I'm now going to be looking into apps that:

- Use interaction between the user
- Have a specific and useful purpose
- An app you would use again
- App layout/interface
- Usability (useful)
- Specific colours
- Brand associated

This is the official app for Captain Morgan.  In my opinion this app is very poor and does not promote Captain Morgan's rum in any way at all.  The app is a game you play with friends when drinking.  Its a dare game where you take orders from the captain and you have to do/perform what is says.  The whole point is that your at a pub or bar and you carry out the actions:  E.g Lean over the bar, pretend your drowning and yell to the barman 'throw me a lifejacket'.  Its pointless and has nothing to do with Captain Morgan just pirates and taking orders.  However I do like the style of the app and the textures used that are rough and dark.  This is because it resembles a pirate ship. 

This is the first screen when you open up the Captain Morgan app.  There are 3 buttons on this screen.  One in the centre and 2 above in the corners.  When I downloaded this app for research at first I thought it looked really interesting and well constructed but I didn't know what the app was about.  You simply tap the Give me an Order Captain button to start up the game.  There is a form of interaction here between the user.  As captain usually give orders and they involve you that way but there is no more interaction in terms of getting you involved so thats why I think this app is not very useful at all.  I can not see why anyone would want to use it either as there are lots of other dare games out there to do with drinking that would suit more and be better to use. 

Above here is what I explained as by Give me an Order Captain.  I figured this app was in use for when your out at a bar or pub as this one says 'Tell the bouncer'.  You tap the Start button to start the order and you then have a 2 minute time limit counting down in order for someone to complete the task.  As I've said I do not see the point in this app but I like the interface.  I think the dark looking colours reminds me of an old pirate ship using that texture and dolled down colours. 

Something I want to take away from this app is the scroll effect you have here to present some information.  I would like to incorporate a scroll of some sort into my app to fit my visual style as my art direction will be quite dull and musky.  

Here is another example of the Captain Morgan app.  As I've already said I like the visual style of using an old, worn scroll and I want to take this on board.

This app called Captain Morgan Cruises is an app that lets you explore the area in the carribean where Captain Morgan and his fleet fought.  It has actives to do in the area and is actually quite useful in my opinion.  The interface could be a lot stronger as the type in Captain Morgan is just plain white and has real meaning to it.  

The same goes for the Jeep safaris page.  It is fairly poorly represented but does do the job of handing out information.  It seems like no real care and attention was used in the making of this app due to its poor visual style.  Something I want to take away from this is that I would like mine to be strong visually so its easily recognisable and people come back to use it.

Above here is my main inspiration.  This is the official app for Pirates of the Caribbean game app.  You can tell that this app looks successful and this is due to a very strong style unlike the previous.  You can tell this app is a game through the top banner which has different elements such as energy, health etc.  I love the torn, tattered feel on the banner.  This gives a strong feel of pirate activity and treasure. 

There are 3 different icons here.  Gold coins, health and energy.  Each icon has the illusion that there is a dirty filter over the top to give the feel of being rough and works really well with the pirate theme.   

This game is vast and there are many features and opportunities to level up and progress through the game.  For me, this makes it exciting and maybe even addictive and some games get.  This is what I want in my app.  I want you to be able to progress and level up whilst earning rewards at the same time.  On this screenshot you can see there are a variety of cannons available as you level up in the game.

On this one we have ships tackle.

I decided that for my game app I would like to include features of being able to level up etc.  Keeping in mind we aren't actually making the app this would be at a basic level without properly functioning.  In this shot you can see it has aspects from the last app I looked at and some are different.  For example on the top we still have the health bar along with gems etc.  In other ways they are not alike for example the colour and style.  In this one it looks a lot more vague and from looking at it like this without playing it you may not know what it does.  The colours are very flat although there is an element of 3D in there.

In this screenshot you can see a similar graphic style to the pirates of the Caribbean app on a more basic level.  For example the scroll effect is basic with little crevasses and ware.  However I like the way this menu takes up the screen with different options on it and this is something to keep in mind for mine. 

I found that the Budweiser app is useful for mainly for one thing.  It is mainly most useful for interactivity between the app and the user.  Keeping them on their toes and interested is the key.  In this alcohol up you can scan your own Budweiser bottle and receive hidden content and videos.  I think this is an excellent and a very creative way to communicate with the user.  It brings Budweiser and the user together.

Here is the start up screen.  Apart from the scanning part, there isn't much you can do on this.  The other option you can see is look at Budweiser Man of the Match in football which for me is actually very useful.  Budweiser have also made a connection there considering their audience like football as they are a big sponsor.

In this app, you are able to select different ingredients to create your own cocktail.  Once you have selected a few you can then search for a cocktail nearest to what you have selected.  For example, in one I selected one including ice cream and all sorts of random things you wouldn't expect in a cocktail and a match came up.  This is also a good way to promote your brand.

The visual style in this Bulmers app is very clear and easy.  The mellow yellow gives the feeling of summer and that Bulmers can be enjoyed on a summers day.  Another important aspect is that they have shown all their flavours to promote the new ones with the original in the centre.

Again Bulmers are also using the interaction of being able to scan their products.  This is interesting because on this one you have to scan the drink matts.  This says something that you may only be able to use this function in a pub instead of being at home.  This is a good idea because anyone could just scan a bottle in the supermarket or left over/used bottles.

Ive taken some research into iPad apps to see how much they differ from the standard iPhone size.  What is most immediately obvious is there are far greater options in the iPad view apposed to the iPhone size.  What is available on the iPhone screen is the very limited basics such as a search bar etc.  After clicking any other options such as 'Whats Hot' you may be confronted with the screen above.

Although within this music app parts have changed, most apps look exactly the same on iPad and iPhone devices just on a larger scale.  However, I have this to think about in my own designs as I have to create one for both and think how they can change.

My chosen alcohol brand is Captain Morgans.  I have chosen Captain Morgans because it has a specific branded style that I could explore and exploit in my own way.  The colours they use to the history behind the brand is interesting and combining these I can come up with some good ideas.  

Henry Morgan was born in Wales and became well known for raiding Spanish settlements in the Caribbean.  

A lot of visuals can come from this to help me come up with my App idea.

Above this is Captain Morgan along with the type logo.  From this image you can tell by the way he is standing that he was proud of himself and made a name for himself.  I guess he was considered fairly important of that era.  Something I have noticed along with this is the colours.  There aren't many by any means but the main ones are red and black.  Judging by this these could be my main colours to use in my app too to keep it recognisable.  Putting all of this aside, I really like the style in which this has been created.  By this I mean the paint swash effect used on Captain Morgan.  It looks hand painted even though I bet its an all digital image.  

Here is the Captain Morgan logo.  It has a very strong visual style in my opinion and is a serif font.  The font has a sense of importance and fame.  The black letters really define the brand of being a rum company.  I really like how the 'C' and the 'M' of Captain Morgan over hang the baseline.  This gives an effect of almost being medieval.  In this particular font, each letter has a gold/yellow stroke around it to emphasis each letter individually.  I think that this stroke does not work that well compared to when It doesn't have a stroke around it.  

Above here is the 3 types of Rum Captain Morgan produce.  These are Original Spiced Gold, Spiced and dark rum.  The visual style is very strong & clear.  As there is such history behind the brand, I think they have tried to imitate this within their logo.  The colour of both spiced rums are complemented by the brand sticker, using subtle yellow and golds.  On all of the bottles Henry Morgan is present in the same way.  It gives the brand heritage.     

In this more modern design for Captain Morgan's, the image logo has been shrinked to about an 8th of the size.  The most eye catching element part of this sticker is by far 'Morgan's Spiced'.  This is because the text is central and remarkable larger than the word 'Captain'.  This is because the other parts may not be necessarily important at a first glance.  Either side of the 'Spiced' is a pirate's handle for a sword.  This almost 'presents' the word as if it's really special and it just genrally adds value to the brand.  This image has obviously been adjusted and smoothed off and added increased light to get a clean look and feel.  Although this is nothing to do with Captain Morgans.   

As in the picture a few images up, The dark rum label is considerably different from the Spiced Rum label.  I suppose they may represent different periods of time for Captain Morgan.  This label is very dark and almost menacing.  As the majority of the label is very dark, The Captain Morgan type has been lightened to white with a few black or gold strokes through it.  In the background there you can see clearly there is a pirates ship in the distance.  All of these things make the drink frightening to actually buy and drink if your new to it as this is how I felt before I tried it.  However now It's one of my favourite drinks.  The obvious focal point of the label is Captain Morgan himself.  This is helped by the two swords crossing over and when they do, this is where the image of Henry Morgan overlaps.  I think in some ways this label considering it's dark colours and general theme symbolises death and poverty.  I don't know weather this is true or not but I think maybe because of the obvious.  The fact that it's Dark rum.  The red type looks really good against the black background and makes it stand out.  For me, this resembles blood and anger of either Henry Morgan and his fleet.  And at the top the type of 'Captain Morgan' is in white.  This would not work in red as I feel this gives off a bad feel of the brand.  

Alcohol brands

I have been researching into different brands of alcohol but I'm only really interested in the ones I am already familiar with.  I have already decided also that I would like to decide on an alcohol drink that I like and also obviously familiar with.  This is good because I like lots of different types of alcohol.  I wanted to pick something that has meaning and history.  A drink that is famous and people know about, to grow in popularity as I think this is an important feature.

I want to cover:

Ciders
Beer/Lagers
Wine
Spirits

Cider - Bulmers, Carling cider, Kopparberg, Magners, Stella Artois cider, Strongbow.

Beer - Becks, Budweiser, Carling, Carlsberg, Cobra, Fosters, Fosters Gold, Kronenbourg, Stella, Tuborg, Desperados (tequila).

Wine - Rose, Pinot Grigio, Echo falls white zinfandel, Blossom hill Red, Prosecco

Spirits - Smirnoff Vodka, Gordans gin, Bacardi Rum, Disaronno, Malibu, Pimms, Jagermeister, Captain Morgans Rum, Jack Daniels Whisky.

I have narrows my alcohol choices to the above with a range of 6-10 in each category.  As I said above I would like to choose something with history and fame so I can base my idea around that.

Bulmers was first produced as it is today in 1949.
It comes in a variety of different flavours noticeable form the different colour schemes.
A total of 17 different apples are used to enhance Bulmers original cider.
The founder of Bulmers is called Mr Magner.

Kopparberg, founded and brewed in Sweden.
The worlds best selling pear-cider.
Kopparberg only use something called 'soft water' which has a low mineral content.  This allows natural tastes to come through unaltered.  

Assignment Brief:

AF201 Animation
AF202 Screen Based Design

Pitch Monday 25th November
Crit Monday 9th December
Final Submission: Wednesday 11th December 12pm

You will devise and design an app for iPad and iPhone which promotes an alcoholic drink brand of your choice.  Should be useful, informative or entertaining related to your chosen brand.

Develop a 15 second animation/motion graphics sequence which is a teaser/promo to get people to use it.

Things to think about:

Alcohol Brands
Advertising
Visual Research
Graphic style
Cultural focus
Brand identity
Music choice
Visual theme
App research
Storyboard
Animatic
Interface/interactive design
Usability
Content Research

You will look into alcohol brans and advertising, and undertake broader visual research, which enables you to design a graphic style for use in the animation/motion graphics and app with a cultural focus and set of values suitable to your brand.  You will use the imagery you devise to create interesting and imaginative visuals that bring the branded identity to life.  You will choose a piece of music to work with for your animation/motion graphic sequence which corresponds to the visual theme which you can animate your piece to, and produce storyboards and an animatic which plans your sequence.  You will use After Effects to produce the finished piece.

You will research a range of apps for iPad and iPhone, and devise ideas for your app.  You will research interface/interactive design for iPad and iPhone (including usability and gestures) and design your interactivity according to these findings.  You will plan the content of your app and produce relevant design planning document (including flow diagrams, wireframes, mock-ups).  You will also undertake technical research related to design for iPad and iPhone (including resolution/pixel dimension issues).

The final outcome for this assignment is an animated demonstration of your app which you could pitch to your client, nota fully functioning app running on the iPad and iPhone.  This prototype must feature an animated demonstration of the app mocked-up into an iPad and iPhone graphic shell.  You will crit your work in class on Monday 9th December.

As part of the process of designing this animation and app, you will pitch ideas and work in progress to the group and your tutors for feedback.  You will prepare a presentation in which you show your visual, content and technical research (to help you justify your design solutions), storyboards and animatic (using your choice of music), plans for interactivity (such as wireframes and flow disgrams), mock-ups of artwork and app interface and content.  Any work you have in development can be shown also in this pitch, which will take place in the class on Monday 25th November.

Evaluation

After finishing my animation I can now evaluate and decide what went well and what I could of done to do better.  I started my research by looking into what makes an animation what it is by using different techniques and a variety of them.  One of my main thoughts when I received the brief was Tom & Jerry.  After looking into animation techniques and then watching some Tom&Jerry i then realised how many were used to emphasis the basics.  These can be extreme exaggeration, push & pull technique and stretch.  I looked into different animations with different art styles to gain what I thought would suit mine best.  At this point I had a rough idea of what I wanted to do and I thought instantly simplicity was the way to go.  As i've always said, simplicity seems to give the strongest powerful affect.  After re-searching I was for sure that I wanted to use stencil like style using block colours but as I got carried away in Illustrator I realised that, that wasn't the case when I made my detailed plane.  I really liked this plane and I didn't want to scrap it.  I then made everything else fairly simple and stuck to my art style.  I made a few tweaks to my design by not adding the 400ppm in as I thought this was too lecturing and the brief stated not to do this so I left it out and added my slogan at the end 'Cut your Carbon habit'.  I created my 3D globe in Illustrator which then I found out that there was a much simpler way to do this in After effects itself by importing a flat map and using the 'CC Sphere' effect on it.  My design varies around my storyboard as I said I did remove parts and add bits in but I think this is normal as you don't know whats best until it is made.  The successful points of my work I feel is the visual language and art style.  I really like how everything fits together and to me, nothing seems out of place.  My music choice may could have been better although I think it drives the animation to what It's set out to achieve which is persuasion of amount of Co2 that is being produced.  I feel my art work is to a good standard and none of this feels particularly 'rough & ready' and represents my visual language well.  Although there are other things I could of improved on.  I think mine may have been just a bit too basic despite saying simplicity was the way forward but maybe a cut to a different scene without my globe with different types of transport could have mixed it up a bit and change the viewers perspective.  I did find this project hard as this is a new piece of software After Effects like it is to many and I found that I did not grasp everything as quickly as I would of liked it to and I think this does show in my work.  I feel I didn't get enough tutorial time on After Effects but in some ways I think its best to learn yourself.  If i was to do this project again I would allow more time for the building process in After Effects only because I struggled but I soon got the basics of this.  I would perhaps choose a different area of Co2 emissions to focus on such as food or life style consumption.  Overall I feel the project was successful and I am pleased with what I achieved not only in my final outcome but the learning new things with new software too.

My colour choice is very basic as I said I want to be keeping it all very simple.  I wanted to keep it to primary and secondary colours.  And since I have been creating all of my work on illustrated and AfterAffects I have used Illustrator to help me.  Under the 'Swatches' panel you can choose which different type of colours you would like such as Landscape, kids, fun etc to get the colours you like. I did this and used landscape as I wanted my fairly organic and original.

These main colours I have used are;

Green
Blue
Red
Black
White
Yellow

Another decision I had to come over was my typograhpy choice.  I wanted something that would be strong and powerful but not going over the top.

My choices were as follows;

Below here is a font choice.  This one is a font that everyone knows called 'Impact'.  Its really cliche but I think it fits.  Its eye catching and bold to emphasis the the point I'm trying to make about stop using transport and to start to walk or take a bike.  

 

I choose this font as a possibility as the hand written affect made an impact in the way its telling you to do something.  Its the same when you are reading texts when some of it is written in italics.  In some ways I think this font would not work because its too fancy for my art style as I wanted a simple animation that would turn out to be very affective.

Below here is the chosen font.  I choose this because its powerful and I think it means something.  Its not too fancy like the previous and it gets the point across so easily without having to read it for a long time.  Also in my animation I have added a nice effect called 'Shine'.  Shine lets you illuminate any part of the text of your choice under all of the in-depth settings such as centre points and markers.  I have decided to add my text at the end and not in to the middle as I thought it would make more scenes and be more powerful.  I added that shine affect which illuminated different letters at different points to emphasis the message even more.

I researched into different types of music that had a calm feeling about it.  Most people have chosen music that builds up into an emotional point of their animation to emphasis the seriousness of the pollution.  In my pitch I listed different artists that I was interested in that I thought the music would suit.  These were Coldplay, Smash Mouth and Yael Naim.  I found that all of these represented some level of emotion without being too sad.

The Coldplay songs were Clocks, Viva la Vida.  I found that these songs were organic and could be used along side something like getting people to be persuaded.  Persuasion was one of my main things I wanted to focus on as this was part of the brief to persuade without being lecturing and these seemed to fit it perfectly.

I played around these choices of music and added them to my animatic to see which fit best.  I had a problem though, I had to decide weather to use an instrumental or an actual song with lyrics too.  I really wanted to use lyrics in my song choice as I do not have any other sound affects or voice overs.

After concluding these I landed on New Soul by Yael Naim.  Part of the lyrics I thought suited the animation and really gave a strong feeling to it.

These are some of the lyrics;

'I'm a new soul,
I came to this strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit about how to give and take'

After doing Crit I received some positive and negative feedback.

My positive feedback was people seemed to find I had a strong visual language which is good because I aimed for this so it can be recognisable.  Also people liked the fact that different types of transport were revolving around the earth showing how Co2 affects out atmosphere and what we can do to change it by using bikes and walking etc.  This is a good point as the brief says it should not be too lecturing but give the message that we need to stop now.

Improvement comments that I received were that my Co2 fog should be placed behind the earth.  I haven't decided to do this as I thought it looked more obvious that the cloud represented Co2 as it looked hidden otherwise.

Overall I have taken on board the comments but mainly were positive so I just kept in mind what ideas I had and continued with it.