DEGREE PROJECT PREP

one idea for helping you to organize your thoughts about your degree project is to think in terms of broad categories in which you're interested. then you can mix and match each of those categories to form a design problem or question.

media
ex: mobile screen, books, television, environmental, packaging, etc

design topic
ex: interaction, identity, kinetic typography, narrative

audience
ex: mountain bikers, salsa dancers, soccer moms, high school history teachers

so, questions/statements could be the following:

how can interaction on a mobile screen serve mountain bikers?
how can identity for salsa dancers be expressed through a book?
what is the potential for relating to soccer moms through kinetic typography on the television?
how might narrative be used in environmental design to help high school history teachers better do their job?

of course some of those sound a bit wacky, but you get the point. you can also start with your content, as many of you have done. that still needs to be rounded out with a couple of these categories, audience probably being the most important one. then the others would fall into place.

if you have content (problems with puppy mills), you need to decide who needs to hear that message (audience). then the media and/or design topic would be determined by how the audience prefers to receive messages.

the main point being that your final proposal will end up including basically all of these categories, so it may be helpful to start brainstorming on them now.

GREAT CONCEPT

check out yoxi.tv, who pose an interesting question: "what if changing the world could be fun?" they are starting to do creative awareness-raising competitions around an issue. looks fun.

PROTOTYPE PRESENTATION

wednesday, oct 20 we will split into two groups to present the results of your prototype feedback. we will have some guests from rosedale community partners to provide feedback. here are the basic specs:

5 groups per room -- futura and garamond
5-7 minute presentation
suggested content: quick re-cap of the problem, show prototypes, report on findings/experiences, tell how that influenced your current direction, next steps
10 minutes for feedback
media: open, but make it professional.

COMMUNITY ADVOCACY PROJECT :: QUICK THOUGHTS

i'm pasting some thoughts below from an email conversation i had with tom tonight regarding testing prototypes. maybe you will find them useful...

on a related note, one model for our projects that may (or may not) be instructive is software revisions. software is never really "done" and new updates and refinements are always in the works. google is known for their "continuous beta" i think it's called, where they are constantly making tiny updates to live software almost daily.

with that in mind, you might think of your prototypes as the project even now, and each time you take them out they get bigger, better, and have more components accompanying them. more sculptures this round, less type next round, more web content later on, etc. and it continues to get better all the time...

READING :: NEW DESIGN PRACTICES

for wednesday, october 13, research the following studios or designers in preparation for a 5-minute presentation for class. both sections will meet together so everyone has the full benefit of seeing the range of work undertaken by these designers.

this is not a full, formal presentation, but some level of planning, outlining, and visual representation of work would be helpful. any digital presentations should be loaded onto a single computer before the start of class for quick and easy transitions between students.

we will do all presentations, then use whatever time is left over to discuss the work as a whole.

mo – moxie sozo
abby –  local projects
micah – backspace
tom – free-range studios
johnna – addis creson
luke – ALR design
jessica – celery design
sean – jonathan barnbrook
kate – favianna rodriguez
bryan – eyebeam
dustin – piece studio
lance – worldstudio
amanda – empax
dmitri – citizen scholar
carly – 501 creative
tammy – john bielenberg / project M

BLOGGIN'

not a lot of process documentation happening on the blogs. keep in mind that it not only serves as a reflection tool and way of thinking through your process, but it also proves to your instructors the breadth and depth of the work you've done.

to that end, here are a few posts we'd like to see:

• reflections on any external conversations you've had
• a re-cap of your brainstorming from the past week
• your final three directions you'll be prototyping
• images of the prototypes before in-class review

remember to label all of your posts "va" or similar, so they are easily found. thanks!