Project 1 / Happy Maker

I started out this project thinking happy thoughts, and then found a question: "wouldn't it be nice if there was a machine that could heal broken hearts and make everyone happy?" I started out with a collage of stereotypical happy thoughts: cupcakes, rainbows, ice cream, hearts, a smile, and even a pony. I delved extensively into animating the cupcakes to orbit each other and trying to make the pony walk, which was a challenge. This led to symbolic examples of what this "machine" would do.
The machine shows its purpose, then proudly presents itself along with a holiday greeting. The colors and energetic, flickering transitions all lend to the tone I was trying to create.

Project 2 / LINES ARE MEANING

Language, a crucial part of our existence and the backbone of our civilization, is nothing but a set of symbols, made up of basic visual and verbal elements. In this animation, I look at the "phonemes" of letter forms, and how they combine to form letters, which form words, which form ideas (or at least the symbols of them). Language is not a simple idea, but it becomes second nature before we start to retain memories. Simplicity was key for this animation.

Project 3 / Birdie

Sounds don't have to always agree exactly with the visual. What happens when we mix clashing with possible relationships? Humor is said to be largely derived from contrast and inconsistencies, and making a little hand drawn bird sound like a lion turned out to be pretty funny. The bird meets a tragic end, but the hand drawn cartoon was an interesting new craft to attempt. As was the search for perfect music and foley art.

Project 4 / I'M SO READY

In this project, I wanted to examine what happens when you clash a sentence you're used to thinking, saying, and hearing, and present it in a more confrontational way. We hear sentences in clumps, so what happens when you isolate the elements of that sentence. How quickly can we read words? How does it change the way we perceive them if we're forced to read them quickly? It's a very different experience to set your own pace of reading than to have one forced through time based media.
A lot of us get frustrated with time constraints and sleep deprivation near the end of the semester, so this was also a way of making a therapeutic expression of that.

Final Project / Type is Everywhere

Typography and architecture are closely related; both are angular, structural, and elemental. Type is seen by many graphic designers as a group of objects in space, and this has become a very effective way to work for many well-known designers and type-based artists. In this project, I tried to relate type in a more literal way to environmental surroundings; softness in the sky and clouds, type in space around objects in space, and the shimmering of the alphabet next to the shimmering reflection of an office building. Rather than describing an environment in words, I try to create an environment with letters.