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SENIOR THESIS - OPTICAL ILLUSION BILLBOARD

For my Senior Thesis, I explored optical illusions and their relation to graphic design. I wanted to show that optical illusions didn't have to simply 'look cool,' but could also serve a purpose and send a message or advertise an event.

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A new type of optical illusion which has emerged recently is known as Scanimation, and this is what I focused on. Below is the booklet I made exploring all the possibilities of optical illusions.

As an end result, I decided to create a scanimation advertisement for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. Single scenes would be picked out from the previous 7 movies, leading into the final upcoming movie.

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In order to accomplish this, I would first need to create a billboard that could animate.

 

Since scanimation is best accomplished with silhouettes, I scanned in drawings and colored them black, then used Adobe Flash to animate the repetitive and simple motions that could be looped.

The next issue was distance. Normal scanimations were accomplished by the user opening the book, but my idea needed the user to stand in front of it and move along the length of the billboard.

The illusion of motion would be created using 'parallax', meaning a person would have to be a certain distance from the billboard for the image to be correct. Without going into further detail, just know I used physics formulas to determine the correct distance for viewing.

Below is the final result. Views of the billboard without the necessary transparent stripes, as well as how it looked walking past it.

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