Reading response

I DO DECLARE: (link)

This was definitely helpful I'd say.

I'ts important to be able to make good presentations. One would expect that designers would be good at that, but apparently they aren't for the most part. 'Designers should arouse the audience, not merely incite'.

The different guidlines are helfpul in making the experience more engaging for the audience:

.showing a 'map' of what you're going to talk about – a thesis statement.

.utilize your strengths - play down your weaknesses. (i.e. if you don't talk much, use visuals).

.keep the audience guessing.

.incorperate different ways of speaking.

.edit. use critical insight.

.use humor when possible and appropriate.

.don't let the audience be stuck in the same thought for too long.

.speak rather than read. or if you read, don't let it be evident. - let the audience read aswell. That is another way to engage.

.make it obvious when the end is going to be.

__________

BE SELFISH (link)

It is inspiring to think that a presentation can be a learning experience not only for the audience but also the presenter. If you set it up in such a way, changing your approach to however you came up with what you are presenting, new things might easily occur to you.

For any presentation, it would be best to know your audience as much as possible. know what they know and don't know. you don't want to touch on things that they already know, and you don't want to ovewhelm them with things that they don't know. Know if there is anything that they might be able to talk to you about.

Use heirarchy. don't give the audience something to read and expect them to listen to you talk at the same time. Use imagery to correspond to what they say instead.

Use basic design principles to make presentations visually engaging — easy to read typography, etc.

use a simple structure that your audience can easily follow and so give you feedback. After you acquire feedback, take good note of it so that you will be able to reflect upon it and use it to inform any further progress.

before you present, practice of course, and loosen up. get excited.

____

TED talk:

http://www.ted.com/talks/john_hardy_my_green_school_dream.html

The presenter of this presentation about Green School said what he had to say with simple language. He was not over articulate. he used short and concise sentences. He was able tell the audience, in simple terms, what Green School was all about. The images that he used supported everything that he said very well. Over all his message was very clear and easy to follow. He did not engage the audience any longer than necessary. everything that he had to say he said in a reasonable amount of time. His presentation was simple and in no way pretentious or overly thought out. it seemed honest and thorough. it was super.

Reading response

I DO DECLARE: (link)

This was definitely helpful I'd say.

I'ts important to be able to make good presentations. One would expect that designers would be good at that, but apparently they aren't for the most part. 'Designers should arouse the audience, not merely incite'.

The different guidlines are helfpul in making the experience more engaging for the audience:

.showing a 'map' of what you're going to talk about – a thesis statement.

.utilize your strengths - play down your weaknesses. (i.e. if you don't talk much, use visuals).

.keep the audience guessing.

.incorperate different ways of speaking.

.edit. use critical insight.

.use humor when possible and appropriate.

.don't let the audience be stuck in the same thought for too long.

.speak rather than read. or if you read, don't let it be evident. - let the audience read aswell. That is another way to engage.

.make it obvious when the end is going to be.

__________

BE SELFISH (link)

In Response to the Readings

.Sketches and Prototypes: (link)

The reading makes abundantly clear that a sketch is something different than a prototype. A sketch is something that is freehanded and whimsical and does not require any commitment. A prototype is similar in a way, though quite different. A prototype is further along in the development of the creative process. With a prototype, you are still free to explore, yet at that point in the process, you will have (after making sketches) made some commitments toward certain ideas.

You use a sketch to think of a loose idea – it is something that is affordable in both time and materials. The prototype is an affordable way of demonstrating how a project will finally turn out – it should allow you the freedom for some minor change, but mostly just refinements.

________

FINAL book layouts

process: IDEAS

final artifact: (for some reason, the sounds didn't upload to YOUTUBE)...

I was still having issues exporting and .mov file from flash. I attempted a number of solutions after doing a considerable amount of research on the matter, but to no avail. I found that even profesionals had issued complaints to adobe saying that this has been an issue with flash. and surprisingly enough, adobe still charges up the wallloo for their product. But I did what I could, and for the most part the motion piece is as you see it. but minus the bits left behind.

and here's my logo build

My understanding of the theory of story structure was richer because I was able to use more channels than one. by using different channels simultaneously, I message can be conveyed a great deal more effectively than simply using one channel. However, I realized pretty quickly that in adding more channels than necessary, a message's meaning can easily be distracting or altered unnecessarily.

I thought that by simply using only two channels (image and sound effects) that my message was quite clear, and quite effective. It seems quite capable of holding the audience's attention for the whole of its duration. and I think it is quite memorable, and the message is clear: that is, YOT makes toys which are creative, innovative, and inspire imagination.

I found it to be quite a challenge to compose these visual elements in a fairly beleivable way, which would still seem playful and yet somewhat realistic. another challenge was to add sound that was approriote. so there was a considerable amount of compilation of sounds (I used audacity for that). I had to time them, layer them, and cut them, then reimport the audio files into flash. it was a bit of a process, but one that I am comfortable doing by now.

I had many versions of how the toy blocks move. I tried making them swing like on a crane and that was tough. I also tried to create a 3D cube for those toy cubes so that I could have the block spin as it moved. that didn't work very well. Id probably want to use After Effects for that. duh. I found it helpful to look up real videos of these actual mechanism from the real world. I used that to inform the way I put my objects into motion. At least you can understand what each object is doing. that's nice.

I'm glad the transitions are fairly seemless too. I'm proud of the carrots swinging in toward the end.

process: IDEAS

final artifact:

I was still having issues exporting and .mov file from flash. I attempted a number of solutions after doing a considerable amount of research on the matter, but to no avail. I found that even profesionals had issued complaints to adobe saying that this has been an issue with flash. and surprisingly enough, adobe still charges up the wallloo for their product. But I did what I could, and for the most part the motion piece is as you see it. but minus the bits left behind.

and here is a fairly close attempt at fixing the matter by importing an flv to after effects and exporting that to an .mov. however the sound got lost in that process somehow.

more koenig process

Thumbails for layouts. helped a lot. but i was having trouble puting them in the digital format.

_____

Here is a set of layout that were put on a simple grid. as BORING as they look, doing this helped me get a better appreciation of the grid, and a better understanding of how to set up a digital layout that is not super wacky.

_____

Going for more interesting compositions, I then did these:

FINAL SCHEMATIC visual communication theory

and finally:

____________

further refinement:

schematic PROGRESS

The following are rough draft schematics that were either too specific, or did not have very good formal qualities. However, I took elements from some of these and used them in the final.

PROCESS

________

PROCESS:

the visual components that i had to photoshop and set to motion in flash:

these are the blocks I would use for my 'construction site' with the beeping construction sounds.

I was trying to get a neat way to let the block swing for my motion, I wanted this 3D block to hang like it was the wire of a crane, and it would spin around, showing different sides to it. But that didn't work out so well. especially since I was using flash. but i tried.

Noah's ark is a bit tough. It's much harder then I thought it would be to make this piece move along as if it were floating on a flooding wave. I have lots of flash files as iterations but don't think I will upload them all to here, if I need to, I can open the file and watch them. The same is true for all of them.

and sound was a big part. I had to go online and find good files. then i took them and compiled them together in audacity. here is my neatly organized compilation of sound files.