Background Visuals: Exploring Pattern & Light

Primary Research
Lighting Techniques at club nights

By going to events similar to Lost Spectrum and seeing how they use additional visual features to immerse the crowd, it became clear what visuals could best work in this environment. The colours seem to be consistent throughout of this distinct LED styled blue, pink/purple, green, yellow and red, and how they interact and the different vibes created as a result. Reds alone are definitely steered clear of and there seems to be a cool and warm coloured balance kept. UV is an interesting feature that is often associated with 'trippy' aesthetics. However as this will be screen based design, UV will not be applicable, although its effect can be replicated with keeping a black background and using digital fluorescent colours if well fitted (but as the brief states 'dark' maybe this should be avoided).

Lasers:



UV:

Both

Conclusions:

• vortex draws crowd in
• circular designs work well in a flowing sense
• stay clear of literal depictions - looks a bit tacky
• mix of colours is nice but stick to one for majority to keep simplicity

Exploring Pattern

I wanted to experiment this picture pattern however have concluded to stay away from actual depictions and focus on geometric pattern

Long exposure / linear light trails:

Colour Swatch: it is important to remember the design will be working with RGB colour only as this is design for screen

Diffraction

Light diffraction has a really interesting effect with layering and the idea of tracers, which is often associate with 'tripping' as light and movement is distorted with normal time reactors in the brain. As such, the effect of this depicted with the shapes could look really successful in adding short bursts of colour. This is best exemplified with the Pink Floyd's light prism and how a basic plain shape is taken and then colour is emitted from it. 

 

Tiling and Kaleidoscope are subsequent effects of light diffraction, which would be interesting to play with. Using light diffraction glasses I took these photos to imitate with light interesting patterning that can be achieved easily on After Effects. The results are really successful and clearly presents the colour spectrum. The orange compositions are particularly playful, and it bears resemblance to a DNA structure goes well with the idea of neuron connections and the visual literacy of that concept. 

 

Editing to explore complementary colours 
Through this process, the design in able to pick out what colours work best together, especially against a black background, which is essentially an inverted colour of printed design CMYK vs RGB). It is important to use software that allows the shapes to have an LED/ luminous effect as this is the generic aesthetic for nighttime. 

warm, fiery colours / original

Red and green

Orange and blue

Yellow and purple

Cooler secondary colours

Mirroring and subsequent pattern

Playing around with designs - putting pattern into geometric shapes

Taking sections and experimenting with pattern and details - how can it be digitally manipulated to stand out / blend? what shapes can be extracted? Looking at line and then adding colour - how can this geometric form be framed? Should it be a shape that is seen and appreciated and then distorted or should the distortions be within the shape (acting as the frame for design) - these are considerations that need to be tested and explored.

By putting the pattern into black and white /any monochrome one is able to see the detail and pattern clearer. Where and what individual shapes hide and the emotions it emits of feeling like jelly, how perfect order has been distorted, moulded and liquefied in some sense. 

Here I zoomed into the pattern experiments and subtracted a section, making it into a larger cube to focus on (here the shape becomes the frame for pattern rather than the shape creating the pattern itself). I wanted to play around with the cube to see how it can moved and interacted with. After Effects software offers a lot more quicker options, however it is important to look at rotation and re-sizing fist to gather the basic movement before adding extra effect layers.

Feedback and Reflection:

• Maybe have a shape and then distort that, as you said you wanted to keep it simplified, and the pattern is very busy
• Symmetry and scanning works really well
• Red and green works well together
• Try taking the crowd on a journey of a shape 
• As there will be a few videos of around 4 minutes each that will be able to loop on the night, they can be very dynamically different, so I think you should do one with cool colours and then one with warmer colours to balance
• Responsive: skyline/cityscape, neuron connections/DNA, mandala, sound responsive - 'dark' 'trippy' 'geometric' - tell these stories