What's The Difference Between Style Versus Design?

Throughout the normal day-to-day activities of a working artist (lots of drawing, lots of re-drawing that same drawing), a couple of words seem to come up quite a bit: Style, and Design. They both roughly describe What Something Looks Like, so it makes sense that artists would encounter these terms on a regular basis. So, what's the difference between the two? Can something have great style, while having not-so-great design? Good question, self. Let's talk about this further.

I'm going to hand this off to Webster for a minute. "Style" (the noun) can be defined as "a manner of doing something," or "a distinctive appearance." At the same time, "Design" (also the noun) can be defined as "a plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of [something] before it is built or made." So, there's already quite a bit to unpack there. Style seems to describe how something is done, whereas Design is what happens (or should happen) before something is done. Interesting. Thanks, Webster.

So, what does this mean in artistic terms? Say you want to make a drawing of a superhero, "Aardvark Man." You draw a rough sketch of an average looking chap, put him in a basic T-pose, create some Aardvark-looking head ware and accoutrements around him, and color him in shades of brown and beige. That's design. Why's this design? As artists, we need to know the blueprints to things early on, and that's what design is: A roadmap to success.

So, where does style come into play? Style is where we make things interesting. Right now we have a pretty generic looking guy with scraps of Aarvark-esque material draped over him. Not very inspiring. So, let's add some razzle-dazzle! Maybe turn his upper torso into a fun upside-down triangle, and make his head a trapezoid-y wedge shape (also fun). Have him skip leg day, and make the line strokes outlining him really thick on the convex parts and somewhat thinner on the concave parts. Make the shading be split between two or three values (no gradients!) BAM. Style.

Now, what's fun here, is that even if we hate this style, we can Re-Style him using the same design! So, still a normal-ish guy stuffed into a brown and beige flappy suit. But now he's tall and lanky, defined with scribbly, pointy lines, and has a very loose, bendy quality to all his extremities (by which I mean his arms and legs). We'll add lots of subtle, de-saturated color, and create dark inky shadows wherever appropriate. Very gloomy sort. But completely different style, even though the design is the same.

But, what if we liked the first style just fine (Captain Trapezoid-Wedge-Man) but DON'T like the design? No problem! We swap out the Aardvark cape and cowl for all sorts of powered-armor bells and whistles. So, we're talking chest plate, jet boots, big goofy shoulder pads, and a helmet that looks like an Aardvark, only one made out of legos. But wait, you say, this is totally different. And it is! At least the design is. But wait, you say again, can we still use that first style? (To recap: triangles, wedges, thick outlines). Absolutely! Only now, those style elements are describing all the different powered-armor accessories we just came up with during our redesign.

Basically, Design and Style is the different between Planning and Execution. You can get away with just Design, if things need to look more-or-less true to life, but that's usually pretty boring. Style is where the fun is truly to be had (and where things get memorable, which is important for probably 95% of you). But, design gives you your foundation: To answer the question posed at the beginning, if your character is poorly designed, that can cause you all sorts of problems later on, particularly with regards to animation. Your character can use the smoothest, most expressive line strokes possible, but if Captain Aardvark is also designed to wear a dazzling array of pouches, backpacks, three kinds of armor, and a fun umbrella hat.... Well, he's always going to look clunky and awkward, and no amount of style can save that. Unless you feel very strongly about umbrella hats.

Hope everyone is staying safe, and we'll see you next month!

What's The Difference Between Animation And Motion Graphics?

What is the difference between animation and motion graphics? And when do you use one versus the other? We had a project recently that helpfully illustrated some of these topics: The client wanted a series of videos that discussed various HR-related topics, but in a fun and universally-accessible way. They asked what the pipeline for character animation would look like, specifically an approach where "employees" of the "company" would interact and act out scenarios that would plausibly come up in an office context. They wanted estimate for both motion graphics and character animation, and we'd like to share with you this month some of the observations we made along the way.

Our estimate for character animation was in line with other similar proposals we've made in the past. We'd create shots and scenes of "employees" of the "company" acting out scenarios that would plausibly come up in an office context. To this end, we gave a breakdown of what this would all entail: storyboarding each shot (giving an idea of pacing and overall shot framing), asset design (for characters, backgrounds and props, such that they could be used in multiple scenes without reinventing the wheel each time), and appealing character animation that combines both the storytelling aspects, and the visual look-and-feel aspects. It was a very ambitious, colorful package. And ultimately, not one that worked with the client's deadline.

So, using the same script synopsis, we moved into a more motion graphics-eque direction. And once again, we created an outline of the overall visual look and feel, and how that would enhance the storytelling process. Notably, they helpfully provided a branding guide, where we identified specific colors and shapes that would appear again and again throughout the videos (to tie everything together in a logical fashion).

We briefly explored the idea of creating animations using their logo itself (ie, turning it into a "character" that would hop around like the carpet from Aladdin), but the client's branding guide nixed that idea. This is not uncommon, and the company's argument is generally that creating visuals that morph/stretch their logo in such a way can dilute their brand, and ultimately it is their call. So we moved on.

We created some interesting visual backgrounds and transition elements, and animated a few charts and graphs that would describe various statistics (I'm assuming all the math there was correct). However, this brought us right to another, inevitable challenge: The meat of the video itself.

Given the "lecture" nature of the videos, it made sense to include text and photos where appropriate to explain and support various topics, and the challenge anytime this happens is to present the text in such a way that it doesn't merely look like a powerpoint presentation (and no offense intended to powerpoint designers! Our point is merely that videos and powerpoints fill very different functions and it's generally a good idea to stick to each medium's respective strong points).

So, a challenge that arose throughout the project was sourcing photos, clips, and other media that the client would be comfortable using in these videos, and not repeating any of them, while also presenting all the information they needed, connected together with "abstract" animated visuals, and in a timely fashion. And, we had the usual challenges of finding the right voiceover artist and managing client feedback. And in the end, this proved to be the correct fit for the more corporate feel they were going for. It's a very different kind of energy than some of the wackier character animation we've done in the past (and still continue to do!), but it's important to realize that not all problems require the same solution. And this is never anything but a good thing.

Have a good March, and we will see you soon!