Cyber Arts: Tech - ISU Artist's Statement

Throughout my life, I've always and never will stop enjoying the thrill of playing video games. I knew since I was a kid that I had to get into something to do with them in my future. I took this ISU project and I simu you're opposed with opportunities to steal many riches?lated a future in designing video game covers, or creating trailers for them. This project was much more fun than it was raw work, however it was still a lot of time devoted especially into the trailers.

Pathway is what the game is called. The decisions you make throughout this game determines what your rewards and consequences are. Having a "faction" helps you in certain situations and deters your progress in others. Depending on if you help the helpless or feed off of them, your faction will slowly lean towards bad or good. It would show on your character as well with small features such as your eyes changing colours from blue to red.

The point of the game concept is to present risk vs. reward and really emphasize it. Would doing something bad help you in the long run or in its current time? Is being good too hard to stick with when opposed with many riches to steal? That's what I was aiming for when the concept of this game was thought of.

Creating the cover was the easier part of the two things I did. Using Illustrator isn't that difficult for me anymore. It's more of the brainstorming that's difficult and trying to translate it onto a monitor. I made a rough copy so that my head could physically visualize what the cover's layout would be. Then I started on the good copy, making it look much more refined and robust. I used both Photoshop and Illustrator to create the final copy. Photoshop always poses me problems so using it is always a challenge well accepted. When the cover was completed, I was extremely happy with the outcome as it was exactly as I pictured it being. A bold font, a strong enough colour scheme that it stands out, and an awesome vertical split between two worlds.

Creating the video took much longer than the cover did. Eight hours total to be exact, without counting the second edit. Going back to my old roots and using Sony Vegas Pro 11 was an amazing feeling. I felt comfortable with the program just like I used to, however it has been 4 years since I last used it. Readjusting to the quirks and fidgets of the program took some time, but after re-watching some online tutorials, I instantly snapped back into action when my memory came back in place. Keyframes, timestamps, Video FX, fading and offsetting. It all came back to me in one fell swoop. Finding the clips and putting them all together, as well as stylizing and tweaking every little thing such as the subtle colour of the smoke or the perfect syncing of effects with music took the longest. It has to be spot on if it's going to be me making it.

I made the first trailer with upbeat, techno house music. This music is known for boosting energy and waking people up, as it also catches an attention really quickly due to the fast loud robotic noises. However house music isn't properly advertising a game, so I switched up the music and had to re-sync all the clips and effects to the new track. The second one came out better in my opinion, and I added a date of release to it so it seems more like a trailer and less like a promotional video. Success in my eyes.

Visit my online portfolio: tristantrieu.wix.com/ttrieuportfolio to check out both the trailers and the cover art, as well as all of my other artwork!

Chair Sculptures - Artist's Statement

Let's start with myself. As you know my name is Tristan Trieu. The concept behind my chair was based upon the hobby I find myself doing the most. Playing video games has been my go-to thing to do out of boredom or as a small distraction since I was a little kid, although I've never had a chair awesome enough to sit in for a gaming marathon, or simply just a comfy one. This made me develop and sculpt a chair made for long gaming marathons or just a casual gamer who wants the comfort of a chair made specifically for playing video games.

Comfort is a big thing for me, as I have back problems, it's irritating playing video games and having an aching back distracting you from what's really happening. Therefore I put in top notch leather stuffed with the comfiest possible cotton fillings to cushion your back no matter the shape or size. The chair comes with a built-in back heater or chiller in which any case is fixable. Sore? Heat it. Sweaty? Chill it. Not only that, the chair comes with two cup holder, only incase you run out of the liquid you prefer to drink that may be filled twice over from two large canisters held on the back of the chair. With attached straws that come out of the arm rests, ease of access to your favourite drink is not far away.

I hope you enjoy the sculptures of my chair!

Cyber Arts: Tech - Bodies of Work Proposal #2

Considering my body of work is all based around the development of a video game and it's surrounding aspects like music and advertisements, as well as it's own casing, the medium that's going to be used it all virtual. Besides the paper that the ads and casing cover is going to be printed on, it will all be produced in software.

Publishing the video game is no problem as using the internet these days is the easiest way to expose it to the world. Seeing as the video game industry is on the rise, a video game would be a great idea for a start to a career. The only thing I need to learn is pricing and sales.

The size of my work is going to be the default size of all video game cases in today's trends, and the ads are going to be standard poster size just like the sizes we used for the amazing inside lakeshore ad.

Based on making decisions and the consequences or rewards they reap, it teaches a small life lesson that no matter how big or small a decision, it will affect your life one way or another, or in this case, the difficulty of the game. At the end of every room, there will be a path split into a fork. In other rooms, the deeds you do in that room will depict what path is available to take. The multimedia technology I'll be using is a game making program I have at home, adobe after effects, and adobe illustrator, as well as a music making program called fruity loops studio.

The message I'm trying to send through my video game is success. No matter what life you live, there will be small and big successes backed by the decisions made to achieve them. The president didn't make it to where he is now by making the wrong ones. And George Bush isn't hated now because he made the right ones. This could also closely relate to a senior's life of making decisions of which way to go: college or university, and what course to take? What school to go to? Are we going to get a job as well? Staying at home or on residence? OSAP? Apprenticeship? We have so many choices and this game is meant to show that no matter what you do, it is achievable hard or easy, but the decisions you make will either aid or hinder your chances as success.

The artistic problems I find I will have during this project is making the game itself. Creating a video game and trying to depict a message through it efficiently is going to be a challenge. Designing the levels and stages are going to be hard and making everything work as it should glitch free is going to be difficult. Also, creating the music is very time consuming as a track can't just be a 30 second clip. There are going to be many different tunes for different parts of the game, or so I hope. The game itself isn't going to be a long one however it's going to have a variety of different media mediums in it to solidify the body of work into one smooth piece.

With intriguing sound effects, unique graphics, and a bold advertisement and casing, the video game will have an overall dynamic feel to it. Implementing my own design style to the game with simplistic yet bold and crisp lines and words or colours will be what makes my game and its surrounding mediums unique.

Since video games are widely played by teens, the target audience is what I intended it to be. Since teens have many decisions to make in such a short time, this game pleases them the most.

The people or groups who have influenced me the most are the big-time game making and designing companies with their amazing design team for both the video game's art and the cover art and ads. They make it capturing and cultivating as I want to do with my video game. Some of the lower end companies make video games with many in-depth meanings to it, which is what I'm aiming to do. The only art style I'll be presenting in my work is my own.

The stages of my work process are as follows:

Rough work (sketches, brainstorming, drawings)
Creation of the case cover
Creation of the ads
Creation of the video game
Creation of the music

Cyber Arts: Tech - Bodies of Work Proposal

Ever since I was a kid I've loved video games. I figured, what would be a more perfect body of work than to design a video game, it's case art, the in-game music, and advertisements for it? Things like flyers or posters all in different mediums. The actual game would be designed by myself as well.

The topic I've wanted to focus on is "Decisions in life and the consequences or rewards they reap." To portray this within a video game would be quite easy and interactive as paths could be made to choose, and one way may raise the difficulty of the current game while the other would make it easier for a simple example.

The actual game would be a platformer like Mario, a 2D game as that's all I have the skill and time to make. It would be simple game to follow and play, for all ages.

The case art would also be quite simple to follow suit of the simplistic art in the video game. Simple but bold and eye-catching.

Ads like posters and flyers could have a catch phrase the character says in the game, or a motto that describes the moral of the game.

I hope the idea of a Video Game being my body of work pleases you!

Career Infographic

This is my infographic for the career I want to pursue and the College I want to attend.

The College is Sheridan and the program I want to get into is Game Design, it's a 4-year bachelor's degree. They have two other courses that peek my interest like animation and graphic design but game design is what I really want to do.

The colour scheme of the infographic is very vibrant so everything stands out. I used fluorescent green, yellow, and red on a black backdrop. Also because green is my favourite colour so I added a small personal flare.

I love working and manipulating shapes in different ways to make something graphically pleasing so creating this graphic with a bunch of squares and triangles and many lines was very fun. There are many "cuts" in the shapes to symbolize paths and routes. Even the Sheridan logo has shapes in negative and positive space.

I wanted to list the prerequisites for each course and present a graphic to represent each. The Pixar lamp for Animation and the Apple logo for Graphic Design. Each of the courses have their own respective paths, but the ultimate path leads to game design at the pit of the infographic. I made it the last thing to be read since the other options should be taken into consideration first.

I used footprints and arrows in this graphic to guide the reader in a pleasing way. I made everything very simplistic because that's my style of design, simple and clean, yet crisp and legible. I did add some non-conformity with the loose-written categories of animation and graphic design as well as game design to combine both of the styles and create a unison in my work.

For game design, I re-created a Super Nintendo Controller. If you are a gamer at heart, there is no possible way you shouldn't know this classic controller. It defines video games and the memories with it. And as I've grown up playing video games, it shows my dreams of becoming a game designer, to be able to design the fictional pieces of work I've been playing religiously since I was 2 years old and learned how to hold a controller.

I purposely left a lot of empty space in the infographic so it doesn't seem so cluttered with info and your eyes can travel easily along the page.

I hope my infographic does both its purposes by giving you insight on my career and college choice as well as present it plausibly. Thank you!

Lakeshore C.I.'s Amazing Inside Open House Poster

This is my Amazing Inside poster I've made for my school's open house.

The first thing you notice is the colour scheme. It excels at presenting our school's royal blue and silver with a hint of black for complimentary colours such as white.

Second thing is the main subject of the poster, the Open House. Written in a bold black and outlined in a white stroke makes it stand out more than any text on the poster, as it is the main subject. The first thought I wanted viewers to think of when they look at the poster.

The third thing you'd notice is the fact that the poster is composed of circles. I was hoping for them to represent unity as circles represent togetherness. I tried my best to have spacial equality in putting the circles in places to make them compliment the text on the poster in a subtle way as I made their opacity at 60% so it's not the main subject but a part of the background. The varying borders and interiors of the circles all - again - compliment our school's colours and the scheme of the poster.

Around the edge of the biggest circle on the poster - just like the circle in our amazing inside logo with the circle in the square at the front of our school - I put our school's campaign slogan "Amazing Inside" to continue the trend. In respect to that, I also put the date on the corner circle facing inwards to the poster in a relatively large font.

The text about what happens at the open house all branch out from the circle, tracing the edge of it. They could be seen as leading lines towards the main subject.

Lakeshore's main logo with the phoenix and crest is at the opposite corner of the date and stand out as it has been changed to white and put on a black backdrop.

On the bottom of the poster, the info of the school such as the address, phone number, and website are located. On the bottom right corner, I put the school's amazing inside campaign logo as well as this is an amazing inside open house.

Probably the most subtle thing and most likely not noticed on my poster is the background. It has many strokes of a feint marker. I wanted to add some less conformed texture to the poster although it got printed as a green-tinged thing.

That's my poster and I hope you like it!

Visual Identity!

Trieu Designs.

My company logo was meant to present a clean, professional outlook on design and processing. As other companies have wild and "rough around the edges" designs, I made the cleanest looking design to present it as something pristine, something professional. With clean lines and an easy to read font, I hoped to draw the attention of many as my logo is bold and has the power to stand out amongst many cluttered or disorganized or hardly legible logos.


The logo consists of a large T that overlies the words. The font is bold, serif, and easy to read as serif fonts are usually professional. The two dashes at the end of the T add a small flare to the logo so it's not so plain and play into the animation of the design shown below.


My original idea was to have the T as the centre piece and to have my full name Tristan Trieu branching from it to the right. It didn't work out so well because I couldn't find a place to put the word "Designs" and the T was too large. So I shrunk it and make it overlay the rest of just my last name, and the word designs and it worked nicely. I then added the small ticks, changed the font to something bold and professional like Rockwell, and then continued to animate it. I then made a coloured version although it is only grayscale. I didn't want colour in my design because usually black or grey represent professionalism like a suit and tie.

Actually designing the logo took some time, but shorter than I thought. I was trying too much with it and when I toned it down to a simpler look, it worked marvellously. I also had trouble making the large T into one shape since it was two different rectangles but was taught to use the "Make Shape" tool to combine to edges into one of the same shape. When I animated it, I had difficulties making everything at a comfortable pace that wasn't too slow or too fast. Also, adding the sound and rendering it took a while to figure out but it turned out to be as simple as checking a small box under rendering options.

To be honest, I am more than happy with the outcome. I didn't expect my logo to look in any way decent but it turned out to attract even my attention. Ms. Silverman helped me a lot with her opinion in changing small things that made the simple concept whole. Thank you! I don't intent to change anything about it and intend to use it for the future if I ever get in the business. Small changes based on what I do will be imperative however the solid idea is wonderful.

I had an idea to have a T like a revolving door and the two words RIEU (the remainder of my last name after T) and the word designs spinning around it as if it's spinning with the large T.

I also had another idea of having a large T again, and having it as a line from where the two words slide out from.

I hope you like my logo and it inspires you to make one just as clean and professional!