As part of our new studio project this term entitled ‘Utopia/Dystopia’ I was tasked to illustrate a series of designs which conveyed either or both of these themes in the form of a book. - Taking ‘Dystopia’ as my topic of choice I drew inspiration from a few personal photos and started experimenting.
I actually really enjoyed this mini task and thought I’d expand on it by publishing a digital version of this book and wrapping some kind of package around the content. I am always looking for a little sideline project that will help push my skill set so I thought I’d develop a dynamic Flash app to allow interaction with these images. Feel free to have a gander at my initial development:
This is still developed using AS2, and the images are sourced using xml all well and good, but there is something niggling at me, something telling me to bite the bullet and start getting to grips with AS3!…….So I’ve decided I am going to use this application as a foundation to develop these skills and implement a larger scale interactive ’surface portfolio’. My intention is for this subdomain to eventually house an interactive version of my work, represented in a much more visual way. - Imagine a surface with different pockets of work, they can be chucked around, transformed and viewed. Right, kool, go.
I’m well on my way developing my ‘day in the life of’ project and after considering a range of possibilities, I have chosen to run with ‘a day in the life of a car tyre’. Previously, I felt this idea lacked momentum and I was more inclined to persue the idea of a 404 page, however after further consideration, I concluded the idea would require a multitude of varying people to collaborate and ‘act’, which I believe would have put the project’s visual and contextual standard at risk.
Instead, I have now developed a storyboard for an animation based on a car tyre, shown below.
Conceptually, if a car tyre were conscious, I believe that it’s constant rapid rotation upon movement would ultimately cause its memory to falter; to be distorted and to be cut. My storyboard is therefore based on this theory. The tyre’s day is left in wonder and uncertainty. Events occur but the tyre never sees the outcome.
Visually, I have attempted to convey a sense of mystery and sinisterness in order to represent the character’s non-conclusive intentions.
My next step in developing this project is to experiment with different mediums and footage in order to realise the feasibility of my intended visual language.
We are all well into 2008 now and here it is, our first visual studies brief to welcome in the new term. The brief is simply this; “A day in the life of…” - Here we are given the freedom to complete this sentence and over the next 12 weeks design, develop and implement an animation that portrays our idea.
This is great:
My initial ideas.…A bus ticket - I am intrigued by the idea that bus tickets are one of them things in life that we all have no interest in, or most of us anyway I guess…or is it just me? Does the rest of the world secretly store and archive their journeys? - What happens to that ticket? rarely it is checked and rarely referred to after a journey. Does it end up in your wallet to be found a week later? Is it screwed up in your pocket? or does it end up in the bin? What conversations does this bus ticket hear in its life after being printed?…A till roll - I guess this is formed as a tangent from the previous, however the angle here could be the events within the till roll…roll. The time leading up until the till roll is printed - The location would have to be considered here. The ink process and almost the personality of the ticket could be portrayed too.
…A car tyre - We must run over some random things whilst driving surely?
A think with all these initial ideas, there are two considerations. The first being the story, the script and the storyboard. The second is the visual language, and with this second point in mind more prominently for the moment; do these ideas have the potential to encompass a visual style?
Out of the three, I feel the tyre is the least inspiring due to the lack of scope, visually.
Hence a 4th idea is “a day in the life of a 404 page”. - Yea we have all been there, a link advertises an article that seems really interesting…we think “hmmm, this might be worth a read…” - only to find a 404 page stuck there; a huge slap in the face if you will.
I think this is rather interesting. Peoples expressions, peoples reactions could compliment a strong storyline, and I also think there is vast scope visually that could show environments, the people behind the screen.
I feel I could really get into this project, and it will give me the chance to work conceptually and to develop idea generation… and of course to maybe grab a camera and start shooting
After what seems like months of debating, shall I? shan’t I?…Yesterday I finally took the plunge, gritted the teeth and surfaced the plastic card from my already tarnished wallet. (£7.50 return on the train to Barnsley! We decided to divert to Leeds and thought we’d get our money’s worth :-))
Hint: Nice! ace! bit of kit and not a Canon! - Any clues?
Absolutely! a lovely new D40x, 200mm lens, bag(of course) and SD card now sit comfortably within arms reach. I really cant wait to get to grips with the features and get snapping.
I am sat wondering, (and its an interesting thought really), but what is that very first shot you take with your camera?
Click on the image below to launch this version of Re:Scoop. I have now implemented the review feature of the app, which I feel gives the app purpose. Again a feature such as this is limited with the amount of data I have used, however I feel there is lots of scope here to expand if I felt necessary, with larger quantities of data and so providing the user an interface to store and filter relevant information allowing them to get the most out of the application.
At this stage of development I am going to present this app at my review along with a body of visual development work to push the boundaries of the design. Even now I am beginning to understand the regions of experimentation and to move away from usual standards. Notice that in this version of the app, I have redesigned the ‘cancel’ and ’scoop’ buttons to visually illustrate their function in a different way. This alteration is applicable to the app’s current theme and gives it that slight edge whilst maintaining definition and function.
I have been working quite a lot on the app since my last post and have now incorporated an actual ’scoop’ mechanism that I talked about previously. Here the user now has the ability to click an individual node, which in turn reveals more data about the subject line and shows the comment provided by the company. Notice also how I have moved away from my intiial concept of zooming through the space and have instead opted to ground all the other nodes in a way that almost adds gravity. This interface shift occurred because of the physics involved in generating a zooming effect; I ultimately felt the application lost its professional approach and did not convey the result I wanted.
Another major change in the app shows the original filtering panel now empty. I felt that with the limited data I had at my disposal, a filtering system could only accomplish so much, and furthermore this would result in minimal activity on the stage and ultimately a less-engaging experience for the user. Saying this, I think this could be implemented very effectively at a later date with more data, then the results of this facility may be more rewarding and useful.
I have therefore changed this panel to instead become part of the new ’scooping’ interface. When a node is clicked, the user is provided with two options labeled as ‘cancel’ and ’scoop!’ - Clicking the cancel button un-grounds the nodes and resumes the random activity on the stage. However clicking the ’scoop!’ button now adds this node to the scoop panel! At this stage of the app, the user can add multiple nodes to the panel and from here I will move to develop the ‘review’ functionality to show the captured data side-by-side. In a way I guess this still acts similar to a filtering system and gives the user the ability to also compare information and make decisions applicable to them.
In reflection of my feedback and new sketches I felt it was wise to attempt my approach of ‘zooming’ through the nodes when clicked. This experiment can be viewed below and I feel the outcome is a little minimal and one that doesn’t convey my desired result very well. I still wish to maintain a professional approach to this app and so I will now work with an aim to visualising the nodes in a different way. Initial alternatives could maybe include fading the nodes or dropping the nodes from view.
This week I attended a studio feedback session with my tutors and thought it best to record and reflect on the comments to help me develop this application in the right direction.
I felt there were three main areas to focus on:
1. How the individual nodes are represented and how they visually reflect the data.
This comment encompasses my current use of circles to denote individual nodes and I was encouraged to develop this aspect more uniquely. I could perhaps think about a wider range of colours, and also how the open rate could be used to show how successful the subject lines are more graphically, e.g. deterioration of the nodes the less successful they are.
2. Developing the application to better reflect the name of ‘RE:SCOOP’
I came up with the name ‘RE:SCOOP’ to echo how this data was initially collected and gathered, but if I could also provide the user with their own method of gathering and collection, this would allow me to develop the application to another depth (as discussed further below).
3. Adding another level to the application
Even though this application is currently in its initial stages of development, it still only allows the user to interact with the data on a 2D plane. I.e. the user cannot interact with this data any further other than simply hovering and filtering the nodes. Instantly however I could think about what happens if the nodes are clicked…if there was some way to focus an individual node and bring that into prime view, which would enable more information to be shown. E.g. the companies comment on each node.
Here is a rough sketch of how this could work:
To the left are my initial notes after considering how I could convey the name ‘RE:SCOOP’ to the above concept.
I could actually provide a way for the user to collect up all the data that is relevant to them and then at any point in time review these side by side - complete with all data.
I would now like to test this theory out to see if it is a feasible route forward.
I have now developed the app to include individual, randomly-moving nodes as per my previous experiment. These nodes retrieve the MailChimp data from an XML data source. When the user hovers over a node, the subject line is displayed.
Over the past couple of months I feel very fortunate to have been invited to co-ordinate and implement a 5 minute promotional motion piece for this year’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. The piece was produced on behalf of Live:lab and my brief was to capture the essence of this internationally recognised event and to convey a disjointed presence within the piece. I also wish to express my thanks to Luke Willetts who implemented some of the features and for his support along the way. Please feel free to play the short excerpt below.
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