Unit 3

Project Update 5

Is anyone else finding it difficult to keep their project short and to the point?
An issue within my own writing is I tend to stray to the longer end of the argument, preferring to round out my argument and cover all my bases. I’m finding this more difficult solely through image. While advertising relies on image to do the heavy lifting of the message we want to communicate, we have body copy to finish it off and drive our point home. While this is not always needed, for the most part it is there to some degree or another.
The problem here is I am working without body copy. In essence I have to make a point without words (which is the entire point of the project of course). This means I have to construct my images carefully, and since a picture says a thousand words, I have to be careful what words those are.
My point is, images can say so much we don’t intend for it to. And as a result, I have become extremely self-conscious of what I feel my images are saying the closer I come to the deadline.
Yet I am proud to say I have been making progress.

Interesting Article

I found this article that covers some of the larger issues on composing the photo essay. While it does talk of many of the points we covered in class, it also lays out a sort of general path we could follow to better narrate our story or construct our issue (depending on your approach).
But it also covers how to construct our images using multiple methods of photo composition. We can use artwork, pictures (both wide and normal angles), and how we layer and juxtapose them.

The Lead Photo: Similar to the first two sentences of a newspaper article, your lead photo should effectively draw in your audience. This is usually the most difficult photo to choose and should follow the theme of your essay. It could be an emotional portrait or an action shot, but ultimately it should provoke the curiosity of the viewer.

The Scene: Your second photo should set the stage and describe the scene of your story. An overarching photo taken with a wide angle lens is often effective.

The Portraits: Your photo essay should include at least one portrait. Capturing an emotional expression or telling action shot can effectively humanize your story. These photos often evoke strong emotions and empathy in the viewer (whether it is a positive and enthusiastic emotion, or a sympathetic and concerned emotion.)

The Detail Photos: Detail photos focus in on one element, be it a building, a face, or a relevant object. These photos are your best opportunity to capture specific objects. The captions of these photos should be informative and educational.

The Close-up Photos: Similarly, close-up photos provide an opportunity to focus in on specific objects. These photos are tightly cropped, simple shots that present a specific element of your story. Again, this is an excellent opportunity to present information in the caption.

The Signature Photo: The signature photo summarizes the situation and captures the key elements of your story in a telling moment.

The Clincher Photo: The final photo, the clincher, should evoke the emotion you want the viewer to walk away with, be it a feeling of hope, inspiration, or sadness. Decide on this mood before you select this photo.

Courtesy of: www.collectivelens.com/blog/creating-photo-essay

A Friendly Example

Here’s an example of something similar to what we are doing. While this uses music and more text than us, the point is clearly made. Notice too how the author not only addresses the issue of pollution, but also focuses on the side effects of it (utilizing the three appeals).
Although I felt the photo essay fizzles out somewhat at the end, I did like the use of juxtaposition near the beginning (a quick succession of images followed by a slower series). Even though this essay uses text, it does allow for many of the images to do the heavy lifting (like the baby when he says “This”).
Although clearly not the best, it gives some ideas on how to move forward in our own projects.

Project Update 4

My idea for my project consists of building collage of children who are increasing in age while playing video games. While the people look towards the viewer, the backgrounds have been replaced with images of extreme video game violence (which I have posed for the most part).
Thus, while the gamers are appearing to have fun, it is revealed they are witnessing extreme violence from games unintended for their age group. As a result, the oldest image of an age appropriate gamer is appearing to enjoy the game too much and has clearly become desensitized from the experience.
The opening slide will consist of the M Rating logo, but the “Mature” at the top has been replaced with a satirical “Mommy Bought It” instead.
It is my hope as well to take a picture of a woman contemplating purchasing a game, but I have yet to take the photo due to lack of volunteers.
But I’m curious as to what you guys think.

Just an Idea

We’ve talked in class about finding the balance on site design between having a site too deep (too many tiers) and too shallow (never passing tier 2). Yet I want to propose a question for the sake of being Devil’s advocate: Is it sometimes better to have a shallow site rather than organize information on a tier system?
My answer of course is “It depends.”
I’m not trying to make claims, but only point out possibilities. That said, for a low content site, it might be possible to maintain a shallow navigation system for the sake of presenting information. While our own sites are set up to present an argument and support it, other sites are more of a resource. This means they are there simply for having information as a resource, and sometimes not much information at that.
In this case I would say to keep a navigable system in place, with the homepage as a hub. This makes the navigation bar more of a filing system of the pages, instead of taking you to a section and then finding the file within that section.
But this is only a proposed idea for the sake of simplicity, and I don’t feel it applies all that often, but it does apply.

Finished

Go to my site.

So I’m finally done. I have to say, even though I have made many sites before, I’ve never done any this complex (mainly due to actually setting it up right and not having to jury rig together something the “works”). In the end though, I’ve still maintained a level of simplicity among the site, which I think works to its advantage.
My overall reform idea is simple, which I believe will make it implementable, but overall effective in setting up lines of communication among the campus and its students/administration.
So enjoy, and have fun. Now time to take a break. 

For Your Motivation

I’ve done website design before in Dreamweaver, but I’ve never been particularly “fancy” at what I do. Yet this really hasn’t been an issue for what I, as a designer, am trying to do.
At its heart, I am trying to make a site that is simple to use and engaging to the user. This can be done through several simple ways: including embedding video and flash to simple layout and interface. How often have you gone to a site that is so overly complex it is near impossible to use? Make a site that is simple (even if not to the professional level of other sites) and you will succeed. Simplicity is key.
This doesn’t mean ignore the upper levels of design though. Use these elements, but in more basic ways. My sites never look advanced, but they are easy to use, navigate (since I never like to go past tier 3 is I can), and the interactivity is there, but never over the top.
Thus I want to encourage you as designers as we finish this unit. Even though most of us (myself included) know next to nothing about how to use Dreamweaver in an advanced fashion, we can still make something usable.

Downloadable Link

For the downloadable link I was thinking along the lines of doing a student testimonial. I’d set it up in InDesign, so the layout can be drastically modified easily and therefore be engaging for the reader. Since it’s also a downloadable link, it’s not a clearly tied to the website’s design and can be somewhat different in its look.
This also allows for something that will add to the persuasive argument of my site, but not add something entirely necessary to the understanding of my message (since many people will not want to download the pdf).
This also adds a student presence outside of my own, which makes my own argument (upperclassmen apathy) less opinionated and drive home the fact it is an issue.

Got Any Tips?

So I found this video on Youtube that might prove helpful to some of you. They’re pretty simple tips, but some of the ideas are worth noting. I’ve summarized the information for the most part, but the video explains it best. This covers most of the design elements we’ve covered in class, but also touches on issues I use in advertising all the time to direct the reader to where I/they want to go.
1. Use simple color schemes. Don’t make it distracting from the content you want them to focus on. Make it appealing, but not overbearing.

2. Define content with bold areas. This makes it stick out. Make sure to keep everything aligned in some ways.

3. Maintain a consistent layout and scheme. This avoids confusion and the audience thinking they’ve been led to another site.

3 Click Rule

So in advertising we always follow a simple rule of web navigation: If you have to click more than three times to get to it you’re clearly not designing right.
In other words, for the sake of finding information, your navigation bar should be well designed (like how ecollege has multiple subheads under each category). Although our own sites aren’t as big, it is important to keep in mind what the big sites are doing well and incorporate those ideas into our own (on a much smaller scale of course).

Even a simple site can outdo a flashy site if its usability is there. Sites that keep you from getting lost allow for both readability and navigation. Also, I tend to keep the headers on my sites linked to the home page, just for ease of navigation.

01010000011100100110111101101010011001010110001101110100 Update 4

I’m considering for my project the issue of “campus overpopulation” and the problems being brought about as a result. As we all know. TCU has steadily been growing each year, and due to this, there has been a lack of housing for students and less room in classes.
Although this allows for TCU to make a name for itself and increases the revenue from students, this alienates many of the older students who are driven off campus. Yet, what I’m proposing is not a halt to the growth of the campus population, but a delay to the increase in size until we can appropriately accommodate the amount of people who will be attending.
In the long run, this will make for a more hospitable living experience that doesn’t lead to crowding rooms full of more people than they were meant to handle and allowing for upperclassmen who choose to live on campus to do so. This will also help in keeping juniors and seniors a part of the campus community instead of pushing them all into other housing options that remove them from the TCU experience.
Let me know what you think.

The Good, the Bad, and the 01110101011001110110110001111001

When I first looked at this site I had a visual sensory meltdown. At its core there is no contrast, which destroys its readability and knack for navigation since my eye isn’t drawn to any one point. I looked at it for roughly 30 seconds and still have no idea what’s going on, although most of that time was spent trying to figure out what was and wasn’t part of the background.



So this one is a little over the top, and probably cheating in a lot of ways since it is trying to be bad. But all the elements are there: the cheesy/crappy gif background, the obnoxious colors, and the poor layout. It does its job well though in getting its point across through example, and I almost don’t want to say this site is necessarily bad. Yet for the sake of design I’m throwing it in as bad, since the site itself will agree with me. Really the tipping point for me was I had no idea what it was immediately and what its overall point was. Only when I started reading the content did I figure out it was a learning site. So on this one communication killed it once again.



Besides the fact I spend hours on this site, it does provide easy navigation for the amount of content on it. Overall this site is a gallery of videos, images, and news conversations, which can really be a mess to look through if set up poorly (and even when it’s set up well in some cases). Yet the different tiers of pages allow for the user to quickly narrow down the categories before even looking for a specific subject matter, which makes for easy navigation. The only problem is if the subject has a lot of material in and of itself, which is still piled under one tab. Yet I’ve never gotten lost, so this one is going under the good.



Who doesn’t like Hulu? They post recent videos on the homepage, and recommend to you based on what you watch. This site interacts with the user and is easy to search through a semi-interactive search bar at the top of the screen. It’s so image driven, with the majority of the text being the descriptions of the episode when you scroll over the button. This site is so intuitively driven, which is how a multimedia site should be.

First Impressions 0110001101101111011101010110111001110100

Design actually plays an important role in how customers interact with your image/business/product. As this article on weboptimization.com states, “Web users form first impressions of web pages in as little as 50 milliseconds (1/20th of a second), according to Canadian researchers.” This is followed up with the idea that this frames all subsequent judgments on the site (known as the Halo Effect) and can cause a person to be more critical of a slight issue and vice versa.
Since this first impression is formed so quickly, poor layout and color choices can destroy even the most intelligent of websites. It is also worth noting that younger children are able to more thoroughly pass judgment on a site than older people (which could possibly be due to their age or due to the fact most younger people are more familiar with web pages than the average older person).
Thus, if a site does not manage to succeed in its first impression, it will be permanently hurt. “Even though your site may have superior products, services, or usability, an initial negative impression from a poor or slow design can steer customers towards your competition. You only get one chance to create a good first impression, make it count.”


For the full article click here.

Clay for the Bricks

When we’ve been talking about collage it seems we are so focused on the whole that we never really got around to talking about the individual pieces all that much. Although the point of a collage is the whole itself, the pictures and parts used to make it are just as important in stating the overall point as the final product (as they are all contributing factors).
As a result, we must also concern ourselves in these last few days of our project for Unit 1 on what the images we are using say for themselves and then how they communicate with one another when placed next to each other. If an image communicates well with its counterparts, but fails to deliver a coherent message on its own, does this damage the collage or is it a justifiable weakness?
This brings about the idea of common themes within our pictures (obviously the African Famine, but there are other themes as well) that we must appreciate. So when we post our pictures against our posters, we need to ask ourselves what each picture itself is saying before we ask what the board is saying.

Project Update 3

For today’s drafting of our project, I decided to completely ignore the poster board, instead opting for a simple layout. Almost all my pieces are there though, which allows for the playing around with ideas and layout.
I do however have the basic idea for what I want the poster to look like: a TCU oriented top with an Africa Oriented bottom left aligned. This gives me the chance to place the Operation USA logo and the instructions to the right without interfering with the images too terribly much.
I was also playing with the idea of using thumb tacks to stick the pictures on (or at least make it look like that’s how they’re stuck on) and give the whole thing a collage feel like you would see on a tack board.

Colors of the Beans

So the other day I bought a bunch of jelly beans. After a long time of looking at the bag, I began to notice how instinctively I knew what flavor each of the beans were according to their color. Even despite the fact the watermelon and the apple were the same color, I knew which were which by the insides of the beans (watermelon had a red inside and apple had a green).
Not only did the makers of these candies make the colors represent the flavors of the candy by their real life counterparts, they did it in a way that causes us to never actually think about it. I’ve had a jelly bean addiction for years, and although I processed the idea that this color means that, it had been so ingrained into my mind I never cognitively processed the idea.
As a result jelly beans will never be the same for me, but that’s ok. As a result, I’ve become more aware of how color affects how we interact with substances (specifically food) and how that causes us to interact with the product as a result.

I bet you can guess pretty accurately what flavor these beans are just by looking at them.

Where the Eye Goes

I’ve really become fascinated with the idea of image layout since coming to TCU (especially in its application to advertising). In every image, layout always becomes an issue (even if only subconsciously), such as a family photo having the people in the center or a watch ad having the hands at 10 and 2 so the eye is led down to the brand name (get on Google and check it out if you don’t believe me).

Even in film, oftentimes the person is placed to the side of the screen so the background can have a more visible effect. This also makes the screen feel less crowded and thereby more personal.
In the end, it’s all about where the eye is drawn (in my case as an advertiser I want the eye drawn to the product and a brand). For this project we each need to have a focus, such as the people’s eyes for my own poster. As a result, my poster will become more haunting, and thereby take a more empathetic and emotional route.

Project Update 2

So I was playing with the idea of using actual food in my project (something cheap like rice). This could possibly be used to help blur the borders of each individual picture more than I would normally be able to and give it a little more unity. This also reinforces the point we’re trying to make.
The overall idea is putting a bowl with plastic wrap over it and gluing it to the bottom of the poster. This gives it some 3D effect and shows what exactly the money is going for.
The other plus of this is the fact that it will fulfill some of the “other materials” requirements of the project. The only real downsize is how effectively can I secure the bowl and its weight on the board without spillage.

The Ethics of Collage

A question worth raising is whether or not the concept of one’s art and its idea is ever safe? With the internet now being an major outlet for the publication of art, the copying and modification of this art is now simple.
Take for example Photoshop and its ability to change pictures in multiple ways. By adjusting the picture, we make it into something else entirely. While this is an expression of the one who is modifying it and now a means of displaying their idea, it is still made up of pieces of other art to form this collage. As a result, the intent of the original piece may have been lost of corrupted, thereby twisting the original intent of the artist but reflecting the idea on him still the same.
So is this ethical? Should we be allowed to use other’s work for our own purpose and thereby giving a whole new meaning to their work besides what it could do on their own? If I use the Mona Lisa and make her a skeleton, this makes the picture more ominous. This same violence reflects of Da Vinci, and is in a sort of awkward way its own form of libel.

Project Update 1

So I was toying with the idea of blending the East Africa Pictures with those of the TCU area. This would involve a lot of cropping and layering of the images, but the end result just might be worth it. The whole idea is to have pictures of those who are suffering through the famine to appear in recognizable areas around TCU, thereby creating a sense of empathy for the victims by the TCU community.
This also helps meet the picture quota for images I created. The only issue is that I would have to be careful in what pictures I choose to use from the internet since they must be able to crop easily (in other words have a high amount of contrast so the tools can easily sect the appropriate areas) and look somewhat natural after they have been reintegrated into the new images.
Let me know what ya’ll think.

Are Books Really Books Anymore?

As we talked about Thursday, text on the net is ever-shifting. We can link other works directly, edit text immediately, and publish instantaneously (this blog is a testament to that). Slowly, the internet is incorporating all other aspects of how we communicate; such as books, radio, television, and even spoken language to an extent (ever use an online translator?).
Collections of material are making some of these originally static communication media into something that is constantly evolving. Books put online are now able to be translated, distributed, and read by people who were originally unable to receive or understand these works (often by volunteer fans who do this willingly and provide the author more notoriety for free). Although the books still stay the same thing (for the most part), they have undergone a complete format change from the original paper version.
These books can also be condensed, expanded, or edited in new ways. A writer can change a text in a whole new way. So, in a way, books as we know them are beginning to no longer exist in a concrete form.