Armed with some gloves, thermal socks, and just a pen and pad of paper to my name, I hit the streets of Sheffield and started asking the residents of the city if they'd mind writing me the word "ALIGHT". It could either be in normal handwriting, or in a creative funky way. Either way, the people of Sheffield would be represented by their personality and style, ideal for my montage theme.
The idea was to get as many different forms of writing and text and visual aid in order animate a little title sequence, possibly for use in the background of my animated montage in a fly by section perhaps. Plus, it would help spread the word of the event, and inform those who might not even be aware of the great things happening next year.
Some people were cool, some were for want of a better word, total dicks, but all in all it was an interesting experiment to say the least! In the 2 hours I was out there, I managed to get over 20 handwritten samples. A far cry from the 500 I would have loved, but that's the point of these experiments I suppose, as what ideas you have in your head might not work in a practical sense.
The actual writing down of the word didn't take long at all, most of the time was spent telling people about the event, as obviously they were curious about what I was asking of them. Another hurdle was getting people to actually stop, I think many thought I was trying to sell them something, haha!
But for the ones that did, I was truly thankful for, and glad I went out there and did my little test! I think I got what I was after, and might even do it again with another idea if I do chose to go with the animated montage piece.
The collected signatures are as follows...
One things for sure, the folks of Sheffield aren't the most creative of folk are they... haha! Just messing, they did great I think, and looked forward to assembling them as one. There were a few more, but some couldn't be used as they didn't scan too well, but I still got enough down to make a little animation just to get them up and running...
Like I said, I would probably use the sequence as a fly by animation in the background of my montage, but for now I'm just glad I got out there and gave this crowdsourcing a go for myself!
It's a nice feeling knowing that every little piece is from a bigger puzzle, and it would be my task to arrange it all. I think part of being a designer is having control over your projects, but such an understated beauty can come from relinquishing that control, and handing over the reigns to others. Unexpected results inevitably follow, and ideas can come from places you never even considered.
This is also effective in the sense that as a designer, it's all too easy to lose that creative spark, or start lacking ideas and become repetitive. The great thing about this exercise is that there's never a dull idea, and while a title might look similar to another for example, knowing that they're from totally different sources gives a project that vital freshness it might lack if only handled by one single designer.
No comments:
Post a Comment