be utilised for non-linear story-telling. My intention is to create a single long image (or series) which would (using flash) include interactive elements, such as mouse over gestures and pop-up text-boxes. The theme is one of a fictional company (possibly satyrical) that manufacturers robots, so the “book” itself would a sort of interactive catalogue and company website. Information in the book will be presented in such a way as to appear factual, but will be fictional (think 1950s American advertising buzz-words.) As regards to target audience my intended audience would be comic-book fans/technology fans I intend to keep the style simple using isometric vector graphics  and a minimal colour palette (mostly cool greys, blues and white.) While Flash has been said to be a dying language/medium it is the one I am the most comfortable with at present Illustrator would be used for most of the final STATIC imagery. I am also mostly using Paper by 53 for iPad for initial sketching along with images produced on isometric paper.