Experimental Project Intro Research

For my project, there are two main resources and researchings I dove into. For recap purposes:

"My idea of creating an iconic, aztec-rune styled endangered species is a go! I will be creating it on Illustrator, Photoshop, sketching my ideas and then transferring them digitally. I have an entire list on endangered species both in our country along with some that are outside of our country (due to letter specifics). The idea given to me to even further this futuristic development is to bring awareness of these animals- including the ratio that they have currently as well as what it could be like without these animals based on the hours that pass equate to about 10 years or so. 2 hours equates to 20 years, and this could equal an animal not existing anymore.

The other thing is that it could be a t shirt, that is connected electronically to create an emphasis on extinction. The animal that is about to die out would just fade away and disappear on the shirt itself, leaving the other runes left to stay alive until it is their turn to die out. Both information as well as my process of the shirt and what would happen work well. I feel like making a video might be a good idea. Combining both infographic as well as possible video versions created with something maybe not After Effects related but Windows Movie Maker could help."

So for the most part, I dove into researching about endangered species along with the Mayan aztec culture. Mayan motifs and images are what I want to base my own alphabet around in the form of iconic figures (that being the endangered animals). Because of this I felt it best to at least look into a bit of Mayan culture, but what really ended up happening was scrolling through images to put my point across as to what I am doing with my letters themselves. to create this style. They chose to create hieroglyphs that symbolized animals, insects, people, etc. and also form narratives. The hieroglyphs and icons are formed using various shapes, but nothing too extremely detailed. My influence comes from both a game that held these iconic images as well as I have always found aztec and mayan art to be extremely fascinating.

Searching around, I chose animals I felt would work best along with the ideas of the letter itself. I chose animals that most people are familiar with, as well as animals that people haven't even heard of (including myself) and probably will never hear of again depending if they really do go extinct.

• angel shark / artic fox
• black footed ferret
• chimpanzee
• dama gazelle / dayak fruit bat
• elephant
• fiji snake / fire salamander
• gorilla
• hirola
• iphis monarch
• jaguar / javan rhino
• kinglet calyptura
• loggerhead turtle / leaf scaled sea-snake
• mugger crocodile
• narwhal
• orangutan
• polar bear / pangolin
• queensland rat-kangaroo /
• red panda
• sloth / shark / seal
• tree kangaroo / tiger
• utah prairie dog
• vanauatu flying fox /
• white bellied heron / wild asian buffalo
• xantus’s murrelet / xinjiang ground-jay /Xolocalca Bromeliad Salamander
• yellow shouldered blackbird
• zayante band winged grasshopper’ / zebra duiker /

SOURCES;

http://www.earthsendangered.com/list.asp#X

https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/directory?direction=desc&sort=extinction_status

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_endangered_species_in_North_America

In terms of actual endangered animals and extinction, I looked into statistics and current listings on various wild animals to obtain what I need. I also looked up what causes extinction, both due to hunting as well as climate changes. 

Extinction has been dominated by natural processes of the earth, like a change in the Earth's crust or major climate change. But predominately, it is human activity that causes extinction to occur. Over the past years, the extinction of animals has grown to numerous amounts. Birds are on the top of the list for most extinct and endangered animals with mammals ranking second.

For example, a specific bird species in the late 80s had a number of 25,000. Now, it has dropped to approximately 2,000. I'm still delving into more statistics and researching on specific species, and trying to figure out how to equate the numbers for better reasons for the whole 2 years equals 20 and so forth.

PRICING;

As for pricing I'm still uncertain, I do not know quite yet if I am going to be doing this like a large poster, or if I want to try and delve into using After Effects. I've used Windows Movie Maker before and been able to compose videos, so I feel like After Effects will be a great opportunity for me to learn and be able to use it well.

SOURCES;

http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/150962/

http://news.discovery.com/animals/endangered-species/human-caused-322-animal-extinctions-in-past-500-years-140724.htm

http://www.allaboutwildlife.com/endangered-species/endangered-species-population-numbers/3596

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/blogs/15-endangered-animals-to-watch-in-2015