Evaluation - PPP

This module has helped me with a lot of different ideas and concepts over the course of the year. It helped me figure out what my weaknesses and strengths are, as well as how I work within groups. At the start of the year I had little or no idea about how to brand myself. All I had was a logo and a banner for my artists pen name. Over the course of the year however, I figured out how to start a brand for myself, and now I have an ident for my animations as well as my own logo and business card. Even though these might be very roughly laid out I still have them. Over the course of the summer I plan to update them and get them to be a bit more personalised and artistic.
I also made several websites as well. I started a personal twitter account because my teachers told me to, but now I'm thinking I might set up another just for my brand. I also started a vimeo account and uploaded all of my animations there. I had to upload one animation there anyway, since It was required for me to do that for a responsive brief. So I figured I might as well upload my other animations there as well. I also made a tumblr account for my animations as well and I haven't done anything with that yet, but I'm planning to upload my animations there over the course of the next few weeks. I made a Facebook page for my animations and embedded all of them onto there. Then i invited a bulk group of my friends list to like that page. I hope to update it periodically over the course of the summer, but I'm still not sure what I should put on there. Lastly I made a Linkedin account and invited a few people on there. I put in all of my information like my school info and other things. I also linked with my brother who is a front end programmer and a few other people. I think that next I'm going to make an Instagram account, but I really don't enjoy Instagram. Im probably just going to make it for my brand and update it with some concept work or something.
I feel like in terms of blogging I didn't keep up very well. I managed to put PPP in the back of my brain until the ending weeks of school because I had more pressing modules to get finished with. However I did manage to get all of my work done a day early which I'm proud of. I also never managed to get to go to a Convention or Showing for this module, but I'm hoping to get to go to one later this month and network there as well as see a few friends as well. I'll be updating my business card before then so I can give out one thats unique and designed well.
Overall I feel I've done well this module in terms of what I got done. I hope that next year I'll have the same amount of success.

MCM Expo - End of May - What I hope to get out of it

I made the mistake of not going to any Conventions or Award Shows/Film Festivals this year. All of the ones that I was planning to go to this year fell through. Since I wasn't able to go to any, Im going to write about an upcoming convention that I'm going to be going to instead. MCM expo is a London convention about Comics and comic culture. Along with vendors theres going to be multiple artist booths as well as other booths involved with comic and entertainment. I plan to go around the convention and find professionals who's works I admire within the comic world and "advertise" my services to them. One of the main people I'm going to be hoping to meet is Humon from the SATW comics. I've been following her work for a while now and I want to see whether or not I could animate one of her ideas for her. I think that this will be a good way to get out and show my personal brand and hopefully get people to notice me.

An Area of Practice

I have a lot of hopes and aspirations for my future as an animator. For the most part I want to go into 2D Digital animation as well as 3D animation. My reasons for this is that I value both forms of animation equally and I want to become a varied artist when I go into the job world. I want to be able to do as much as possible and I figure I should be able to if I have multiple talents. I think that next year I'm going to be doing 2-3 major animations, each with a varying style. I think that for one I'm going to be doing solely 2D, along with a sole 3D animation, and then a mix of both in another one. I hope to see where my final year can take me.

Brand Pt.6 - Tumblr

I've just created a new blog on my tumblr for my Personal Brand. It's still really new so I don't have much on it as of yet but I'm going to try and make it reflect my brand well and help get my name out there. Right now I have about 4 other personal blogs, and I'm not sure whether or not its good to have them connected to my brand account. Still, tumblr is a good place to share art and art inspiration so I'm sure that this move will help me in the long run.

Brand Pt.5 - Facebook

I've designed a Facebook Page for my Animation Brand. I decided to go ahead and do this since I noticed a lot of my other classmates were as well and it seems like a good idea. I still have some qualms with the identity of my personal brand. So far it seems a bit bland, and it doesn't describe me very well as a person. Over time I hope to evolve this and produce a brand that I can be very proud of. I'm not completely unsatisfied with how it looks right now though. Its simple, sure, but thats because It's a very new idea and I haven't had much time to mull it over in my head and come up with a perfect idea. But over time as I work on it I'm sure it will get better.
Heres the link:
https://www.facebook.com/YSAnimation

Brand Pt.4 - Vimeo

I've created a Vimeo page for my animation brand. So far I've uploaded a few of my animations to it, including my LoopDeLoop animation, since I have to submit it via Vimeo. I think vimeo is a great platform for artists. Youtube is fine, but there are so many people uploading to it you can get lost in an endless stream of content.
So far I've uploaded all the videos I can to my account. I've kept the ones that use copyrighted music private, along with some that are just test footage not ready for the public eye. Other than that I've adequately shown the body of work I have on this website.
Heres the link
https://vimeo.com/yuushirotaka

Brand Pt.3 - Linkedin

I've recently created a Linkedin Profile for my animation presence online. I figure this website won't help me become more known as an animator, rather it will help me network with some people inside the animation industry, and most people outside. I think the most help I will get out of my linked in profile is mostly going to be business men looking to hire an animator for some work relating to that. For my career I want to be more of an artist rather than a worker. Linkedin might help me with some odd jobs here and there, but I feel like for my career path I will be more likely to find notoriety for my animations elsewhere.
Heres the link:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gavin-rae-4a4813114?trk=hp-identity-name

Brand Pt.2 - CV

I have been asked to produce a CV for myself. I'm still not exactly sure what a CV is but the guides my instructors have given me have helped me understand it more. In america we don't call them CVs, we call them resumes and they're much less detailed than the ones I've seen on the guide. However I'm not sure whether or not thats because the guide is for a creative artists CV or whether its because thats just how they do things over here. Anyway, I'm going to be applying for a job in late June so I'm going to be working on a CV for that and hopefully it turns out alright.

Logo Pt.5 - Showreel Ident

I just finished an Ident using my logo and title for my brand. It's a 5 second long animated sequence in which my logo bounces onto screen and the animation. In my preference its a little lacking in personality, since its a very basic animation and the logo and titling is very stark. I might want to try something different, maybe add in a little bit of colour to it, or mask out the negative space within the logo and animate some colour into it. But for right now I would say that this is efficient and sufficient enough. What I actually enter into my showreel might look somewhat different to this, I hope, but this is a good starting position for what I'm going to make.

Brand Pt.1 - Visual Identity

For PPP I am supposed to create a Visual Identity for myself. So far in attempts of this I've created a logo design along with a business card design. The YS in my logo stands for Yuu Shirotaka, which is the meaning of my name translated into Japanese. I find that this is a nice sounding pen-name for myself so I've decided to use it just for that purpose. In addition to this I like the initials it uses as well, which is what I'm usually going to be highlighting as my "brand name", since the name can get a bit verbose as a Brand Title. YS is very short, and it helps encompass exactly what I want it to. The font I used for this is an edited version of Nordica, a free type off of Dafont. I like this font because of the style it has as well as the fact that I am also Nordic in ethnicity. I also used an edited version of the Aural type font for the Animations underneath. I like that since animation both has a visual and auditory part to them, that font using the word "Animation" sends the message across very well in my opinion.

Logo Pt.4 - Creating a Buisness Card

I've started work on making a Buisness Card for my Brand Design. I've made a few rough outlines of how I might want it to look. Im using my main logo and I'm adding some contact info. It's an interesting challenge making a business card. You have to get across as much as possible on a 3.5 inch by 2.5 inch  card. I'm thinking that if these designs don't pan out I might change it so that it has a bit more flair to it. I   have an idea where I could design it so that its a lenticular animated business card. I would put an 4-8 frame animation I've made to help advertise my skills along with the card. But until then this is sufficient enough.

Logo Pt.3 - Using Specific Fonts

Im going to be keeping in the theme of using specific fonts for my brand. I like both of the ones I found on Dafont, so I'm going to keep using them.
Ive started moving onto a more finished logo design, my classmates and teachers helped me find the one that looked the best.  My teacher told me that a good logo should fit into the shape of a square, so i'll be rolling with that and seeing where it takes me. Im going to be using Aural for the Sub Heading to my logo, to clarify the name or what I do.

Logo Pt.2 - Updating the Logo

So in the last post I noted how I had already half created a brand and logo, back in high school. But since it was spelled wrong I've decided to update it to make it look more professional and stylistic.

I put together a bunch of different basic typographical designs and put them in two different fonts. Im going to have some of my classmates help me shave down the good and bad ones until I find one to use for the final products. I'm using two free font types I found from Dafont, Aural and Nordica. 

Logo Pt.1 - My Brand

I've had this brand type for a while now. The last time I updated it was in high school when I was 17. It's pretty basic, I've got a type font I use and a colour scheme. The way I came up with the name was that I found out the meaning of my name translated into Japanese. It's Yuu Shirotaka. Before I thought it was Yubi Shirataka, which is why theres a spelling error. I'm thinking of updating my logo so that it reflects a more professional version of me.