Dieter Rams Video
Design Hero Part III
Script
Combining a two of his interviews, I decided on the following script.
“I hate words ending in “ism”s. “Functionalism”… it’s terrible. “Nationalism” is terrible. A lot of words ending in “ism”s… But functionality — it’s important.”
In case of color I was very careful. Sometimes, small important things I have a yellow push button, which tells you something. The yellow color makes the whole thing more colorful. But I had some products that I was willing to accept colors. I liked it in some cases, but it had to fit the product. A kitchen machine, which you use every day in your kitchen cannot stay in a color, in a dark color. The push buttons on it, yes. But not the whole thing. It’s too dominating. And design should not dominate things, and not dominate people. Should help people, that’s what’s important.
We have enough things.We can improve some things, but not spectacularly. To improve a television, or a computer, to make it more self-explanatory. To make it more usable. It’s always an important thing, but it’s not a spectacular thing. And maybe we have to learn a little bit, that the spectacular things aren’t the important things. The un-spectacular things are the important things, especially in the future.”
After cutting it down to 1:25s, this is my script:
“I hate words ending in “ism”s. “Functionalism”… it’s terrible. “Nationalism” is terrible. A lot of words ending in “ism”s… But functionality — it’s important.”
In case of color I was very careful. Sometimes, small important things I have a yellow push button, which tells you something. The yellow color makes the whole thing more colorful. But I had some products that I was willing to accept colors. I liked it in some cases, but it had to fit the product. A kitchen machine, which you use every day in your kitchen cannot stay in a color, in a dark color. The push buttons on it, yes. But not the whole thing. It’s too dominating. And design should not dominate things, and not dominate people. Should help people, that’s what’s important.”
Music
“Borough” by Blue Dot Sessions
For music, I chose something aerial, “celeste”, and a little playful to fit with his unobtrusive approach and the humor in his speech.
Storyboard
Because of Rams’ accents and the way he talks, it is a bit hard for people to understand him through audio alone. So I need to use typography and visuals in a way to help people understand the essence of what he’s saying. I decided against using subtitles throughout the whole thing because I don’t need every word to be understood, as long as people can get the gist of it.
This is my initial storyboard based on my initial script.
Still-frames
Translating my storyboard into high fidelity frames in Illustrator. It’s interesting that some people like to animate their low-fidelity storyboards to get a sense of the motions, transitions, pacing etc. But for me, I like to determine the visuals first, what the style will be and whether it’s consistent throughout, and worry about the animation later.
For this initial run, I don’t think my still-frames are visually consistent throughout, because I’m using a lot of different visual elements (photo, vector drawings, type). And overall it feels a bit like a slide show.
Feedback from class:
- the title scene (Dieter Rams) feels unsophisticated, like a book report. Maybe don’t need to show his photo at all?
- let the products shine. Product designs in environment?
- reference my booklet (in terms of integrating text with images, type treatment etc.)
- tell a story. What’s the theme?
- vector illustrations don’t really work
- try a more neutral palette so that bright colors really pop when they appear
Still-frames II
I tried animating the first sequence (I hate words ending with “ism”s) in After Effects, but it really didn’t work out well. Since it’s mainly typographical, it’s also hard to integrate with later on the photo/text approach. Also, the rest made a lot of sense on its own (without needing the first section), so I cut it out. Now I only have to animate 1 minute.
I took a lot of inspiration from Braun catalogs:
I like the way they use photography and text together, the way they use white space, and how they juxtapose color with b&w. Some of these ended up in my scenes.
Animatic:
I still need to fix some pacing issues where there are weird pauses, by adding in one or two scenes. But overall I’m happier with this than the last one.
Issues to be addressed:
- Consistency of style (visual elements, motion effects): ex. the yellow circle should have consistent text within. The motion for photos within grid should have same effect
- Animation: think through multiple possible ways of animating a scene. How to make it the most engaging?
- Process: Animating it from start to finish? Or just do the “hero scenes” first then fill in others later?
Inspiration for text animation and photo integration:
Animation
Adjusting speed graphs in After Effects is very helpful in characterizing the motions. My music has a lot of string-plucking sounds, which corresponds to a motion that goes really fast then slows down. So my speed graph would look something like this:
Another thing I learned is that even if a transition is rough (circle to square, scene cuts etc.), if it is done at the peak of the curve, it would feel smooth.
Some inspiration for shape animation:
Iteration
Final
Reflection
I think I got a lot better at animation in this project, primarily through messing around with the speed graph a lot. After Effects is much less scary now. As with my previous projects this semester, I’m learning to overcome my tendency to put too little information for fear of crowding the scene. I was able to achieve a more playful tone in this video than in my booklet or mobile experience while maintaining a cohesive style, which I’m happy about.
