So it ends. Resenting my lack of animation skills, my eventual homage does nothing to gratify the work of Alan Fletcher. A fine graphic designer as he was, with drive and ambition and a keen provocative to think in a different dimension, I feel this module led me to learn more about him then it did about animation and specifically ‘Motion’. Given more time, and a little more drive from myself i would have loved to have produced a short video homage rather than an animation. I just hope wherever Alan Fletcher is now, he cannot see my atrocious regurgitated production of his work.

It’s almost time for me to take Beware Wet Paint back to the library, so I had a good old look through all the pages. Alan Fletcher was one clever bugger I’ll give him that, I hope my homage is fitting!

Digital story board! I am in habita and don’t have a scanner to hand, but I have bullet pointed everything that needs doing and will now compile a list of materials. Stop motion is my choice, I’m convinced Alan Fletcher himself would have used traditional media and physical tools/materials opposed to motion. So…here be me, homaging him.

Beware wet paint! The book contains works by Alan Fletcher, I loaned the thing from the library and his designs vary so much I was very envious of the broadness of his ideas. Unlike a lot of painters I have studied who have a very set style because that makes them unique, Alan Fletcher was unique for exactly the opposite. I think the book would be good to reference in my homage, so perhaps as the cook cover uses dripping paint I could also use that in my stop motion…perhaps.

Storyboarding this homage animation has been quite the treat, I’m bullet pointing and sketching in the old sketcharoo book but also constructing a digital s.board in inDesign. I really want to do stop animation rather than anything in motion, although the 2 could very well be combined I’ll be honest, I’m not really there yet with animation software. It seems easier to use than Flash, and I’m sure I’ll be fine it’s just…I like doing things with my hands…touching me, touching you.

Alan Fletcher is my choice of designer for the animated film, he was a pioneer of Graphic Design in the UK (post war design as I KEEP reading) and the more I read about the fella the more I appreciate what he achieved and his outlook on life. Not to say he had huge and compelling arguments about the purpose or meaning of life, but that he thought he could never stop being a designer, no matter where he was or what he was doing, it was just him, so he saw life through the eyes of design. Surely that is what these days we call a ‘creative’, yes/no? But of course now creatives work 9-5 5 days a week like every other sod, are creatives becoming more closed minded? Or is the category becoming far too broad? Beyond that, should I care?