Commerce & Industry Article

GRAPHIC VISIONS - STATE-OF-THE-ART COMPUTER GRAPHICS

It Can Boost Sales, Enhance Your Company's Image — for Less Than You Think!

It doesn't matter whether you're using slides during a sales presentation, enjoying a movie with "special effects," watching the opening graphics on your favorite TV show, looking at an ad in a magazine, reading a newsletter, playing an interactive CD-ROM game on your home computer, projecting a graph, pie-chart, or other business graphic onto a screen -- all these kinds of communications have one thing in common: they've all been created by using some form of computer graphics.

Since the late 1970's and early 80's, computer graphics have exploded on the media scene in a wide variety of applications. Today, the term "computer graphics" encompasses such a broad spectrum that it includes everything from slide presentations to desktop publishing, pre-press preparation of printed materials, and now, the latest industry buzzword -- multimedia.

While most of us experience computer graphics as flying logos, morphing characters on Saturday morning TV, or mind-bending visual tricks in the movies, it also crops up in printed illustrations, architectural renderings and blueprints, flight simulations, etc. In fact, computer graphic technology has replaced many traditional areas including mechanical boards/paste-up, photo retouching and compositing, optical film effects and processing, and even the traditional typewriter.

State-of-the-Art Computer Graphics Comes to Bergen County

To help supply this growing marketplace in the metropolitan area, Graphic Visions, a full-service company providing free-lance illustration, animation, multimedia, and consulting has been set up by the well-known, award-winning computer graphics professional, Stan Cohen, in his state-of-the-art office in Bergenfield.

Cohen brings more than 25 years of experience to his clients, with proven accomplishments in both illustration and animation. Among his professional accomplishments are the first computerized architectural re-creation of Times Square circa 1932 (for Columbia Pictures); contributor to the first digital Omnimax film; animator/modeller of many ground-breaking TV commercials for clients such as Suburu, Tonka, Tenneco, and KitchenAid; documentaries for ABC News and corporations such as Merck, and broadcast graphics for NBC, ESPN, TNN (The Nashville Network), MSG, TMC, HBO and WPIX, and training and support of Intelligent Light's worldwide 3DV animation distributors and customers.

"The present and future of communications is digital -- whether the communication is by phone, fax, photography, illustration, or print," says Cohen. "And this method is not likely to change or be replaced by newer technology, since the lowest common denominator will still be digital information (0's and 1's)."

What is already changing is the speed at which communications are created and transmitted from the source to the intended destination, and how -- by coaxial cable (used to deliver cable tv), by copper wire (used by the phone company), and fiber optic (the delivery medium many telecommunications companies are converting to). Newspapers and magazines are now available in digital form, inter- and intra-office communication will be enhanced with electronic messaging, video phones, video in the window of your desktop monitor, video on demand, and the eventual integration of phone, fax, copier, printer, TV, computer, VCR into the home entertainment zone.

How can you use computer graphics in your business?

"Computer graphics have applications in any type of company," Cohen says, and he points to the following examples to spark your imagination:

If you advertise on cable, your company logo or insignia can be traditionally scanned in with a camera and "flown around" as a two dimensional page. You've probably seen many logos as such and forgotten most of them because they didn't create a lasting impression. With computer imaging, your company can create a modern and memorable look not possible with video editing suite technology. And it's worth the additional cost--for any company that feels its image is important enough to make a statement that sets it apart from the competition.

• If you're an architect, you probably present blueprints, models or traditional hand-drawn renderings to your clients. With computer imaging, you can easily give your client multiple views of building exteriors and interiors, all rendered in full color, with lighting effects (shadowing), trees, clouds, and sky for exteriors, and textured walls, floors, furnishings etc., for interiors. You can even create a "walk-through" animated tour of how the building will appear when construction is complete.
• If you're a home improvement company that sells tile, wallpaper, kitchen or bath remodeling, sample patterns or swatches and two-dimensional area drawings traditionally have been available for prospective customers. With computer imaging, multiple remodeling designs can be presented three-dimensionally for a specific floor area, in any variety of floor tile finishes or wallpaper patterns, and shown in full color and texture.
• If your company offers computer-based training applications or financial services, a new way to market your expertise is to deliver the message electronically. This can be done in person, on a laptop computer (actively), or mailed on a diskette (passively). With this method, the prospective customer is in the driver's seat, using graphics, sound (narration, effects, etc.), text, and video clips to learn about you and your company in a non-aggressive manner.

These are just a small sampling of the many business applications of computer graphics.

If you can imagine it, Graphic Visions can do it!

Among the services Graphic Visions provides are three-dimensional illustration and animation by digital (i.e., computer) methods. Now you can alter existing imagery by retouching, colorizing (remember Ted Turner's "colorizing" of the movie classics?), stretching, metamorphasizing ("morphing"), brightening, blending out unwanted areas, removing or adding elements, combining elements (multiple images, typography, etc.) — techniques never before possible with traditional photo retouching or darkroom methods.

Not only can Graphic Visions alter existing images but it can create the original scene from the objects, characters, environment (house, building, city, trees, grass, etc.) to the lighting, atmosphere, water, fire, smoke, colors, textures, skins, highlights, how reflective or dull surfaces are, etc. Through Cohen's computer wizardry, you can create new worlds or resurrect worlds past, envision new products, create environments, show new construction before the site is cleared, defy laws of gravity and other physical characteristics of the real world such as multiple suns, light that casts no shadows, objects that change shape over time, characters that pass through other objects, objects that cast shadows to some but not all objects.

In his projects, Cohen utilizes a wide variety of animation and imaging packages including 3DStudio, Adobe Photoshop and Premiere, Vistapro, Fractal Design Painter, and other assorted tools and tricks.

With Graphic Visions, any company can employ the latest developments in computer graphics without making a sizable investment in equipment and training necessary to operate, understand, and translate concept to finished graphic image or animation. And every company should consider the use of outside consultants and experts in the field to do what they do best--make unique pictures (still or moving).

Whether you're in a service company or manufacturing, advertising, temporary employment services, or information technologies, you know that the quality of your advertising message and presentation materials can set you apart from the competition in today's tough economy. Graphic Visions and Stan Cohen can provide that differentiating spark to help increase your sales as well as enhance the overall image your company projects.

Case Histories

These examples highlight some of the unique applications and qualities provided by Graphic Visions.

Kissel and UNITEMP were so pleased with the response to the Commerce cover that they used Cohen for another original illustration for the cover of Meadowlands USA magazine's fall issue. The image of the bridge, lettering, water, and sky conveys the concept of UNITEMP's ability to provide the necessary personnel to assist with a company's short and/or long term needs. This is "Bridging the Gap" from shortfall to fulfillment of the company's goals, over turbulent waters, with sky in the background symbolizing a bright future.
 

From three designs submitted, a new navigation interface was chosen and placed over twenty-three specially created background images, allowing the use of single button-push options. Additional graphics were created using 3D images to add more life to each book's text. Each book has an option that provides an animated, narrated description of its content. For each animation description, Cohen chose images from the book, matching them to the audio track provided by Allegro sound artist Ross Bergman who couldn't get over "how perfect" the soundtrack and imagery integrated. At the end-of-project party, awards given out by company principals Rich Bergman and Barry Cinnamon included "The 3D Award" to Cohen "for bringing a new dimension to our graphics and for establishing a new quality standard."

Nathanson and Allegro were so pleased with the response to Home PC Library that they tapped Cohen's imagination again, this time for an updated product called Multimedia Business 500. All navigation bars for the various screens were designed by Cohen and layered over a common background. After viewing the product, Patrick Spain, president and CEO of The Reference Press (publisher of Hoover's Handbook), wrote to Barry Cinnamon: "You and your entire staff are to be congratulated on producing one of the best CD-ROMs I have ever seen..."

Corporate Management Services, Armonk, NY, employed Graphic Visions to come up with imagery to be used in self-promotion. The resulting presentation was an interactive look at CMS: its services, team, history, and values. Applications include use as an introduction to clients via laptop computer, or as a floppy disk mailed to prospective customers. The customer installs the program on a computer and views the presentation at his/her own pace. Company president Deborah Steele, Ph.D., was "thrilled" with the results and plans to incorporate the new look into a revision of their promotional materials.
 

To discover how Graphic Visions can enhance your company's image and impact, call 201-384-9100 for a consultation — free to readers of Commerce magazine.

About Stan Cohen...

Prior to starting Graphic Visions, Cohen gained his experience as product assurance and 3DV customer support/training manager with Intelligent Light, Fair Lawn; Creative Director for Empire Video, New York; Senior Designer/Animator with Omnibus/Abel, New York; Senior Technical Director for Austin Electronics Inc., Fair Lawn; and Designer/Animator with Digital Effects, New York.

He studied Industrial Design at the University of Cincinnati, earning his Bachelor of Science in Design. It was during course work there that he was exposed to programming with FORTRAN, followed by an introduction to computer-aided drafting. While taking an Introduction to Film course, he decided to combine the two disciplines. Cohen went on to pursue Independent Studies and Advanced Film courses in the area of computer-assisted animations.

Cohen is a member of NJ Creatives Network (formerly Self-Employed Writers and Artists Network); the Commerce and Industry Association of NJ; and ACM Siggraph (Association of Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics). He has exhibited his computer graphic illustrations and animations at five of the last twelve Siggraph conventions.

As a complement to generating computer imagery, Cohen does life drawing at the Ridgewood Art Institute and the Art Center of Northern New Jersey. He is pursuing museum and gallery exhibitions of his drawings as well as photography. Most recently, he was selected to exhibit as one of fourteen photographers in Photosearch II at the Bergen Museum of Art and Science in Paramus, New Jersey from July to September 1994.

Cohen's computer graphics imagery has been used as illustrations in a variety of magazines including: Art Direction, American Way, Computer Pictures, Millimeter, Science, Computer Graphics World, Cinefx, Broadcast Management/Engineering, Science Digest, GQ, Upper & Lower Case, Creative Computing, Parade, and Post. Books in which Cohen's images have been published include: The Computer Image, Computer Images - State of the Art, Digital Imaging, Computer Graphics for Designers and Artists, The Joy of Computer Animation, and Computer Animation Primer.

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