A Motion Graphic Designer

From our class discussion on motion graphics, motion graphic designers use shapes, colors, and form. They usually use text or graphics to show motion in a video too. A motion graphic artist, animator, and illustrator, Andy Martin, is the one artist that fits this subject. He has done videos for the Beastie Boys, MTV, and many more. His newest creation is the “Little Old Men” which are simple drawings of animated men who are rivals in realistic scenery. Each one of his animations show a childlike personality with a hip hop beat. He has over five videos on his website. To give a brief history of a motion graphic designer, a motion graphic designer uses film or video through the use of animation of filmic techniques. A lot of the techniques are moving text, three-dimensional logos, web-based animations, or sequences spinning. We have been seeing these forms of motion graphics for years, but they have evolved extremely with graphics, typography, and visual effects. Some examples of motion graphic artist other than the one I am going to talk about in this blog are Saul Bass and Pablo Ferro. Besides from the brief history of motion graphics, Andy Martin’s video named “Dry Fish” is colorful and weird at the same time. The video shows a character similar to Mr. Pac Man popped into the foreground and starts to sing a song about how the environment he is in is weird and how uncomfortable he is in it. The background shows colorful rainbow colors with a panda, an alien spaceship, and a lot of gooey-like creatures popping in and out of the video. Then the video turns to night and makes the Pac Man like character even more uncomfortable and then the other characters disappear and he is at ease. I like this video because the colors, the simplicity, and the song incorporate all together to make it interesting to me and make me happy even though the character is uncomfortable. Andy Martin is a great artist in many fields of art. 


Website: http://www.andymartin.info/motion/index-motion.html

An Artist from Pictoplasma

In the twentieth century, many contemporary artists are striving to show off their work and prove to the massive audience that they are artists and they want the audience to like their work. Contemporary artists will show their work in any medium to catch the eye of one person. Some will use the traditional way of paper, canvas, and photos. Others will use the streets, walls, or toys. Martha Grazon, designer and digital artist, designed a world called Wicked Critters. She based the characters from her childhood and her daily life with art, travel, and film. Each character is designed with cuteness and a little evil behind their story. This artist interested me because she uses patterns in her designs to show the personality with each character. Martha has found a way to grab her audience with each character she has made by using these patterns and the thick eyes and curvy hair. Her art reminds me of some other art from Europe where they use cute characters to sell their products like Hello Kitty, Sanzo, etc. She is actually one of the contemporary artists that were in one of the Pictoplasma movies.  She gets inspired by other contemporary artist who designs characters that are cute and brings smiles to the audience with similar designs. Martha has designed so many different characters that she has produced t-shirts that related to the character on it and toys that will get collectors wanting more because of their cuteness. Overall, Martha Grazon is a unique artist with graphical skills to make so beautiful characters and make even me want some of her products!


Website:    http://wickedcritters.com

A Graphic Designer Relating to Typography

For many years, graphic design has been a big part of the economy. Artists are able to show their skill

through design and advertising. Now in the 20^th century graphic designers can show their skills as far as they can go through freelancing or advertising. In class we watched a movie about Milton Glaser who is a graphic designer that uses art in an advertising way. One person who was influenced by him and other graphic designers is Nelson Ponce. Nelson Ponce is an illustrator and graphic designer who lives in Havana, Cuba. He has done dozen of posters and has designed children’s books too. He also teaches children about art and design. Nelson and other artists designs murals to show art that they have done together as one called the Camaleon too. I was interested in his designs because the simplicity of his characters and the details in the whole design. In his posters, he shows a lot of what I have learned in graphic classes which is the typography incorporated with the graphics and the design itself with the concept. One of the poster that made him famous was the film Vampiros en La Habana. The poster just had yellow slated eyes and the mouth which was the title of the film. The first and the last letters of the film were the teeth of the vampire with a drip of blood on it. He uses a lot of different textures in his books with ink washes and sketchy characters. But I am very interested in his poster that showed a vampire sipping some blood in a cup with a straw. The design is simple and clean with an eye-blogging expression that makes it so cute. 


Website:http://www.havana-cultura.com/EN/design-architecture/nelson-ponce-sanchez/cuban-designer.html#/1922