Caslon: Animation

C Mini | Fall 2021 | Project 4

9.30 — Type & Motion

some aftereffects notes

10.1 — Searching for Music

I looked on a few “royalty-free music libraries,” but didn’t find much. Here are some of the searches I made on spotify:

Things I’m learning

• Movie soundtracks: I looked up the soundtracks to a lot of periodic pieces such as Little Women, Les Miserables, Jane Eyre, Anne with an E, Pride and Prejudice, Bridgerton, and Downton Abbey.
• I found so many fun kpop instrumentals that I felt like would be perfect for a typeface animation… just not for Caslon. They were… too fun for a quiet and classic typeface like Caslon.
• But in listening to those, I realized that instrumentals to songs with lyrics often felt more story-telling-animation-appropriate (at least for this context) than just classical songs or movie background music. So, I got inspired and this led me to the Greatest Showman soundtrack.

IT WAS PERFECT. I’ll have to cut and adjust to get the timing right and pick out the parts I’ll really need, but I really loved the piece and felt that it was so right for Caslon and the story I want to tell. It’s the exact story I want to tell: of a boy who grows up with humble beginnings but goes on to do great things, of dreams coming to life and changing peoples’ lives everywhere.

Script — First Draft

1712, London.

a young apprentice engraver spends his days chipping away metal

engraving letterforms onto guns, locks, stamps:

making his mark on his townspeoples’ most treasured possessions with painstaking intricacy.

His name is William Caslon, and he’ll soon go on to make his mark on printed manuscripts worldwide.

In 1722, he’s commissioned by british printers to create a font for the new testament,

and Caslon is born.

short x- heights

bracketed serifs

moderate contrast

that make it the perfect typeface for print.

the typeface that:

swept a nation, covering nearly every printed book in England between 1720 and 1780

and then travelled overseas to define the birth of another. (declaration of independence)

the typeface that tells the story of

tragedy, love, childhood, hope, redemption — humanity.(les mis)

Caslon.

a typeface for the people.

The general order/storyline I wanted my video to follow was:

• a building up/introduction, almost like a montage scene of William Caslon as a young boy going about his daily apprentice engraver duties
• transition to HOW CASLON IS BORN!
• characteristics of Caslon
• … which make it perfect for PRINTING!
• Dramatic part: the history/impact of Caslon, the typeface that “”, “”, “”!
• Caslon.
• a typeface for the people.

After making a few slides and cutting my music, I realized I needed to cut down significantly on my script.

10.3 — Thumbnail Sketches and First Draft

Illustrator artboards

Some Feedback on the iMovie Draft (Vicki, Yoshi, Andrew):

• Alignment should be more consistent, don’t ask viewer’s eyes to move around too much
• “Soon” slide drags on for too long
• Familiar music is risky because it might be distracting, but this feels appropriate and fitting for the theatrical theme
• Pink is interesting as a highlight color but may be too “bubble-gummy” in larger quantities
• Need more thought for how to incorporate the images: if the rest of my video is purely illustrator assets and vector shapes, I’ll need to find a more consistent/less out-standing way to incorporate them
• Sharper cuts and transitions! Try to have less words on the screen at one time
• Move the viewers’ eyes through the video, don’t make them jump from place to place!

10.12 — Work Session and Feedback

Advice from Vicki:

• Grayscale images and put them over the same color vector to better incorporate them into my video
• Narrative arc and consistent theme of flat vectors/flags/imagery using appropriate color interpretations are nice! Keep going:)

Final Video

I don’t know if all my transitions are the most ground-breaking use of aftereffects ever — I mostly stuck to simple movements and solutions: but with that, I’m called back to what Vicki said at the beginning of our introduction to this project: sometimes, the simplest solutions are the most effective. Above all, I really just wanted to tell a compelling story, which I do believe I was able to achieve within the short 66 second time frame. I’m slowly but surely continuing to get over my fear of after effects and motion design, I’ve learned how to build up a narrative arc with consistent imagery across a screen, and realized further that I enjoy telling compelling stories about the real, ordinary things of real, ordinary people. A typeface for the people indeed:)