Hooray!

My flash project is done! you can click here to see it on my process webpage. Happy break everyone!

p3 storyboards

...long overdue project 3 post...

look & feelconcept statement:

What is it about secrets that makes them so exciting and desirable? It may be that few have the privilege of being in on them, or that their contents are especially useful or profound. But the real fun of secrets is not in what they are, but how we keep them: the codes and rituals we use to protect the knowledge that everyone wants to know, even if they don't know why. The code is the elixir to the imagination, transforming any written word into tantalizing mystery worthy of plot and adventure.

more on Obama and design

I just read this article in the New York times where Steven Heller interviews Sol Sender, designer of the Barack Obama "O" logo.
pretty interesting.

new and improved animation render!

project 3 : pigpen code

The Pigpen Code

A code is a way to send a message while keeping it a secret from someone who isn't supposed to know about it. Codes can be easy or complicated - the trick to to make sure the person on the receiving end of your secret message has the key to decode it without making it too easy for anyone else to crack. One simple code you can use is the pigpen code. In the pigpen code, each letter is represented by part of the 'pigpen' that surrounds it. If it's the second letter in the box, then it has a dot in the middle like so:

new animation render

FINAL CLICK-THROUGH!

http://people.ku.edu/%7Eleamaria/divestsc_leah/clickthrough/home.html

vote helvetica

Today I cannot focus on homework! I'm checking the media outlets and blogs constantly...and stumbled on this sweet little interactive graphic on the New York Times site. You type in the emotion you feel, and you can see how many others feel the same way (scale) who they support (color; you can also see a general black and white version) and time.

dive STSC website click-through

http://people.ku.edu/~leamaria/divestsc_leah/clickthrough/home.html

Design and Barack Obama

I've noticed several of you guys have posted entries about the Obama campaign's use of design. This blog on time.com gets into the design in the prime time program that his campaign aired tonight. I don't know if the author has any kind of background in design, but it's interesting to read feedback on this sort of thing:

http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2008/10/29/getting-to-know-you-and-him-the-o-mercial/

and very handy for anyone who thinks of a future in politics, design-wise or otherwise.

new animation render

goin' slow

scuba on acid

every i try to upload the gosh-darn webpages it inverts my colors. phooey.

hysterical

Palin as President

updated daily until the election!

oh animation

I'm going to start posting a weekly render of my animation project, maybe that will help me get motivated. My basic concept is clouds - clouds up in the sky, you see them from a distance and then zoom in so far that you can see they're made of ice crystals and the creation of rain. Still working on details of the storyboard (!). As you will see, this is just a rough little snippet. I know, it's dorky. Right now I'm feeling the pull between the organic-ish movement and the shapey- campy- cutesy- collage medium. Input plz.

project II: good design vs. scuba

The challenge: make this thing here look good and make sense. In looking up what other scuba websites, I found that design really isn't a priority for many of them. Look no further than www.stcroixscuba.com:That's pretty par for the course. Bubbles, blue, red/white flag, photos of people diving, photos of sharks/fish/turtles/coral reefs/palm trees, and BAD TYPE are all top scuba web design fetishes as far as I can tell.
Here's more scuba-related links:
scuba
padi
scuba diving
scuba toys
scuba duba
scuba diving index
good dive
the scuba guide
scuba board
Here's one related site that's not so so bad. It's got good general-specific type organization.
SeaWorld

and now for some pretty websites:

Virgin Mobile Music Festival

We really like the dynamic graphics on the homepage, plus it's nice that you don't have to click on anything to see the line up, which is probably the number one thing people want to know.This American Life
so simple - doesn't hide anything from you or distract you. i love it.
Delicious Design League
global nav really pops here, design is simple and bold.
Fire Belly Design
Their homepage is basically a very clean, simple newsletter.
Slow Food USA
Homepage has blog highlights, news, events, and lots of beautiful pictures that don't distract. You don't have to search for the important news items.
The Moth
Nice type and color palette, global nav already shows some of the breakdown, which is nice if you want to get straight to a particular show.
3st

pictures rather than global nav: works good for showing images. homepage becomes a grayed-out background when you click on something.pagliuco

MTV
alphabetic links and a simplified global nav
Lawrence Memorial Hospital
quick start guide and global navMayo Clinic
Two navigation bars, one more specialized than the other. Good for a very complex site.

questions

The "Designing Interfaces" reading kept reminding me of pet peeves I have with websites and software, and explained why some of them are so bothersome. Do you have any pet peeves related to the functionality of websites?

Also, I completely agree with the reading that certain features have come to be "expected" and should be placed in the "expected" locations. (global navigation, previous/next buttons, etc.) No doubt this makes navigating a website a hell of a lot easier for people, but i wonder how designers that do a lot of websites find ways to keep composition interesting when everything goes in the "expected" loction.

Reading IV, The Order of Order

Reading four gave me hope that somewhere out there, people are good at workplace communication. This reading was all about how to go about gathering data about your client, their target audience, their goals, desires, self-image, money, etc. as well as how to "grease the wheels" by forming relationships with decision makers and other key people in the company. This is exciting to me because every workplace I've ever experienced has been plagued with embarrassingly bad communication. At my previous job at the Lawrence Public Library, I saw a lot of little project eat up too much time and cause too much stress due to lack of a clear plan or shared priorities.

The Order of Order - This was just a little musing on how we can categorize the world in an infinite variety of ways, and how these ways can impact the user experience of the content

The link to the Ladislav Sutnar reading wasn't working for me - any other ideas on how to get to it?

round 5! feedback plz!

1.do you have enough time to understand all the words?
2do you feel like you understand the relationship between the images and the statistics?
3.is the sound appropriate?

hmm progress

so i made a bit of progress this weekend on the ol' motion graphic. i need to render a smaller copy to post here, so i can get feedback. on thursday my round four render was pretty heavily under construction (some photoshop layers had been edited and as a result disappeared) so i don't think it was that helpful to my crit group. what we did determine was that my text needs to stay on longer, and the correlation between the numbers and the colored vs. gray stars and stripes needs to be more clear. also i got the suggestion to add a slide after the 72% slide with some sort of "you should vote" message.

so basically this weekend, i : added transitions to several of the beginning slides, added repetition and transitions to the stats slides, worked a whole lot on timing, added an additional message before the end "designfordemocracy.org" slide, and added sounds effects and music.

video coming soon.

Reading III

PROCESS BRIEFS
are well-written highly useful documents that serve to keep the designer on track while working on a project. The brief contains the blueprint for the work to be done as well as the goals for the finished product; as the project moves forward the brief assumes the role of documenting process work. The brief facilitates team communication as well as designer-client communication; it is a place where the designers and client can refer to for all relevant information as well as gain mutual understanding as to the goals and context of a design problem.

ANATOMY OF A PROCESS BRIEF
client information
client sector
client's competition
target audience
context
project overview
hierarchy
project information
tone
problems
opportunities
use of technology
schedule
budjet
hours

PERSONAS
are (usually fictional) user profiles that are meant to give the designer a clear idea of how a typical user or audience member relates to products and what factors influence their behavior. Personas include demographic information (age, gender, income, education level, etc.) as well as psycographic information (personality traits, goals, attitudes, opinions, values, interests, habits, lifestyle). Often the client will provide much of this information about their customers. Because target audience may include a range of people with a range of psychographic and demographic profiles, designers often draw up more than one persona per project - usually about 3-5. These personas are then prioritized in order for the designer to understand what audience segment it is most crucial to appeal to. From these personas, designers construct scenarios describing how these personas interact with the information design. Both personas and scenarios are essential tools for effective information design

keywords, to suggest list

ASSOCIATED WORD LIST

economy::money::save::work::blog::involve::engage::educate::knowledge::elect::turnout::fight
bills::pay::taxes::health::care::war::fight::pave::prove::secure::transportation::oil::drive::pump
gas::cash::register::ATM::credit::graduate::loan::check::energy::energized::empowered::street
savvy::text::message::change::responsibility::growth::inform::information::say::voice::power
media::peers::group::donate::organize::canvass::volunteer::call::future::green::issues::youth
community::slick::bright::sharp::smart

DEFINITIONS OF KEY TERMS

energy :: available power
exertion of power
ability to act or effect
forcefulness of expression

future :: concerned with the time to come

youth :: freshness, vigor, spirit
the condition of being young
young persons collectively

progress :: advancement
forward movement

economy :: management of the resources of a community

engage :: to attract and hold fast
to occupy
to enter into conflict

secure :: to get possession of
to be safe

MY DESIGN IS TO SUGGEST...

...a feeling of accomplishment and empowerment to young voters
...voting as a right of passage, like having a job and a degree
...a connection between voting and other aspects of daily life
...that young voters are fully qualified to make this important choice for themselves.

PERSONALITY

independent, personal, collective, experienced, inviting

reading II

"Information has always been designed." - Brenda Dervin.

This was nice reading about how design can be put to use to meet the practical needs for the audience and make every day living better for people. I'm a practical girl - I'd so much rather design for substance over style. The endless creation and marketing of products is probably the least appealing part of design for me.

The quote above made me think about the crossroads between design and psychology. I'm not sure I agree with Brenda Dervin - it seems to me like our brains are pretty good at sorting though information in the environment subconsciously and making intuitive decisions. And it seems like a lot of designers know this and exploit it - why do food and sex show up in so many advertisements for products not related to food and sex?

So my question is, do you think that all information has to be spelled out, or can design just set the stage for the viewer's intuitive reasoning to take over? Does it depend on content?

designers

EDWARD TUFTE

"Clutter is a failure of design, not an attribute of information."
American statistician who is considered an expert in information design; writes about visual literacy and makes work distinguished by the use of data-rich illustration.

NIGEL HOLMES

British graphic designer who focuses on information graphics and motion information graphics. Most famous work is "explanation graphics" for TIME magazine.

RICHARD SAUL WURMAN

American architect and graphic designer who coined the phrase "information architect" (which I love!). His work features the simple use of colored text, such as in the ACCESS travel guides.

stats, stories

2000 US Presidential Election: 36% of eligible voters age 18-24 vote.
63% of general population votes.
2004 US Presidential Election: 47% of eligible voters age 18-24 vote. (+11%)
67% of general population votes. (+4%)
67% of eligible voters over 25 voted
73% of eligible voters age 55-74 voted (highest participation)

In both years, voters age 18-24 were the least represented age group.

In 2004, 18-24 years olds comprised 12.6% of the general electorate but cast only 9.3% of the votes.

In the 2008 primaries and caucuses, there was an average increase in participation by voters age 18 to 24 by 103%.

According to a recent Democracy Corps poll, 72% of eligible voters age 18-24 rated their likelihood of voting in the 2008 election as "10 out of 10." - 56% of which said that this is the beginning of a new period in history, and 58% of which said that this is the most important presidential election America has yet to experience.

1. 18-24 year old Americans fully participate in all aspects of American life. We have jobs, pay bills, pursue education, have families, need health care and transportation as well as financial and ecological security. Some of us are even fighting the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. However, we are the age group that least participates in the presidential election - in 2004, Americans over 25 voted at a rate nearly one and a half times that of 18 to 24 year olds. Things are about to change, with 72% of this age group rating themselves as highly likely to vote.

2. Americans age 18 to 24 have made significant gains in improving their share of the vote - in 2004, participation in the presidential election was up 11% from the 2000 election. However, in 2004, only 47% of 18 to 24 year olds voted compared to 67% of all voters over the age of 25. Since young voters have a greater share of their lifetimes ahead of them, shouldn't they claim their share of the vote?

information anxiety

This little phrase stuck with me after i skimmed through the first reading of the semester. This is totally something I relate to - as a news junkie with a solitary, computer-bound job, i listen to way to much NPR and read way to much Telegraph, New York Times and CNN. I went through a phase this summer where i checked the Gallup poll daily, before I decided that it was doing for was giving me stomachaches. How can the election be so close when everyone I talk to on a regular basis, including my social conservative mother, is firmly in support of Obama? I mean, c'mon, this is Kansas.

So this is my experience with data: it's like germs. You know its there because people tell you it's there, not because you see it. Little bits of data pile up and create bigger entities and phenomenons, like sickness, and then people say, "there's germs going around." So we live with these little abstract invisible beings, and they affect us and we can affect them - but you can't really experience them until the amass into something larger and more cohesive.

Here's my objectives for project one: to bring an aspect of voting and election data from the realm of abstract factoids to that of more tangible, personal storytelling. The presidential election gets tangled in every aspect of American life, public and private, and if we are to make sense of what's really going on, we have to gather and analyze data and then use the tools of design to draw out and the patterns and stories. The ultimate goal of this motion graphic is to transform abstract, technically specific but experientially ambiguous data into a complete experience the audience can relate to and engage with.