AK

ACT 4 GWS - First designs

I have attached the first designs of the website. As you can see the website has progressed from the early stages to now. www.act4gws.com.au

Graphic Design 4.2 - Music festival assignment

I have changed my domain to http://act4gws.com.au

I will be doing my assignment on the ‘ACT 4 GWS’ AFL Canberra campaign.

Graphic Design 4.2 - Music festival assignment

My link to my festival website will be http://andrewkominek.com/musicfestival.

I would like to discuss my options on doing my website on a different topic. I will organise this with Geoff.

BLOG SUBMISSION

The three posts are:

LED ART

CAN CREATIVITY BE LEARNED

TERRORISM AND DESIGN (instead of can creativity be learned)

MASHUP

RSS

Before starting this course I didn’t realise what exactly RSS feeds were. I saw the symbol everywhere and just thought it was a geeky application within websites.

Since joining a few blogs I now understand why they are important and why so many people use them. I joined bloglines which updates me with blog entries that I haven’t read yet. It is just another thing that this technology crazed generation use to just make things easier and more efficient. What’s the poin tof logging into all of these blog sites when you can just get the updates when they are posted?

There are going to be more things like this in the future and there is no hiding from it.If there is an easy way to do something someone will invent it.

Mashup

I recently was watching some of the videos on THRUYOU and really thought these videos were very good and very interesting. I watched most of them and found myself not getting bored. When people watch these and when I watched these videos I am fascinated in how they make these videos.

These videos are classified as mashups. I never really new what mashups were before doing this unit at uni but my definition would have never been something like the videos on THRUYOU. My definition of a mashup was something that used applications from different areas and put them into one. I then looked up mashups on the ever faithful wikipedia and found out my definition wasn’t too far off. Mashups can also use APIS which is another great tool for developing interesting and easy websites. The use of masups and other similar new technologies just make it easier for people to produce work and collate information for whatever the topic they need.

This brings me to my next point, anyone can make something from all of the information out there. Why do people make these things. I find a lot of these things very interesting and very creative, but what are they gaining from these projects? I am sure there are a lot of designers out there who could make some great stuff but just don’t have the time. Some of the best works in these areas are done by good designers. They are getting paid for these works usually and that’s when some good work gets produced. So to take full advantage of these new technologies I think companies and business should take on some these new technologies and produce some different work. These kinds of works are very popular to people these days and are also very accessible. Works that are on the internet are very popular and are viewed by a lot of people.

I think I will have to produce something like these works in the future.

Data Visualisation - Rationale

I chose to do a data visualisation because the ones I have seen previously have been very interesting and very creative. It really seems to be the new cool, creative thing. I tried to create something different and interesting but it was a lot harder than I imagined. I chose the statistics of Energy Use in Australian Homes, which I got from the ABS site. The information was not as good as I had hoped but I really wanted to this topic because I thought it would be a topic that people would want to know about. We are in an age of concern with global warming and other unknown factors in our lives that we try to find out as much information as we can about how we can improve. That is what I thought these statistics were going to be about. But they are more about facts and general information. There is nothing really that helps with saving energy or anything like that really. In the end I chose to do it because I had to chose something.

To create the data visualisation I made a video. I wanted the video to be informative, intersting and not too boring. I think it is a little boring with the voice I used (which was mine), ideally I would have got someone professional to do it. I also wanted to create the feel of simple, easy and efficient. I made the whole piece with pictures that I drew and scanned in. I thought this way of presenting the images wouldn’t come off to showy. The information is meant to be about saving energy and helping the environment. So creating something that looked like it didn;t cost a lot of money or seemed like it had little affect on the environment, I thought was the way to go.

I had recently seen an overwhelming use of 2.5D motion graphic work and decided to use it to understand it a bit better and to develop my skills. There is a lot of work out there now with this style and isn’t anything new but still very simple and effective. I also wanted this piece to be viewed so using an existing style would draw people in. So I tagged it as 2.5D and stop motion and I think this will lead some people to watch it. Also how many people use youtube? A lot! so making a movie also made sense to me, so it would be out there in the world.

I tried to portray the information differently from fact to fact and in some cases had some great and big ideas. I had to hold back on these thoughts just so I could get this project finished. There is a lot work involved in making a video and I initially had a lot more information and statistics but thought too much, would put people to sleep and keep me up all night trying to complete it.

If I ever have the time I would like to make something really detailed by using the concept of data visualisation. I think it is a great way to portray information and for people to understand the information in front of them.

All statistics from the ABS website and they want to be cited when using their information:

Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009, Environmental Issues: Energy Use and Conservation, Mar 2008, viewed 15 May 2009, http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4602.0.55.001Main+Features1Mar%202008?OpenDocument

Check out the video below on youtube or above.

Data Visualisation - movie

Terrorism and Design

‘Evil intent and design responsibility’ is a report by Kemper. He says that the only way us as designers can contribute to combat terrorism is through ‘engineering solutions’. I disagree.

Kemper is right that through designing the right engineering solutions designers can help combat terrorism. This is not the only way to help with the issue of terrorism. Designing things to combat terrorism is not the same as addressing terrorism. We have to think of what terrorsim is and how can we resolve it. I think designing these vehicles and so on is just contributing to terrorism it is not resolving it. It is just a bandaid on the issue. They may win these little battles but they have not won the war on terrorism. We as designers have to make people aware of the issue and make people think about the two sides of the war. Both sides think the other one is getting justice through war and violence. One way of getting people to understand and think about this issue is through marketing of products and designer campaigns. One example of getting people’s attention was that of the Benetton campaign. Bennetton is a clothing company from Italy. They had a few campaigns using the issues of poverty, HIV/AIDS and one which was the most controversial of all and I don’t agree with, was the ‘we on death row’. Anyway they used these issues in the world to draw people to buy their clothes, and it worked. The only problem was that there was no money going to these issues. But if we as designers can get the attention of the public we can make a difference. There are a lot of people out there who don’t understand both sides and can’t seem to compromise or think in a different way. Knowledge is power.