4Mations Evaluation

The 4Mations brief can be split down into four clear parts.

Firstly I was asked to examine and collect visual imagery relating to existing channel 4 brands and evaluate the logo's websites and animations as well as evaluating five sting animations. Following on from this I developed a range of ideas and concepts in sketchbooks around the design of a 4Mations logo to be used in a short sting animation, a preload buffer, a flat website homepage template and also a web banner advert. These concepts were then developed further by using photoshop, illustrator, and Adobe flash and finally I presented them as finished pieces mounted as well as submitting a disk containing the final web banner and all of the design assets involved.

The logo was to be utilised throughout all of the final pieces and I learned that the logo needed to be versatile in that it had to work not only as a flat logo for use on the web page, but also needed to be animated for use in the banner and animations. I feel that on the whole my logo sat well alongside the channel four brand and had several different possibilities towards the treatment I could give it in order to reflect the 4Mations brand. However reflecting on the brief I feel it could have been improved through adding a level of three dimensions as it was limited as to how it could be animated from a flat perspective, therefore if I was to approach the concept again I would also look at working with more consideration to the animation side of the logo and how it could work more when being animated.

The web banner focused on the logo being created by being sketched out during the animation and I felt that this concept could have maybe been explored in a variety of different ways according to where the banner could be used and as a concept was a good starting point from which the sting animation as well as the preload buffer could be based. I feel that although I was pleased with the final banner it only worked as a flat animation and that if I had explored some of the other initial concepts further I could maybe have given the final piece more depth rather than using a more vector based approach. Also as I had not animated using Flash before I found that I underestimated the time needed to complete the web banner and I could have allowed maybe a bit longer for completion.

Both storyboards for the sting animation and the preload buffer followed along the same style as the web banner. I think that I could have also considered broadening the style in which these aspects were carried out in order to show the range of concepts I originally had throughout the development stage in order to show the versatility of the original concept as well as showing that the logo could receive a different variety of treatments i.e. photographic elements or three dimensional elements or even more traditional forms of animation like stop-frame and I feel if I had worked to more structure as far as allowing myself better allocated time for each aspect of the brief I would have been in a better position to have achieved this.