Thursday, 28 May 2009

Prizes for Library of Babel Competition

There were some truly excellent pieces of work in this year’s submission for the Communications Course. And I’m hoping to have an exhibition of the best stuff next year. In the mean time I’ve taken some of the best overall examples, mostly from the final exercise and awarded prizes by category. There are of course no actual prizes apart from the overall winner who’s work will be published in my book “The Architecture of Information” which will be published by routledge in Spring 2011.

OVERALL WINNER FOR BOOK ILLUSTRATION: James Britton
This one was a very difficult choice and, in the end I chose 4 finalists, of which James was the outright winner with this spectacular view of his highly detailed and carefully through out Sketch up Model with very subtle photoshop work. It will work well in print and I can’t think of a better start to the book:

RUNNERS UP FOR BOOK ILLUSTRATION:

Paul Wood (special mention for understanding the computer as a medium and not just a tool).

Sorry Paul I know you were gunning to win this and it was good but not quite what I wanted for the book in the end. This work was however among the most sophisticated I saw using very advanced modelling methods in SketchUp and attempting algorithmic design. The presentation was also peerless with very simple but highly effective layouts and complete descriptions of all the tools and methods used.



Olga Gogoleva (special mention for most illustrative illustration with reference to the story)
This was a real contender and wouldn’t be out of place as a children’s book illustration. A successful attempt to render light and shadows really made this stand out and was a favourite among my colleagues.
Kevin Vong (special mention for best overall photoshop work)
These images would have been certain for the book illustration if I had been able to print in colour, unfortunately they worked less well in black and white. However, this was the best Photoshop work I saw . Subtle but actually quite complex in terms of the number of layers involved and the neon glow of the strip lights mean that this could come straight from an Anime version of the Library of Babel.



OTHER PRIZES
BEST OVERALL DOCUMENT + BEST AUTOCAD: Robert J. Arthur

This document represents a phenomenal amount of work, care and attention to detail throughout. The AutoCAD work was the best example I looked at and the SketchUp model was carefully thought out and made excellent use of highly modified objects from Google Warehouse. Rob set the benchmark with this work.


BEST USE OF TRANSPARENCY AND LIGHT: Simon Brook
Many people attempted this style of transparency and light but few accomplished it on this level. There are approx 20 layers in each of these deceptively simple images all of them with different levels of transparency blur, subtle gradients and filters. It takes real care and experimentation to do this:



BEST INFO GRAPHIC: Robert Gibbs
Perhaps because of the gothic and atmospheric edge to the short story very few people attempted the info graphic approach we discussed at the beginning of the Photoshop Workshop. Robert did use this style, however, to very good effect. This is an excellent model for how to use SketchUp models as part of a final presentation and wouldn’t be out of place in a 6th year portfolio exam. There is nothing technically difficult here it’s just well thought through.





MOST APOCALYPTIC: Tom Farmer
Toms presentation was undoubtedly designed to give me nightmares with scenes that could have come from the classic SciFi films Lawnmower Man or TRON and whilst graphic flair sometimes got in the way of communication I couldn’t help but admire the consistency of presentation and Toms ability to Mix media types seamlessly.

BEST USE OF LENS FLARE: Gabriella Smith

Gabriella produced one of the most graphically sophisticated Photoshop documents and if Architecture doesn’t work out then graphic design certainly will. If there is ever a new novelisation of the Library of Babel this would be its cover.


THE MOST LIKELY TO APPEAR IN MONTY PYTHON: Jake Winter
Some people tried to go surreal with varying degrees of success but these hit the mark. Again this is all about attention to detail using colours bright colours deliberately and subtly. Terry Gilliam would be proud.