Our Original Sketches and Designs

Here are some of our initial sketches and ideas from the beginning of the project.
Sorry it's taken so long to get them up on here but we've been pretty busy actually making the website so once these are all up I will get back up to date reporting the last couple of days.

First up are Amy's first sketches of the doors to Plymouth Market and how we could use this as the beginning of our website and our first notes on how the website could run from page to page:


Brainstorm stage 1...

1. Market Doors - click to go in. Need two photographs (doors open/doors closed)
2.Open plain slightly Birds Eye View of market. Have 6 highlighted/outlined stalls with names on top highlighted.
3. click on one then flicks to photos Amy took eg. pet store and then click on highlighted budgie cage and into come all related to the store.


Few more ideas.

Rather than have it just give information on that store, could have it giving information on the market - history, culture, different types of stalls, navigation of market - where it is in relation to plymouth (draw map?) how to get there, opening hours etc.

Could have with the pictures of some of the stalls we took have sounds and the interviews..

Also was thinking about the flash - for some people it takes ages to load and not everyone has a flash player which could be a downfall… we could always put this in our critical evaluation at the end, but maybe not all the website has to be in flash? just the beginning and when they go to choose which part of the market they want to visit...


As soon as Amy sends the next bits later today I'll upload them to go with these.
Take care,
Joe

Further Website Research

Carrying on from yesterday here's the rest of my research notes:

http://www.net-reality.org/

Good: Neil Jenkins piece "Exquisite Corpse" really stood out to me as the whole piece seems to be based around key literature and words the viewers have input being combined.
This allows the viewer to have an affect on what the content is and become a part of it, a feature we could add to ours though on a less complex basis.
Stanza's piece looked really interesting but sadly, like most of the other websites, it didn't load for me as I used Safari web browser so even though it looked good I wasn't able to further my research without lots of hassle etc.

Bad: But to be honest from what others have said it seems I haven't missed much.
With the websites and pieces I could see, this view was pretty much verified as well, mainly because most of the work was very abstract and similar to the previous website http://wwwwwwwww.jodi.org/ with the bright colours and text, although with much more purpose and explanation with these pieces!
The layout did not inspire me to delve deeper into the different "online/offline" versions etc. either as it seemed very standard and basic, as if it was done not to promote the pieces but just to contain them.

http://www.incident.net/works/timessquare/

Good: Really interesting use of live webcams, all contained in a very simplistic and straight to the point website.
Unlike the boring standard layout of http://www.net-reality.org/, this site makes the main content the focus of the whole website and doesn't let the viewers attention wander to anything else, because there is very little else which pops out to the viewer.
The interactivity is enjoyable and quite surreal to look at Times Square live whilst it dark and cold here in Plymouth!
The titles are bold and subtly highlighted when selected so though the design is not O.T.T on engaging the viewer, it works effectively to filter the attention onto the main piece.

Bad: Due to a slow internet connection the video footage was very jerky so I didn't really get the full experience but from what I saw it was really good. Slow internet connection is a problem which is inevitable to be honest so with our own website we will have to discuss ways to get around this and find a solution so the viewer can get the full experience of being in the market.

http://www.viewsfromthegroundfloor.com/

Good: The use of video alongside the same theme and text style as the website ties the two together. The layout is simple but works well to direct to the content.

Bad: The content and layout seemed very dated and could have been done much better in my opinion. The bright text against a black background gets really irritating and is very hard to read so it was only at the last second that I saw the warning that it will crash Safari.
Luckily it didn't crash it but even though the theme of the site connects with the video, a more simplistic and bold theme would benefit here instead of the difficult style putting me off exploring the content further than the initial video.
With our own work an simplistic and easy to understand format is definitely starting to seem the best way forward.

http://amanita-design.net/samorost-1/

Wow. This website was by far my favourite to work with and was just beautiful in all areas.
Good: The visual content is absolutely stunning and really sucks the viewer in to the storyline of the game, in fact right at the beginning when the second planet is going to collide with the first I actually felt sorry for the little guy!
The game itself though incredibly surreal and random is very easy to navigate and each scene links to the next with ease. The loading times are quick so the action keeps going and the puzzling interactivity to try and get the man to carry on his journey really makes you think and get involved, an aspect that maybe our own website could benefit from by incorporating games of some kind?
The layout is superb as there is only 2 links at the top for the creators etc. leaving the entire site to exploring this strange new story and discovering what might be going on. This greatly pushes all the emphasis onto finding the interactive areas of the first planet and beginning the story free of distractions from other areas of the website.

Bad: The only downside I can possibly think of is that some of the parts of the level were hard to do, both to think about and secondly to find the interactive areas. This is most likely part of the overall experience but for me it got a tiny bit tedious and took some of the glory away from such a brilliant piece.

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/nauman/

Good: The use of sound is very impressive and there is plenty to play with, ranging from many different emotions and overall very effective at creating an effect on me, even if it was a negative and disturbed one. All the different voices when running the mouse down across them all became very unnerving and although personally I didn't like the piece, I can admire that it took a lot of work and is effective on me.

Bad: A downside is that the layout is rubbish. It is so bland and boring, which is probably why it works so well to unnerve me, but still even if you're going for a basic emotionless website so the content does the talking (literally!) there was so much more which could be done than just plain greys.
The text also as each piece was spoken ran too fast to it became harder to understand what some of them were saying, particularly the "piss and die, eat and die" etc. part, it was only by listening a fair few times I could understand what they were saying!

http://arounder.com/

Good: The final website I looked at and to be honest it was pretty much just Google Maps but with more areas such as inside certain buildings as well. Never the less I chose to look at Cyprus as I'm going on holiday there in the summer and from what Arounder has shown me in very high quality it looks good! Though I said this is like Google Maps it is a much more advanced version and of a much higher quality in some areas. The layout is simple and easy to use, just choose a place and off you go.
The fonts and text are all very easy to read and so working out how to use the software wasn't hard in the slightest.

Bad: The only real downsides are that 1) apart from being a map there isn't much else that is interactive and this becomes boring quickly, and 2) the fact that the camera is way too fast and hard to control. It's all well and good showing wherever you've chosen to look at in high quality satellite imagery, but if you can't slow the camera to look at it, there's not much point.
Other than that an enjoyable website which was also very helpful and informative as well, again something we want our viewer to feel as well.

Having researched all these websites and seen what is good and bad when it comes to this area of the media, there are many questions and areas of development and interactivity I'd like to bring up with my group and see how they feel about it as well.
That's all for tonight but today we finished collecting all our content ready to be put into a website tomorrow so stay tuned for all our sketches, notes and diagrams to be up and available to you soon.
Take care,
Joe

Website Research

Having looked and already experienced the Gorillaz website before starting this module, I decided that I needed to broaden my scope of interactive websites, to get the best out of this module and our website.
I began by going back to the module brief and basically going down the lists checking out what I liked and what I wanted to steer away from. Then with this information we will discuss as a group tomorrow about what interactive aspects we want to show on our own website.
Here's my notes on each website I checked out and a link so you can see it for yourself :

http://www.tenement.org/folksongs/

Good: Brilliantly interactive and easy to get the hang of! Really enjoyed messing around with using Victor Gana's folk songs, field recordings, spoken word tracks and music to make something new and exciting everytime.
The use of an interactive map as the very first thing the viewer sees is very good at grabbing your attention and I believe it is flash so this may be an area we should definitely think about working with for our project.
The titles and headings were straight to the point so the content is clear and easy to use right from the go, again an area we will consider for our own work as we want the website to be accessible and understandable to anyone who is interested so the content needs to be easy to understand and find.
Avoid: Lack of depth.
There isn't much else to do apart from make the music. Perhaps some interviews with those behind the project and why they created the website and project would benefit in giving the website and original idea more depth?
Also though the music is the main focus, in my opinion a more interesting array of colours for the websites design would do justice to how engaging the interactive and unique musical experience can be.
The content needs to be supported and linked to the visual layout in short to gain full emphasis of where and what the music is trying to portray, e.g. the sounds of city could include more industrial and city based colours such as yellow taxis, crimson brick etc. instead of plain greys and blues which made it seem more like a science project than an interactive personal expression of an area through sound.

http://wwwwwwwww.jodi.org/

Good: Begins mysterious as you don't know what the website is about, intrigued me to find out more and delve further in. The patterns of the text and the colours are interesting but....
Bad: ....Although it entices you in, it doesn't seem to deliver anything whatsoever.
In fact there is no point to this website nor interaction except button clicking to even more useless pages so I don't see how anyone could enjoy it anymore than the 3 seconds where you try to register this strange website with it's intricate patterns of text and colours, before you click once and tire of it completely.

http://www.diacenter.org/simmons

Good: The flash itself is brilliant to keep the viewer entertained as you try to beat the blocks of visual fading away before you can uncover more and see the whole picture. The humming music is subtle but really brings out the ballroom theme of the piece and makes you think about behind the scene and for me personally I thought of an old couple reminiscing of their time dancing together, humming their favourite songs and trying to remember their favourite places, yet as soon as they remember one part, it fades as they try to remember another. To me, this flash animation works superbly to bring out this amnesia feel whilst trying to be nostalgic as you remember what happened, what you heard and how you felt, but sometimes you just can't picture it in your head.
Bad: The first look at the website is just awful. It is so boring and I very nearly closed it down immediately because, though there were tabs at the top for various areas they all seemed far too informative and text based and didn't appeal to me at all.
In fact, the only reason I looked at these tabs was because the actual link to "Wake" was so bland and basic i thought of it more as a title than a link. For our own website the titles will have to pop and be obvious where the viewer can go, not standard and boringly subtle like this initial website was.
Also though "Wake" is very good as I explained earlier, this novelty does not last long and after 3 clicks through to different ballroom scenes, I'd had enough and moved on. This is an aspect we should avoid with our website as we want viewers to learn something and want to come back, not have one go then never return.

That's all for tonight but tomorrow I'll continue my research and post it to carry on from this research.
Take care,
Joe.

Plymouths Indoor market

After a meeting on friday we've made a lot of progress which is great.
Whilst me and Jeff met up and started discussing layout ideas and looking at other websites, in particular the interactive website for the band "Gorillaz" and the "Plastic Beach" interactive game ( http://gorillaz.com/plasticbeach ), Amy and Anastasija went to the market and started collecting the primary photos so we could get a feel for what we could work with.
Having looked at these photos we then thought up the idea of starting at the doors of the market and showing a sort of virtual tour of the market, going from the doors to a wide open view or birds eye view map or the area, where the viewer can click on certain stalls and switch to a photo of that shop and find information on that stall.
At the photo of the stall certain objects in the photo will be interactive so the viewer can click on them and find more content such as interviews with the stall owners about the area and its history, examples of what they sell and so on.
As you can tell I think we're pretty much moving away from the abstract idea of the chest of drawers and going for a more simplistic approach to expressing our chosen area, but still keeping it interesting and interactive by having plenty of content and interactivity for the viewer to experience.
As I type this, Amy has been working on some sketches of how the website could look based on our discussions and the photos they brought back from the market, so pretty soon I'll upload these early plans and hopefully give you guys a better picture of what we have in mind for this project.
Also whilst waiting for Amy's sketches I'm going to work on a few storyboards for how the website to pan out from section to section, how the content could be visible to the viewer via sounds and highlighted areas etc. and any other aspects of design which might pop into my head.
All in all, things are going well :)
Take care,
Joe

Up to speed with MEDI 116

Having been off ill from Tues 16th Feb to Wed 3rd March with Tonsillitis, I'd pretty much missed most of the initial lectures and workshops on MEDI 116 and if I'm honest, apart from reading the module overview I had no clue what I was meant to be doing for this project.

However now I've been back for a couple of weeks my group and the tutorials have brought me back to up to speed and we've now settled on a final location for our website; Plymouth's indoor Market.

Originally we were going to use the Bus Station as our main area but realised that there wasn't that much going on there to make it very interesting and interactive.

So by realising this we went back to the drawing board and decided to try a more abstract vibe with which to express our chosen area.

For example one of our first ideas was a chest of drawers where each draw contained a separate space with which to work, or a sink where we could incorporate the sounds and usage as interactive areas for the viewer to experience.

Sadly though these objects were great for introducing an abstract view on an area, they massively over complicated the overall look of the website.

To try and overcome this problem we tried to link these two subjects of area and object by for example showing a photograph of the Bus station on top of the chest of drawers, with the chest of drawers shown in the photograph of the bus station as well.

Going on from this theme we thought of where we could find a chest of drawers and fell upon the idea of Plymouth's indoor market, the perfect place for all manner of objects.

That's all we have so far but keep looking for where we go from here and possibly some sketches and so on of website layout after our next meet-up.

Take care,

Joe

First Blog

Good afternoon and thanks very much for viewing my blog :)
This space is my electronic sketchbook where I can show and keep a digital record of all the work I create, on both professional and personal levels, and the thinking processes and development which lead up to the final products.
Having finished my work for MEDI 119 and handed it in this morning the main focus is on the next two modules, MEDI 116 and MEDI 117 so keep an eye out for new updates coming soon!
Thanks again for viewing and take care.