Natural Navigation

Well everyone, sorry for the lame animation last class. I had my campaigns project due the same day. I started from scratch, and hopefully I have something a bit less cheesy.

Concept:

Navigaton is part of the process of exploring the natural world around you. Through the navigation tutorial, children of all ages can learn to appreciate the world around them and find their place within it.

With the use of children's drawings, I hope to connect with kids on their own level and show them how easy it is to navigate through nature using these simple steps.

To Suggest:

Because I can't cut and paste in blogger (unless anyone has a solution to this), I will just give you my key words

celestial

change

compass rose

orienteering

sitemap

Here is how my user will navigate through the navigation tutorial.

FINALLY the site is done

aside from  a few slice issues, here you go . . .

Timeworn Toys

Navigation

As we are wrapping up with the current project (timeworn toys), I have to pick my topic for the next. We have to animate an interactive instructional tool with flash using information from The Dangerous Book for Boys (or another one for girls) by Hal Iggulden.

I chose to talk about navigation. Any suggestions are welcome for visual treatments. I will post the images from the book soon.

More related images and inspiration

Possible Structures

Alicia and I chose our favorites of the possible page structures. Like the stars?

Barbie McClure

Barbie is 23 years old. Her grandmother’s house was recently destroyed by a tornado. As a result of the damage, her grandmother’s collection of paper dolls were ruined. Barbie wants to buy a new set of paper dolls for her grandmother. She also has some photographs that survived the tornado that she wants to preserve and share.

Barbie will be interested in pursuing the Buying page as well as the Community page.

PATH ONE BARBIE MCCLURE:

home > buy > browse > category > figures > dolls > paper dolls

PATH TWO BARBIE MCCLURE:

home > community > photos > submit

Ed Walker

Ed is a 55 year old toy collector interested in condensing his collection of cowboy memrobilia. He is also looknig to expand contacts with other toy collectors, and he loves to tell stories. He has a slight aversion to the internet, but he knows it is a good communicative tool.

Ed will be interested in pursuing both the Selling page as well as the Community page.

PATH ONE ED WALKER:

home > community > message board > submit

PATH TWO ED WALKER:

home > sell

Sitemap

To suggest

 Andy Warhol meets Mr. Potato Head

Gary Taxali meets Cracker Jack

The audience should feel: nostalgic, young again, comfortable

The quality of the Web site is: simple, playful, classic

The design, visually, is: half-tone, homespun, spot color, “loved”

1950s Toy Adverts

Here's a little inspiration for our Web site.

A video of "Lost Toy Commercials"

Timeless Timewarp

My partner and I decided to take on the task of redesigning Timewarp Toys. Follow this link ONLY if you have no precondition to epileptic seizures.

The idea is - vintage toys, buying, selling, and learning. But you wouldn't know that by the site. Trust me, it is a bit trippy.

While this site looks like an intergalactic mushroomfest, here are some of the sites that are related, and it seems that they do the content management a little better:

Grasshopper Toys - while this may not be ideal, the navigation is a lot easier to deal with

ebay - although it is not very content specific, the function is similar

Livejournal vintage toys - the purpose is very different, but I believe the photography could be useful

And here are some sites along the same vein that, just like timewarp, have more than a few issues to work out. Basically, if we get a D in this whole Web design thing, we would be the best vintage toy site on the net:

Where the Toys Are - site for a physical store, but their online content mimics Timewarp

Toy Info - at least this one has an alphabetical order

Question

I was just wondering, do you think all of these tools like dialogue boxes and global search bars are just lazy shortcuts, or do they serve some higher purpose that designers couldn't solve otherwise?

Readings and thoughts

Sorry, Andrea, I couldn't find reading four. You may have a broken link, or there may be something wrong with my computer.

Recipe for the successful Web site: the best thing I got from this reading is NOT to design Web sites for everyone. design it for your audience. while we may think that this is only true for of-line media that is not geographically accessible to everyone, the Web becomes increasingly specialized. that is, unless you are google. by the way, this site has a GREAT set of links.

Order of Order: nice name, to start. but I was sad to see that AIGA does the cheesy thing where you make the first letter of your article huge. I find this sad. 

Contently speaking, I love the idea that we can arrange the world exactly how we want it. I wonder what dewey decimal would have to say about that. but truly, organization is so personal. this is why search bars are so popular. if only I could get one of those for my closet.

Designing Interfaces: sorry for all you anonymous, non-KU design school people, I don't have a link for this reading. and it is much more complex and technical than the others, so I won't try to sum it up for you. I will attempt to extract some nuggets.

1. Think in the perspective of the user. Run through the site in their shoes, not yours.

2. Keep your viewer comfortable. Don't change the setting. When you are dealing with complex information, don't worry about getting bored. Worry about getting lost.

3. There are so many mechanical tools used in Web design to direct a user, eg: scrollbars, escape hatches, breadcrumbs, dialogue boxes and unlimited color without fear of printing costs, that it may even make you feel like God. However, with all of these controls, we do have a lot of competition.

4. Sequences are tricky, because people like to know where they are in relation to "finished." So, give your user a reference point, always.

In addition to the readings, I'll be keeping a list of sites that inspire me. Here goes nothing:

MoMA - very elegant and simple. navigation is effortless

Tlbox - a tool for Web designers, both content and construct

iTunes - even though it is not a Web site, this program has taught us all a LOT about content organization

Moodstream - you can actually create mood boards with this site. Great ad for getty, and well-organized, too.

TED - everyone loves TED. I love TED not just because he is cute and well organized. I also appreciate the fact that it loads a lot faster than any other site that won a Webby.

Mercedes-Benz - the interactivity is amazing on this one

Content is KING! or whatever

Browsing through the blogosphere, I came across many opinions, many strong opinions, about Web design. It seems that everyone is an expert on how Web design should be done, as they should be. Isn't this stuff just designed for us anyway? So if I like it, it must be good design.

While I believe this is true, we must remember that there is a whole slew of hits on company Web sites every day. And you know what, most of them are useless. 

Web sites exist for a reason, whether it is to sell products or get people's eyeballs on the ads, someone is paying for that domain name, and the (usually) have a good reason for it.

Good design doesn't just get eyeballs on the page, it controls the direction of they eye, the location of the click, and so on. Makes you feel powerful, huh?

What I am trying to say is this: quality not quantity. You may get a lot of hits on your site for pasting up the latest celebrity crotch shot, but what will you do with those hits? Will you make money? Bring about governmental reform? Quite a task

What I need to work on

So, we talked in groups about our animations quite a while ago, and I am just now getting to the typing of the things I need to work on, now that the project is due. So, this is what my group said:

Work on transitions. The words should not just pop on the screen or flow all the way across. Continuity is key. The type treatments need to be similar so they seem more unified.

Imagery is working, but the resolution on the tablecloth needs to be lower so that the movie loads faster. Also, wine does not work like a pie graph. The wine should go down vertically, not horizontally.

The animation is a bit choppy, and I need to work on timing. Reading the text out loud will help.

Packaging to Plate

I found this yummy packaging while searching the Web. I wish they sold these in the snack shop. What do you do with those strange triangle plastic boxes, anyway? Suggestions, please.

Creative Brief

I really enjoyed reading our assignment for graphics.

Not because it was new information to me. I am also studying mass communications, and I have written more creative briefs than I can imagine, and I haven't even graduated yet.

The reason that this article really resonated with me is because this reading talks about the creative brief from the point of view of the designer. 

I have always learned about them from the view of the marketing and research team with the end goal being to get through to the designer and translate marketing goals into the strange language that designers speak. This reading is how designers USE the brief. Fascinating stuff, I promise you.

My favorite part of the reading is about creating a viewer persona. I love making up names for the target audience and making up their lives. I believe that as designers we should have just as much fun with these as we can, because this is where we establish our visual language, our frame of reference and our medium. I love creative briefs.

To Suggest, continued

Although my problems have not been solved since the last time I posted, the anger has subsided.

I will now post a list of words that ACTUALLY relate to what I want to convey.

Humor

Levity

Hunger

Yummy (maybe I should change my background color from light blue)

Percentages

Simplicity

I don't want to make people feel intimidated to vote. I want them to feel like it is silly not to. It would give us a bigger piece of the democratic pie.

By comparing our voter turnout to France, Germany and Italy, I want to tap into the friendly, competitive nature of [most] Americans. Food, especially in these three countries, is iconic to Americans. Also, I believe that apple pies, soufflé, pizza and sausages will catch the attention of most viewers. It may not necessarily make people hungry (strange cutting techniques - masking and food don't go together well), but hopefully it will make people laugh (or giggle).

To Suggest - throw after effects out the window

I would love to be in the stage in my after effects project where I could deal with the finer details, but I still can't get my images to render. I relinked and everything. Any suggestions?

Also, audio. Won't even play when I hit the space bar in the editing window.

Love the easy ease. I have no problem with editing. I am wondering what everyone thinks about using drop shadow in videos. Don't worry. It's not text.

Thoughtful Question - Better late than never

In response to a reading about information design, I thought I would post a question for the public to consider.

Does the "modern", sparse design of today alienate viewers who look for the human aspect of data? What I mean is, do some designers, in their quest for that ultimate simplicity of design, forget to tell viewers how this data relates to them?

Stories

Who wants a load of statistical data, and how does that get anyone to vote? The answers are - nobody (except, perhaps, accountants and actuaries) and it doesn't. So, instead of presenting potential voters with a bunch of statistics telling them to vote, why not a little story?

Here is one option for a story on why Americans should vote (thanks to Rachel Meyers):

While the United States is considered to be the greatest power in the world and a leader in democracy, voter turnout does not reflect this statement. In the 2004 election, 60 percent of eligible voters turned out at the poles, in comparison to 8 percent of the eligible population of New Zealand, 76 percent of spain, 86 percent of Sweden, 79 percent of France, 82 percent of Italians, 78 percent of Germany and 100 percent of Russia. Of the world's 20 largest democratic nations, only Japan and Switzerland ranked lower in voter turnouts.

To visually tell this story, I would like to use a cartogram showing the geographical size of each country, then display the size of the voting population (in a big circle, probably). Finally, within the population circle, I will show the size of the voting population. At the end, I will show the other countries' voting populations in comparison to the US voting population. The US voters may be eaten pac man style by Russia's. We'll just have to wait and see.

Associative Word List

pac man, size, circle, cartogram, cheerio, doughnut, percentage, pie graph, international, globe, voting, poll, inequality, target, scale, comparison, simple, arcade game, map, latitude, longitude, portion, turnout, weight, nationalism, patriotism, pride, embarrassment, shame, outperform, exceed, internationalism, doctrine, count, counting, enumeration, tally, analyze, dissect, take apart, part, portion, division.

OK, I think that's it for now with the word list. I am always open to more suggestions. Now for the KEY WORDS:

Pac Man: video game originally developed in Japan. Immensely popular in the US. Centers around a circular yellow man (or woman, as in Ms. Pac Man) who has to eat all of the little white circles to advance to the next level.

Latitude: angular distance North or South of a point on the earth's surface. Measured by meridians. The horizontal lines.

Longitude: angular distance East or West of a point on the earth's surface. Based on the prime meridian. The vertical lines.

That's it for now. Tomorrow: expect a slight chance of more definitions with a certainty of a thoughtful question about Reading 2.

Name that Designer!!

Richard Saul Wurman: life goal-make information understandable.
created TED conferences. I love his concepts, but his personal Web site is a little too squishy for me. Click the link and see what I mean. It seems as though he likes black, red and white just as much as any minimalist designer. His strong points are statistical issues such as urbanization and politics. However, this industrial illustration is both beautiful and informative. These two qualities are hard to come by in the world of information graphics. The key word I would use to describe his work is graceful

Nigel Holmes: we know Nigel from those cute videos about national debt and the lovely British accent. However, his "wordless diagrams" are particularly interesting. Imagining complex steps without words is quite fun with these. Key word, simplicity.

Edward Tufte: a scientist with a graphic background, Tufte studied statistics more than ANY visual person I know. Non-informative display is his worst enemy. He believes that anything that is non-objective, such as decoration, could bias the results and remove the pure aspect of the data.  He developed the concept of a sparkline. 

We don't think of this as anything revolutionary today because this idea is so commonly-used in our media and so relevant to simple information design. Key word: datum.

Side note: Tufte has a lot to say about scale models that architecture students may find interesting.

Blue and Red

I always found it so funny how our two major parties decided to choose to be a donkey and an elephant.  This site gives official story. If you don't know where they came from, you might as well read up on it. As usual, it came from an illustrator.

Here is a fun article about McCain's use of Optima in his logo. Love him or hate him, EVERYTHING about McCain relates back to military experience, including his brand image.

Obama's logo, however, seems to be more talked about in the blogging world. This blog features a cartoon satirizing the logo. Better yet, Logobama is a site where you can insert yourself into the O and use it as a profile picture. Have fun with that one.

It is oh so much fun to compare each candidate's party and personal imagery, but what about the issues?!?! Shouldn't we as designers be considering what the economic crisis looks like on a computer screen (and look outside the falling line graph)? Can you tell me what universal healthcare looks like? How about that 700-mile fence between the US and Mexico? Pro-choice or pro-life, I don't really want to know what that looks like.

The point is, we should stop promoting each candidate like a corporate entity. Instead of relying on a catchy name or slogan, our presidential hopefuls should be relying on their issues. We, on the other hand, can focus our time on showing the general public what each issue looks like. 

Roughstockstudios.com is a great resource for ideas on political info graphics. This site also features a great booklet called Visual Representation for Advocacy. I highly recommend it.

One big reason to VOTE

I just got done reading an infuriating blog about why women should not vote. While the blogger was trying to be satirical, he ended up being merely infuriating. Another infuriating discovery is that a former female senator from Olathe, Kansas believes that women should not have to vote. She said that the 19th amendment, the one that allowed HER to vote, marked the beginning of deteriorating family values.

Humph!

So, the traditionalist idea of men as the only provider and the women as the unthinking homemaker continues. That is, unless I can come up with such an amazing poster that women will be flocking to the voting booths like there's no tomorrow.

In the meantime, wish me luck. And, for God's sake, register to vote.

Get out the Vote

As we begin a new school year, it is time for me to re-appropriate my blog. It is now the Graphic Design and Typography blog.

Our current project is entitled “Get Out the Vote.” For graphics, we will be doing a motion info-graphic describing information intended to encourage people to vote. Here are the objectives for the project:

The purpose of this assignment is to understand design in 4D. This includes considering time, narrative, motion, sound and software constraints as well as other variables in combination to create an informative motion graphic that is simple, effective and aesthetically appealing.

Stay tuned for more on “Get out the Vote.”

Questions revisited

At the beginning of this semester, I answered some questions to reflect on my design concepts. These are the questions that I answered:

What is graphic design?
What is typography?
What are your responsibilities as a designer?
What can you do to make your VisCom classes more valuable to you?

So, I know I had some dictionary definitions in there somewhere, and I talked about how design is so undervalued. I still believe that good design is undervalued, but sometimes bad design is overpaid.

In my first post, I was so detail-oriented. I was meticulous, and I even made sure to change my ' to ’. I am sure my type teacher can find a bunch of mistakes, but overall I just thought about it too much.

With the blog, I didn't space things out very well. As most students, I have an issue with time management and don't do things until right before they need to be done.

Usually, this is a bad thing for me. I need time to think about complicated processes and consider the concept. But, every once in a while I find it much more beneficial to just sit back and let my subconscious do all the work.

There were several projects throughout this semester in both of my design classes where free-association design saved me. Last-minute work is not always shabby, as long as you leave some time to clean it up.

This is all true, but I do think that getting so close to deadlines will give me an ulcer if I keep it up. I like to give myself time, but I never do. This is something I need to work on.

I also have found that I need to work SO much more on my process, or at least learning to present it. Through my design projects, the greatest problem that I have is the processbook. I am always spending my time on the finished process, but I don't give myself time to reflect. Sometimes, this is the most important part.

Reflection, perhaps, is the lesson I have learned the most this year. Just ask Ferris Bueller,

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Cheesy, yes, but also true.

Inspiration _ Type _

When I think of type that has inspired me, it is usually the moveable, bendable, changable, flexible, and, most importantly, expressive type. Although it is not necessarily what I typically do, it is what I strive for.

I love the Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus, not just for type inspiration, but also for finding another word for the one I keep repeating.
The text is so multi-layered, and it has an ease of motion that seems very alive.

Bembo's Zoo is another source of interesting movable type. Here are some of the animals you may see at the zoo.


Keep in mind, the creation of the animals is animated on the site.

Despite my typical dislike of reading blackletter fonts, this one was very dynamic to me.
One facet of design that I don't understand, though I would like to, is the tattoo. I enjoy it on others, but I guess I don't have the commitment to have some type on my body for the rest of my life. This book, Body Type by Ina Saltz shows the variety and possibility of type on body.

Packages within Packages within . . . more PACKAGES

I believe that packaging can create a wonderfully-designed experience, if you let it. However, packaging can also create a bunch of frustration. Take CD packaging; I think this is the main reason that we use MP3s nowadays.

Also, packaging can be so wasteful. One day I went to the grocery store and saw a bin of potatos that were wrapped in shrinkwrap. Why the hell would you do that!?!?

However, there are some very inspired uses of packaging on the market, like those silly little Chinese takeout boxes. Who would have ever imagined a package like that, and why is it so universal?

Aside from the shape, people can put the package surface to work in interesting ways, as well.

Just like we have done with books, packages often come in a series.

I like the way this AXE toy matches the usual packaging but adds a new dimension to it as well.

The following are reactions to films by Hillman Curtis:

Creative camera angles. Only tight shots. What does that mean? Are we too close?

The tight shots show quirky mannerisms of human behavior. Spinal Tap references almost annoying. They are woven through very serious words from a man whose father just died. The expression of love is very conflicted. Do you need to say I love you, or can you just show it?

I feel like I am intruding on someone's very private moment. An intimate conversation. What a gift.

Sometimes we use humor as an emotional shield, but sometimes we can use it as a glue that holds us together.

It is as if Stefan Sagmeister spends his life designing special experiences for us. How sweet. He really has a lot to say. These are things that we all know, but we never have enough time to believe.

Isn't it amazing how design can create wonderful intimacy among strangers?

Design should be about spreading happiness.

I appreciate seeing microphones in movies. Happy accident.

Is Stefan an artist now, instead of a designer? Are designers in fact artists?

Often I feel that the way he repeats his maxims make them less effective. It is better to see them designed than to hear them, although he has a very sweet accent.

BMI, UGC, too many TLAs

A TED talk with Larry Lessig I just watched was very enlightening on the concept of balance.

At first, I thought it was going to be about how old farts don't understand the technology of kids today. Luckily, it was much more than that.

The subject was UGC - user generated content - and the conflict between read/write media where the user has some say versus read only, where the user is a passive listener/watcher but never a doer.

Obviously, we are becoming much more of a R/W culture. This blog is an example of that. However, this blog is also an example of where one creator has lifted images from other people and, basically, stole their creative property (I won't do that this time, just for the record).

We've been through the property battles that technology incites many times, as Lessig discusses. Before it was about physical property. Now it is a bit less tangible. However, MP3s and digital creative property in general ware another domain that will soon be public.

While I believe, and have seen, it to be true that UGC will cause an eruption of amateur creativity, I also believe that there is a backlash to this situation.

The creative content on YouTube, blogs, etc is often very racy, democratic, varied, unexpected, everything I could want in a source of information. It is not reliable, but what is? People create for the love of creation. How beautiful.

But, where is the professional who spends her life refining her work? Where is the master? Do masterpieces exist in UGC? If everyone is a writer and a designer, why am I going to school for these things? I feel like, with any expansion of our horizons, it brings up more questions than answers.

In the end, the answer is balance. I know that there is a lot of UGC in the world, and it is a wonderful source of entertainment, but from time to time, somebody needs a professional. That is why I go to school, and that is why all of the YouTube stars have day jobs.

One haunting point that Lessig made is that, because of the obsession with piracy, we live life knowing that we are breaking the law. All the time. All of us. Is that damaging or helpful to the democracy we strive to create?

Web love

Here are some Web sites that inspire me.

http://www.saatchi.com/worldwide/index.asp

I like the message of this one
http://loveisrespect.org/

Same with this one
http://www.invisiblechildren.com/displaceMe/

The simplicity of Richard Serra is reflected in is site.
http://moma.org/exhibitions/2007/serra/

Ad love

Here are some of the many ads that have inspired me.