Study Task 4: Choosing a Research Question

My question is going to explore the topic, Aesthetics of character design and technique used to convey a characters personality traits. With research, I will be able to find solutions to my question that will be testable in order to define the result.

The process I would like to undertake will allow me to focus on finding out how personality traits work and how they are given to characters, I'm sure there are books on semiotics that specifically talk about personality traits in stories. Once I find information about personality traits I will depict the semiotics and try to explain how they work within a story.

books I can look into are:

Richard Williams (2009) 'The Animator's Survival Kit'

Propp, Y.V. and Scott, L. (1968) Morphology of the folk tale. Edited by Louis A. Wagner. 2nd edn. 

Su, Haitao, and Vincent Zhao. (2011) Alive Character Design. 1st ed.

Crossley, Kevin. Character Design From The Ground Up. 1st ed. Ilex Press, 2014. Print.

Thomas, Frank, Ollie Johnston, and Frank Thomas. The Illusion Of Life. 1st ed. New York: Hyperion, 1995. Print.

An animation I will be looking into is "Kimi no nawa"(your name) as it is a great example for personality traits studies.

Shinkai, Makoto. Your Name. Japan: CoMix Wave Films, 2016. film.

Since this film is about body swapping we can see how each character reacts in the other's body and how they have to interact with the others life.

Society

Reymond Williams book on Society explores and states about how society should work "Made by the people for the people" explains that we as a society should come together to make things by us for the people, in that sense we (general public) don't really follow this as much because of how the world works. We live in a society that has massive companies that want to just provide for the people and gain money for their services.

First thing's first manifesto quotes "life is unfair but can be changed by creatives, allowing people to work together and equally" this would be lovely in a creatives view, but the change is difficult to do from my understanding as creatives don't get as many options as an academic.

Being unique and working for themselves, does not work in society, rather working on our strengths with others provides a better result, which is why the industry is starting to incorporate more creatives to work with academic people.

Cultural relativism is important in society, defined as people choosing what's right from what their values are. but who is to say whose right or wrong. Basically, think about it in a way that puts you in the other person shoes. is it right for them?

these judgements are based on moral aspects, and treat yourself and others the same, using people is an act that breaks the moral code.

interesting concepts i learns in this lecture. a formed opinion would be "treat others the way you would like to be treated" 

politics

Garland, first things first manifesto mentions "stop wasting talent" as its important in life within our own practice and in the industry. The industry has always needed creatives to help imagine most products, for example, a car company called BMW or even a clothes company called Nike have logos that have been designed by a creative in a way to be recognised instantly.

Adbusters invented Culture jamming, and are a capitalist company that follow a pattern of jobs, that has been trapped in the system. it's a consumer against itself using memes. We become part of the problem which stops everyone looking at the real problems of the design. which I never really noticed.

Victor Papanek, stated that designers have talent, that should not be wasted, and those companies use a system that was designed to make consumers keep buying the products. one example is having a tv that stops working after a certain amount of years which is done by having the chip's inside fry, leaving the buyer no choice but to get a new TV.

"Doing you art to the best of your abilities" is what William Morris stated, making craft can be used as a political weapon. he also mentions how awful the system is where the producer does not care about the product and that its only for the profit. No love for the craft becomes a pointless object.

Globalisation spread the system of sharing and being equal amongst everyone which was to make everything progress better, one Organisation that spread this was the Bauhaus as it had a system that made everything fair and equal in its own way. they thought on a human level, A situation to explain this is a Police officer and a miner are not alike, but both are trying to get on with their life's trying to make a living.