Secret Weapons

The key to being exciting and unique with your creative ideas and the execution of them is to make them as uniquely ‘you’ as possible.  One technique to explore this (as it’s a nice pithy concept to say, but sometimes a more slippery beast to practice) is to explore your ’secret weapons’.

Your secret weapons are combinations of your skills or talents.  Each talent you have is shared by a pot of people globally (yeah, sorry, you’re not the best drawer in the world).  When you combine talents you’re suddenly in a pot that’s much smaller.  For example, the ‘I draw quite well’ pot is pretty large.  The ‘I animate my own drawings’ pot is smaller, the ‘I make flick books of my animated drawings’ pot smaller still.

Here’s another example.  I like to paint.  When I started having children the time I had available to me was limited and I was a little worried that painting would go out of the window.  Pretty much as a result of this and urged on by some work we were doing at the time with a graffiti artist Sickboy I started stencilling, mostly because it was quick to impliment (the painting bit at least).

When I started I was trudging along a boring line of two colour faces of Bruce Lee etc.. the sort of cheesy ‘loft art’ IKEA crap of iconic people.  Then I got quite into landscapes, doing a big commission of the (not completely unrecognisable probably) Leeds skyline.  I had a friend at the time who gave me a beautiful etching she’d done of some feathers, so when I got home I started making feather stencils, then spray painting my hands, which produced more interesting results.

But I was after something that other people wouldn’t be stencilling, so I looked towards my other skills.  3D graphics seemed like an interesting way to generate stencils and I’d been doing a bunch of stuff with greebles at the time; an extruded greebled landscape in monochrome kind of looks a bit like a skyscraper stuffed urban landscape with buildings on buildings in a sort of Sin City style.

 

Greeble painting

I’m not claiming the use of greebles to be totally unique in stencil art, but as a way of exploring a technique it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than Audrey Hepburn smoking a fag.

Why it’s called “multi”-media

As a multimedia designer or a digital creative it’s really important to embrace all the tools at your disposal.  Because a computer is basically a ‘virtual thing’ which can pretend to be anything else the potential of interactive design is almost unfathomably deep.  You make that experience rich by utilising the possibilities the computer offers.  Here’s the advice we just gave our new recruit at Swamp.

Make some connections

The screen has a time element, so think and work in 4D.  Use animation and video to engage with people and deliver more dynamic and clearer information.  You should be flitting between Flash, video editing and compositing software seamlessly and embracing animtion techniques from stop motion, to frame by frame animation using photoshop, tweening – whatever.

There’s speakers built into laptops.  Use them.  Whether it’s in tems of sound effects, music, speech or reinforcement for actions in an interface the importance of sound is often overlooked.  Great audio can carry simple visuals and turn the good into the magnificent.  You need to be comfortable using wave editing software and if you’re any way musically inclined get to know sequencers like cubase.

The ability to use 3D software like 3D Studio Max is like being given a bag of magic fairy dust.  You don’t have to spend a million years coding the latest Pixar blockbuster, use 3D as part of your bag of tricks and you’ll discover a quick and simple way to beautify your digital world.  And remember – it’s 3D ANIMATION software – think in 4D.

Get real.  Draw and scan, get your plastercine out, make pictures in nature and take photos.  It’s easy to sit at the computer and push pixels around, but your style will explode with life if you put life into it.  Get some inspiration from Andy Goldsworthy and go design your new interface using differnt coloured leaves.

You’re all about interactivity and connectivity.  You need to live and breathe this digital world you live in and think in terms of input, interactivity and how the internet connects people.  As form and function these are design tools for your digital products.

Code.  The more you can code and understand what code can do the more you’ll see possibilities and be creative with your approach.  Not your thing?  Go get a job in a print shop.  From actionscripting to css and javascript, it’s going to make you more powerful.  Never even dipped your toe in?  Go meet Webmonkey.

Words are powerful, they are your friends.  If you’re going to be a digital renaissance woman or man get jiggy with the words.  I recommend a course of Stephen Fry’s The Ode Less Travelled and a delve into Russian Typography.

Your a designer.  Digital designers often don’t get the focussed design training you get at design school, read this book for a start, Stephen Heller the graphic design reader.

Now you’re ready.  Go forth and make web stuff, games, cartoons, movies, mash up e-story map blogs – whatever.  Put yourself into it and put your heart into it and you’ll be GREAT!  (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed).  Oh, the places you’ll go.