Isaiah Williams Interviewed by Asha Vincent
Asha Vincent Hi Isaiah! So, the first thing I noticed about your piece was your use of shapes, and I think it was a very creative approach. I was wondering what the process of coming up with what shapes you used was, like if you started with the shape of the lips and just went from there?
Isaiah Williams So, the lips came about because my message was about communication. I had been thinking about that a lot lately because I read in a book something to the effect of “Communication can solve any problem you have, in any of your relationships. Just communicate.”, and that really stuck with me. At first I was like “I don’t really know”, but I’ve been seeing that a lot in my life, and now that I’ve become aware of that, when Avery said you need to come up with a message, that was just on my brain, like “communicate”. And I feel like when we communicate what we need or what we’re feeling to the people in our lives, it can better help us have a stronger connection. And, you know, that’s for any sort of relationship. Just like, if we don’t know how the other person is feeling, how are we supposed to make them feel good, if we don’t even know that they’re feeling bad. So that’s where my idea came from, and then when we were doing our drafts or ideas, when we had to submit the three ideas, one of my ideas was like: communication, lips. You know, you communicate with your mouth. Or, most people do. I did take sign language so I can also communicate with my hands! But yeah, the symbol of communication for me was lips, and so I was like, okay: big lips. And what if I could put the words inside the lips. I’ve made similar designs with that sort of idea of words being in the shape of things. I’ve noticed recently that I do that a lot, but I just think it can be cool combining text with shape. So, I had the idea that my still image will have the words in the shape of a lip, but then I had to think about where did the animation come in? So then I thought maybe the mouth could be opening, or maybe puckered lips, or something like that. And so, I ended up with the idea of maybe something with the tongue. And then I was like, okay maybe the tongue- I don’t know how that came to me, the tongue dripping into the text, but I was just like “Oh, that’s fire”, I was so excited by that idea. So the shape really just started with the lip, and then everything sort of just came out of that one idea that I had. So, yeah, it was sort of just like the lips brought me to the animation, which brought me to the shapes that I used, and so it was a nice fluid process. It was a lot of fun to do. A little time-consuming, but really fun, I learned a lot about animation and things like that. So, I’m really happy with the way it turned out.
AV Nice! Yeah, it looks really good. The next question I had was: did the fast-paced changing of fonts have significance in terms of the message you were trying to convey, or like the mood you were trying to communicate?
IW Amazing question. Originally, it did not. When I was making the animation of the text, I sort of had to pick a font and stick with it, because the technique I was using to animate- which, Avery ended up teaching me a better technique after I had already done it – I could only keep the same font, so I was like “okay, this font is fine”, and then once I had finished the animation I was like “I hate the font”. So, I was like “okay, what can I do to fix this?” because I had put in so much time to do it. So, I was like “okay, I’ll pick a new font and the font will just change.” And so then I had picked a font that I liked but it was very abrupt, in switching from one font to the other, it didn’t feel cohesive to me. So then I was like, and there’s no way to make it a smooth transition from one font to another, or no quick way, no way with my skill set. So, I was like “hmm, maybe I can change the font multiple times”, and then, at one point I was like “it’s kind of hard to read” because it was changing so fast, but the message says “I can’t read”, so I was like “hmm, maybe that’s symbolic.” So, it sort of started out with an error, and then sort of came into having a little bit of meaning, you know, “I can’t read minds”, I also can’t read the text. But, I think it’s legible enough that you can see what it says, but also kind of playing with that idea of “i can’t read”. I think it’s kinda funny. And I was at a certain point where I had put so much time into it, I was like “it’s cool for what it is.”
AV That’s really cool! I didn’t expect that to be your answer, but I think that adds a lot to how I see it now.
IW Thank you!
AV The next question I had was, what is the most meaningful or symbolic part of your project? Either for the audience, or for you personally.
IW Oh wow, what a great question. Let me think about it- the most meaningful or symbolic part of the project… I don’t know, for me the sort of personal connection I have to it is just, I can really appreciate it and I’ve come to appreciate it more as I’ve taken more art classes at Penn, or design classes, is that I have a greater appreciation for using the art I make in these classes as a sort of time capsule for where I am in my life, like i’ll look at old projects I did and I’ll be like “oh, I remember making that project”, and this project really speaks to what I was feeling at the time. I was feeling like, these people need to communicate! It’s also representative of the growth that I’ve had, ’cause I’ve gotten a lot better with my communication, ’cause I can tend to be a people-pleaser, I can tend to, when I’m feeling some type of way about something I tend to keep it inside. That’s been something I’ve been working on personally, recently, so I can appreciate that the art that I’m making at this time is representative of the growth that I’m experiencing at the same time. So I think that’s sort of my personal connection to it, I’m learning to communicate, and I’m spreading the word with my PSA. That’s why it’s special to me.
AV That’s really nice! Well, the last question I had was- wait, are you majoring or minoring in Fine Arts?
IW I’m majoring in Fine Arts now.
AV Okay. Did you change it? “Cause it was Psychology at first, right?
IW Yes! Great memory. Yes, I have changed my mind about 5 million times. That’s why I said to you “you’ve got so much time! you’ve got so much time.”, because I know, I don’t. But, I’m happy with where I am now. I actually originally started off as an engineering student, then transferred to the College and changed my major from this to that, from this to that, and so I was a Psychology major moving into the semester, and you know, similarly to you, how in your interview you talked about how you had never considered a creative career before, I was always the same way. I was always like “oh, art is just a little hobby on the side, it’s fine”, but I felt like for some reason, it was too dreamy or ambitious to want to bring that into my career and I’m like “Why not? It’s something I love to do, why shouldn’t I love what I study? Or love what I do for a living?”, so I was like, “Okay! I’m gonna switch my major to Fine Arts, this is the final switch. This is the last changing of my mind.” I’m happy with that decision to major in Fine Arts, ’cause I’m really enjoying it, and I think that’s an important part of what you study, you should enjoy it in some way. So yes, I’m a Fine Arts major, to answer your question!
AV Yeah, that’s really good. I think there’s a pressure, like a societal pressure, not to study something creative, specifically art, like ever since people are a little kid they hear that if you do art as a career you’re gonna be a failure or something, which isn’t true. So I’m glad that you made that choice. I guess my follow-up question to that was, did this project or this class as a whole influence your artistic career or studies at all?
IW Yes, definitely. Talking about this class as a whole, I just loved it. At one point it was the only class I was actually showing up to, I was like “okay, maybe that says something about what I wanna do”, so then I was like “okay, maybe I could actually see myself doing this”, and it was really nice to see Avery showing us his job and the way he’s able to be creative and build such amazing things and these shows, I was inspired by that. So, not only just seeing that, but also taking art and design classes gives you a push to really start creating, because I feel like a lot of times when you’re studying something else, or you’re not taking those types of classes, you can get easily focused on the academic work, and I often find myself in a drought of not creating anything, and so it was really nice to be pushed with these really interesting projects, so that I was, not forced to create things, but you know, I had the accountability to get back into making art, and it was so much fun. And I loved the projects, like the song project was probably my favorite, like such an interesting way to be creative, because I love music as well. This project introduced me to animation, which I want to explore more in the future, because it was actually a lot of fun, and I had considered animation before as a career, but I had always thought of myself more as a visual artist, so I’m definitely looking forward to taking more animation classes in my remaining semesters at Penn and seeing where that goes. But yeah, this class has definitely given me inspiration, in my artistic career, or artistic practice.
AV That’s great! Well, those were all the questions I had- thank you!
IW Perfect!
Asha Vincent Interviewed by Isaiah Williams
Isaiah Williams Hey Asha, thank you for sitting down with me for this interview. So, for this project we were supposed to write a PSA expressing some sort of message, so tell me a little bit about what sort of message you wanted to express with your piece.
Asha Vincent So, the first topic that came to mind when thinking about protest art was racial profiling and police brutality, because for one, those are very prominent and relevant issues right now, but also because one of the things that got me into digital design was a project I did in the first digital art class I took, called Print Media. For that project we had to create a visual metaphor on a fake magazine cover, and, like based on an article we read by that magazine, and mine was about racial profiling. So this was kind of like a part two to that, like a series.
IW Nice! Wow, very cool. So, tell me about- actually, you sort of answered the question I was planning to ask you next, so that’s great. What brought you to the idea of a hairbrush? Or, what brought you to the tagline “a hairbrush is not equal to a threat”?
AV I think I was thinking, kind of similar to what I did for the first one, what kind of visual indications can I use? Because I didn’t want it to be super direct, I wanted it to be, ya know, like usually in advertisements and stuff there’s an implied message, like you need to know something about the topic to understand it, but I didn’t want it to just say “stop police brutality” or something like that. So, I guess I was just thinking about specific instances and what stood about them to be able to include in this, and I thought about the idea of a hairbrush being mistaken as a gun, and then I didn’t want it to just be the hairbrush so I looked up a list of objects that police had said they had mistaken as guns and shot people for, so that’s how I added the wallet and the phone too.
IW Wow, very cool. So, tell me about your process. I know you had mentioned when we talked before that you used Blender, so describe the movement from the idea in your brain to the actual polished gif that we see today. What was your process like?
AV At first I was intending on doing it in Photoshop, because I don’t like Blender, it’s very complicated, but Avery suggested a program that I could use to include 3D objects in it, because at first I was gonna use Illustrator to draw the objects, but I think this was a really good idea because it looks a lot more serious this way. I feel like a drawing would have made it look more light-hearted. So, I did that and then I used the objects and added the lighting and everything in Blender, and then afterwards I put it in Photoshop to add the text and the background, because from Blender the objects just had a transparent background.
IW Wow, very cool. Nice. I think it turned out perfectly the way you ended up doing it. Like you said, it looks very polished and very- it effectively connotes the tone that you want to express, rather than having a cartoony sort of thing. It’s very effective in expressing the message. And, the colored lighting is just amazing to me.
AV Thank you! I was worried about the background being too dark because at first I made it dark gray, but I felt like black was the only color that fit the mood of it, and I feel like it lets the lighting stand out a little bit.
IW And I also like the- or, just for me, it is reminiscent of a lot of the instances where police brutality or racial profiling happen are at nighttime, where it’s dark, and it’s sort of evocative of that in that the lighting is so dark, and that the objects- you can see what they are, but you get flashes of light and it’s sort of like, it reminds me of the lights of a police car. It’s so clever in the way that you did that, so props to you!
AV Thank you! Yeah, that’s what the lighting was supposed to be, I was like worried about how to convey that but I think, I don’t know, I think after explaining or understanding the topic people will piece that together.
IW That’s perfect. So, tell me a little more about you as an artist. I know that you are interested in majoring in design, so you can tell me about how long you have been making art, or designing things, what sort of design appeals to you, do you have a visual style? Or just anything about you as a creator.
AV Hmm, I’ve been making art since I was little and like, I always considered it to be my main hobby, but that Print Media class I was talking about, that was the first time I ever experimented with the Adobe suite and any art on my computer, and that kind of opened up a whole new world for me- cause art was always just a hobby for me, but that made me take it more seriously. Like, I don’t know if you remember this period of time during quarantine where everyone was making small businesses on Instagram and stuff cause everyone was bored, I started making stickers during that time, and I feel like that influenced how I thought about my career and my future too, ’cause I think I had never seriously considered a creative career until then, and that’s actually what I wrote my essay on to get into Penn! And yeah, and my cousin got into film directing so he had me make storyboards for his short films, and since he’s like a millennial film director in Los Angeles he knows a bunch of people who need creative people to help them, so he gave me all these really cool opportunities and that made me take it more seriously, and now I’m really excited to take more classes and learn more.
IW Nice, very cool. I love that journey that you described. And it’s awesome that you already have such amazing real-world experience in the field. So, one of my last questions will be, what’s your dream- I don’t know, the word ‘dream job’ is kind of weird to me- like do I really dream of having a job? Or that’s at least me. But if you think about what you want to put out into the world as an artist, or as a designer, what’s your dream? What does your dream career look like?
AV I think right now I imagine my dream career as being working at a company in their design department, but then also maintaining my own personal business as a side hustle, and I also feel like that would be relieving to have an aspect of it that’s not working for someone else. Yeah, um, I don’t really know yet ’cause I still haven’t officially declared that design is what I want to major in so I’m still figuring it out, but yeah I think that’s what I imagine myself doing. This is very ambitious, but I feel like it would be fun to work at Spotify or something like that, like one of those cool, modern companies.
IW Yeah, I love that! It’s great to be very ambitious. So, that’s awesome. And you have plenty of time to figure it out, you know? And to see where your career takes you. I’m sure there are exciting things ahead for you, Asha.