Craft in the Real World was the title of an exhibition and a series of talks that I was brought back to MassArt this fall to document. The speakers were from a wide range of disciplines- woodworkers, architects, theater directors, authors, and more. I was really lucky to be hired on to these events so I could also benefit from hearing these artists talk about craft, and how it plays into what they make.

In terms of motion design, this title sequence was made to fall in line with a series of other graphics already in play to promote the talks. I was given these flyers and brochures, and I could extrapolate the rules from there.

The first thing I noticed about these flyers was their density. While I knew I wanted to move my visuals away from being so text heavy, paying attention to the use of negative space was obviously important. The flyer also has text running both horizontally and vertically, and that was another tool I had when I translated to motion.

I decided early that I wouldn’t have any hard cuts in the piece, which I feel made sense for something so short and graphic. The rhythm of a spacious composition followed by a dense one, then returning to the emptier look came naturally out of the amount of information I had to convey. There was a draft where the second compositions information was spread across two different looks, but the titles started to feel gratuitous at that length, so I chose to pare down.

One of the trickiest aspects to decide about was the artwork itself. I knew I wanted to keep that footage in line with the brand using a duotone effect, but my drafts with full motion video were distracting and unfocused. I ended up pulling 6-8 frames from the videos I’d captured and setting them to loop at a low framerate. It allows the artworks to play on a more textural level in the composition, and they draw the eye away from the text less now.