Evaluation...

I am really really proud of what I achieved within this project I  love the style and the overall theme. I love how my fruit looks and I really like how it works within my retro theme. Im really happy with my promo I think its dynamic and fun which completely matches my overall theme. Ive tried to ensure that my brand is always promoted through the use of colour and type and I had a lot of fun making my promo. I would have liked to have an additional second at the end of my promo because it ends a bit fast but I'm already at the 10% additional timing allowed. I planned my timing much better this time round in this project so I dont have any issues with that, After Effect was easy to use and I think I've done well integrating all my elements. I would have liked to explore some more complicated effects in After Effects but my project didn't require anything complex and I had so much going on it was easier to just use the simple transform tools.

I like the look of my game and I am generally happy with my app visualisation, but I found the visualisation much more stressful to generate because it had a lot of fiddly elements. Making the game was the hardest element because I had to have a lot of pears falling at one point to make the game. Pre-comping my segments was helpful because I could repeat certain frames throughout as and when I needed it. I used text and a click circle to display the gestures which makes it clear on both iPad and iPhone. I have used the same visualisation for both iPad and iPhone primarily because we had very little time. I found through my research that games dont really tend to change on iPad or iPhone though so Im not worried about using the same animation for both although if I had had more time I would have liked to make my navigation on the iPhone fractionally larger. I also made sure that my sizes of my animation matched the official iPhone and iPad sizes already researched.

Overall I liked my project initially but there was too much to do and not enough time to do it so it became incredibly stressful (I dont think its got anything to do with my time management either because I was very organised). I also found that the negative comments voiced by one lecturer on my type choices despite my justification of its use really knocked my confidence because it made me feel like what I had produced was a bit rubbish, although after getting a few more opinions on the type by my other lecturers that were positive on the subject I felt a lot better about my project. I think that the text and style are down to personal preference and personally I am very happy with what I've made. I definitely think I've explored a new style and I think this that my promo in particular is one of my favourite finished pieces.

Text in Promo...

I introduced a text element to my promo which was evident during my crit but it was suggested that I make my text larger and expand. The placement of the bubble is supposed to look like its within the fruit and the explosion of the fruit reveals it. The bubble is reminiscent of the speech bubbles within comic books and pop art which I think helps to cement the retro theme even more. I added some extra dots within the text as well to really push my pop art style.

The Crit....

Crit was entirely unhelpful, I'm fairly proud by what I have achieved and it was implied during crit by one of my lecturers that my typography choices were unconsidered and poor, which implied through extension that my final product was poor (something that I didn't take well because I have slaved over my project and I like to do things to the best of my ability). Having said this the class seemed to really like both my promo and my visualisation and had no problem with the text because it matched my brand. They liked the retro theme and felt it was fun and upbeat. It was suggested by another lecturer that I should make my text bubbles slightly bigger within my promo and that I needed to incorporate a bit more to my game to fully portray all of the games elements. I will try to make these changes for hand in.

After Effects...

Using After Effects was much easier this time around because I was already familiar with a lot of the tools used. Again I created both my visualisation and my promo using the basic transform tools. Because I had designed and drawn out most of my elements within Illustrator is was mostly just arranging these objects so that they moved fluidly. Making my fruit explode was probably the most fiddly part because I had little bits of 'fruit' that needed to fly outwards with a revolving trajectory. It required a lot of patience and a lot of layers but I did manage to make it slightly easier on myself and use the parent tool.

 These are some of my layers for my promo- which I stupidly didn't pre-comp because I wanted to time certain elements primarily the backgrounds to the music. Although it didn't bother me overly once I had finished making my fruit explode because I didn't have as much to deal with in my next frames.

I did a lot of pre-comping for my visualisation which was really helpful because I had several elements that were repeated throughout (the home screen being the main example) and it allowed me to play with my timings when I put it all together.

Illustrator Backgrounds for App Visualisation

I created a new background for my app visualisation game that I plan on using as my home screen as well as the actual background for my game. I've based my design prominently off Glastonbury, so I've included TeePees, flags and a stage and tried to incorporate my 70's patterns into the sky to add points of interest. Including these retro patterns also helps establish my hippie/glamrock theme and simultaneously provides a sense of continuity between my promo and my visualisation. 

 I have placed my fruit and text ontop of this background to check its overall style, each piece of fruit is a clear button that navigates to the next page, which I have further emphasised through my branded type. It looked a little bit empty on screen so I opted to add the Brother's bottle on the side with an accompanying shadow. Adding this element also promotes my brand further and helps to portray a stylistic link between my text and the bottle.

This is the base for my game, with the additional game elements (the funnel and the game navigation). The navigation bar is only evident within the game and Ive tried to use bold icons so that it would work well with both iPad and iPhone. 

Type Choices...

I knew that there would be a text element within my project, and I have based my choices on my Brothers Brand. The Brothers logo is straight bold and to the point- the type face is if not exactly that (then exceptionally close to) the Impact font which is the font I plan on using for all my main bits of type. Impact is also bold and simple enough to remind me of the speech bubbles used within comics and although it is clunkier than some of the Roy Lichtenstein examples researched earlier- its big, bold and so entirely integrated into the Brothers Brand it has to be used. To contrast this font and after much examination of the Brothers label I have also opted to used the Apple Chancery font for any smaller bits of writing, this font is certainly thin enough to cement this idea of a comic bubble as well as also mimicking swirly font used within the Brothers label. Although the Ms and S' differ the rest of the letters are very similar which is why I plan on using it although there will really only be hints of it so as not to overwhelm. Ideally I would have also have liked to construct my own version of Glastonbury's hollywood sign to use for my bulk text but I do not have the time to generate this.

Exploded Fruit on Backgrounds...

I knew that I would have to split my fruit for both promo and app so I opted to generate two halves of each fruit piece, I did this by placing rectangles over half and using the divide paths below tool I had to rearrange the layers after doing this but it didn't take as long as I thought it was going to.  The circles of droplets would ideally scale outwards like the drops are moving which I'm hoping will give it an additional retro 60s/70s feel, Ive also made little torn pieces which will fill the middle and move outwards with the two halves of the fruit.

Fruit on backgrounds....

I wanted to test my fruit on their perspective background so I just put the full fruits on top to check contrast colour and shape.  Overall I'm very happy with the overall look although I don't plan on these backgrounds to appear until the fruit explodes so I plan on testing the backgrounds against the exploded  fruit.

Illustrator Backgrounds...

I made my Illustrator backgrounds (backgrounds that would offset the fruit already displayed) by basing the overall designs on 70's wall paper each background contains a colour that is evident within my solid fruit (for example my apple will sit within an orange background so the circular based background contains elements of orange etc..) I did this mostly so that there was a sense of continuity within my designs and scenes. 

 All of the retro styled backgrounds are heavily shape influenced and I'm glad I thought to include a white outline within my fruit since it then allows for separation between background and foreground.  Ideally the strawberry would be placed on the background above since the solid red contrasts with the softer oranges and browns and the rounded shape of the strawberry contradicts the squares.

 The apple would be situated on the circle background above- I colour co-ordinated it so the apple contrasts against it.

 I love the pink background above which has been made for the pear its my favourite, based of the elongated shapes that I noticed were favoured in the 70's wallpaper research.

 The backgrounds above have been created to portray a split screen effect for 4 of my elements. Ive added a bit of pop art style texture to make it more interesting and I plan on having the colours swap over every now and then to mimic my musics beat.  The background is very much inspired by Warhol and I've tried to really emphasise that through my colour choices.

Illustrator Drawings....

These are my current creations, I decided to focus on the promo first since I can use a lot of the elements within my game- the fruit for instance below can simply be scaled down and used as the falling fruit within my app. I wanted to soften my pop art style because I felt that using just flat fill shapes would be boring so I have incorporates a sense of shade and rounded shape through the introduction of curves flat shapes of colour that I have overlapped in different areas throughout. The white outline in the background helps to separate my shapes from the bold fill background and is an element that I'm definitely retaining within my game. 

 I incorporated smaller and slightly more manic dots  (than is typically seen in pop art)  which helps to highlight shape and break up the solid colours within. This was harder to do on both the strawberry and the lemon because I didn't want the dots to interfere with in the seeds and dotted texture already evident within both.

I really like my strawberry, I think its one of my favourites, although it was the hardest to create because of the overlapping yellow seeds. All of the fruits that I've created were actually relatively simple, mostly I used fill shape bases and then added stripes of solid colour to get the shading. Adding the dots was made easier by simply making each shade into a scatter brush which I then applied along simple paths.  They have come out looking very retro and vibrant which is what I was going for so I'm happy.

Pitch Feedback...

Pitch went well really no-one had any qualms or worries about my idea and I think it was well liked, they liked the colours evident within my animatic (which I only really included to help differentiate between the main focal points and the backgrounds). My proposed Pop art inspired style was also well received although it was pointed out to me that I shouldn't forget about my hand-drawn style since the theme I'm proposing is a lot cleaner, neater and flatter than I've previously explored. Having said this I want to try something different and I think it would be impractical for game graphics to include a hand-drawn theme. Of course I plan on putting my own spin on the pop art fruit I am creating but I don't want to use a whole lot of texture and strokes in this project. This time I'm aiming for simple.

 Above are my wireframes which I've included on my blog simply because there not as well organised in my sketchbook, I think  making the app will take less time than the promo since I dont have as many elements within the pages the game itself needs essentially three pages to work which would all link back to an original homepage.

Promo Storyboard:

 Game Storyboard:

 Animatic Stills:

Overall really happy about my project although I'm a bit concerned with timing I'm going to power on through and get creating.

Music Choices...

I looked into music since its an element specified within the brief. I had two initial choices that I think will work with both my game and my promo. I needed something upbeat with a festival feel to it, to match my overall theme with a clear beat that I could mimic my scene changes to.



The Noisettes 'Don't upset the Rhythm' is fast paced, modern and has a great dance flavour to it that would make my promo fast paced and give a sense of rhythm to my game. The T-Rex 'Bang a Gong, Get it on' song is also fast paced with a upbeat rhythm but it is slower in pace and has a more retro 70s sound to it which would mimic my theme perfectly. I think that I'm going to go with the T-Rex song because of its retro-ness but its all dependent on how I can sync my promo to the beat if it if it doesn't work then I'm not worried about switching to the Noisettes song if I have to.