Week 1: Day 4 (Friday)

I haven’t got a chance to update the site these last few days because of work so i’ll update this now. On Friday we were told what the Design Discourse unit would involve and what software and books we’ll need. We downloaded Maya and were given a brief demo before the class ended. It seems simple enough to work with!

(Revisiting this from the future: Oh how I was wrong)…

Week 1 Day 3!

After today’s group meeting we decided that instead of refining and cutting ideas, we’d each pick a few ideas on the board and just sketch what we had in mind for them so we got to see what people would come up with. From there we’d get to see what others had in mind their thought process. This way we could maybe be influenced on other people’s ideas seeing them down on paper.

   

Week 1! Day 1 and 2

So we started week 1 one yesterday! Seeing as it was our first day we were shown a presentation covering all the criteria and project we will be working on over the next 12 months and I’m really excited about what this course has to offer! Part of the presentation covered “design” and we were shown the works of  Craig Mullens (a concept artist) and Dieter Rams’s Ten principles for good design.

We were introduced to the teams and had our first project assigned. “Build a World”. I really love this theme as there’s so much freedom within it, but to be honest yesterday we were really stuck on ideas, we had  a few plastered on the board but really found ourselves stuck with writer’s block. We decided it would be best to individually come up with a few ideas and sketches, then talk about them the next day with the rest of this group. This proved to be very beneficial as when we got back to talk to each other today, we had endless concepts and ideas.

Our original ideas.

Below are some of my sketches on what I had in mind before getting back to the group. 

            

I’ve noticed that everyone in the group has their own vision on what this project could be, for example, some are taking a more realistic approach, thinking about what the planet’s gravity and weather could be like,  while others look at the are looking at the wacky, crazy ideas, looking at sci-fi films/ video games for influence. (I happen to be one of those people!) Tomorrow we’re going to refine and group the ideas.

Today’s board.

Today there were loads of interesting ideas coming up! Some of them included monochrome worlds where anything colourful is illegal, tiny planets growing on trees on one massive planet (all holding their own civilisations) and worlds based on already existing planets. Or others based on post apocalyptic earth. As i mentioned above, i’m really liking this theme and I look forward to seeing other people’s ideas and how they will come to life through animation!