Last Wednesday I went to Zenith Media in Newport to learn about the printing process. I have previously been to McLays outside of Cardiff, however Zenith was much bigger. They had a huge range of paper which had different shades of white, these had to be kept in a natural light lit room. We went through the process from screen based to the end product. First the digital file would be sent to the printers to be checked for design errors such as colour formatting and quality of the images to make sure they are not going to be pixelated once printed in large quantities. This created an error log which could be changed by the printers at a fee, and a time delay to the production time. From here, the final digital file will make its way to the Lithographic room where the four-colour process takes place, here each colour will be printed onto a metal plate which can then be flexed around a roller for super quick printing. Spot colours can be added later if necessary. This will then make its way to the dicing room where the document can be trimmed or scored for folding. The trip itself was really interesting and worthwhile as it is completely different to printing at home. The scale of the service available and speed of production was surprising and made me realise the importance of correctly formatting a digital file for print to avoid costly fees and time delays for production. It would be really good to get work experience within a printing company such as this to get a better understanding of corporate printers and how to avoid common errors.
The last few weeks have been busy with the completion of my dissertation, which in turn has had an impact on my TBI project. After completing my thesis I now have a few days to really focus on my project. I want to look at the editorial environment within social media to implement awareness content on our perception of social media and how we behave. I am really interested in how we act online and feel it would be a great thing to research and work on, as the internet is dramatically becoming a part of our everyday activity. From my research already I have learnt the issues social media brings such as smiling depression to our perceived ideology of the perfect lifestyle which is influenced by famous figures or simply our social media friends.
My direction and purpose of this project is to raise awareness to those who use social media activity about the way they do so. This could be done through interactive content/ advertisement. It could possibly reflect their own behaviour through a light-humoured cartoon style, with a deeper awareness which will make the target audience reflect. A possible direction could be that the user clicks through the daily activities a said character does which is a standard behaviour of an active social generation such as myself. The user would interactive with these still images or gif animations to extend the story. Between each transition there could be an informative note which raises the awareness of the dangers or issues caused by doing a said activity (such as checking a smart device at night, this can disrupt sleeping patterns which has a wider affect on a persons body such as insomnia, memory fatigue or anxiety) I really don’t want this project to become a metal health awareness campaign because that is not the case, instead I want to make the user aware of their ‘looping’ styled behaviour and try and influence a fresh approach to the way people use social media in an attempt to bring a healthy balance between their social life and actual lifestyle. I could possibly link this to the creative industry and how this can affect their creativity by limiting their imagination and idea generation.
I had a short tutorial with my tutor today to discuss possible direction. I discussed my concept and how I could target my desired audience and what I wanted to achieve from this. We talked about augmented reality and how companies such as Pepsi have implemented their advertisement into everyday situations.
All of us know bus stops have generalised advertisement posters on the sides for us to see while we wait for a bus, however more recently we are ignoring many ways of traditional advertisement which I discussed in my dissertation. Pepsi have taken a fresh approach to this by implementing augmented reality which uses a live feed of a pavement behind the bus-stop to turn the side into a ‘window’ where the audience can see others passing by and the same goes for the traffic. However, at different moments the screen introduces bizarre scenarios such as a UFO attack, meteor crash and even escaped animals running towards the bus stop. At a first glance the audience are drawn to the sudden movement from the sky or path which is moving towards them. After the audience is aware that the animation is projected onto the screen it transitions to a pepsi advertisement. This approach to grasping the target audience proved very affective with many of those who witnessed the projections, smiling and enjoying themselves.
While doing some research on our perception of social media, I came across these hard-hitting short films which perfectly capsulate what I would like to make others aware of. It is so easy to create a different lifestyle online to ‘fit’ into societies perception of an ideal lifestyle. Where in fact, many are spending so much time on social media their actual lifestyle is affected. I’ve seen many profiles where people strike for attention, followers and likes mean everything which is bizarre as social media is relatively new, given the public interest of Facebook in 2005 and Youtube later that year.
These videos capture the emotional distress on both parties through social media and how they comfort themselves through the interest of others ‘liking’ their activity. ‘What’s on your mind?’ has a slightly dark humour to it as he goes out of his way to make his life seem great, but in the process his emotional level is shown to affect his health as he turns to alcohol. At the end, he finally opens up with his life – soon to be blocked by others because of his negative approach. I have been guilty of doing this as there are a few people I have know to only post negative things on social media all day, every day. But seeing the bigger picture and their life behind the screen does have an impact on the way I think about those affected. I would really like to create a more light-humoured approach to the subject of social perception and nudge others to realise that they are falling into the same trap of trying to be similar to other people, which in turn may make them feel more alone or ‘unsociable’.
This morning we had our final presentation on our field project, The Big Idea. The past few weeks have been slow-moving in terms of exploration within my project. However, at this stage I am happy with the quality of my work and I am motivated and exited to finish my project. I will implement Parallax scrolling within my content pages which will engage the viewer within its visually animated graphics. I feel it will also be great to experiment with new forms of communication within my final projects to make it stand out in comparison to previous years. Below you will find my presentation along with a short clip of the header pages.
At the very start of this project, We had to chose our desired word which we would research and create our own direction and outcome based on what we discovered. I chose Perception and wanted to step away from distorted reality as this was seen everywhere. I looked at a range of different perceptions and found our perception of vision and strength compared to other living creatures very interesting. It was different and took a fresh approach to perception. It reminded me a lot of the David Attenborough documentaries. I thought it would be a fantastic opportunity to look at info graphs, visual animations and let me explore different ways of presenting information. My presentation is attached above and looks at the sensation, cognition and perception process of our thinking process and how we perceive information. This research was closely linked to Plato and Aristotle’s wok on vision and reason. My initial researched looked at the literal associated reasons behind perception of the human body and the senses we have.
‘Of all the senses, trust only the sense of sight’
Plato and Aristotle closely associated vision and reason.
I was inspired by this quote I came across during my research and it has a lot of sense behind it. Many of us may experience similar situations such as rain, watching the same program or a car ride but each persons individual account is very unique. This is because our genes and our jeans. To explain, we are all born with very similar yet very different genes which affect our perception of our individual senses from sight to smell to touch. One may see the colour green as blue and another could see that same colour as red but from birth we associate a seen colour as what we are brought up to know by its given name. And by jeans, I mean metaphorically for our experiences and choices we have previously made to get to that given point in time. Our emotions and experience of a situation can change the way we perceive an event, this can be from an emotional connection to a song, the memories of a specific smell as we make connection to past events.
A personal account of this is the drink, Fanta fruit twist. I have a strong memories of accidentally getting it into my eyes when I was very little and the smell has stayed with me, during the event I dropped the bottle in the process which rolled off a bridge onto a garden below. Many years later and that garden was taken over by the council and renovated into a modern cafe known as ‘The Mill’. Which I went on to work for many years later. Small encounters like this can have strong connections to events and locations.
I think it is really interesting to explore the psychology of perception and how we perceive things in connections to past experiences.
Recently, I have started to work on my online presence. I bought a domain and set up a website with the basics. I also created a Facebook page to engage people on social media to visit my website and stay updated on my journey. I still need to add work to my portfolio and Facebook site, however the structure is now in place for me to do this. My online portfolio will be live at www.imben.co.uk. Check it out today and watch it develop over the next few weeks. My cv/résumé has also been in the works too!
Today, Matt did a workshop on building a digital portfolio and presence. We learnt the importance of having an online portfolio and what was expected of us within the portfolio. The purpose of an online presence is to present your work to potential employers and promote yourself within the community. It is also a useful way to collaborate with other users to get feedback on your work. Over the next few weeks I will improve my own digital presence by tightening my social account’s privacy and presenting myself in a professional manner. I will network with other users to improve my reputation and promote myself.
Questions to ask myself when creating an online presence:
Who am I? / How can I help you? / How did I get here ( Know what I know?) / Why can you trust me? / What do we share in common? It really does help to find a niche so that you can stand out and have a specific market that you can target.
It is very important to get testimonials from people you have worked with to support your reputation and experience with clients.
Your Portfolio website shouldn’t be:
Not a place to experiment with web design
Not a place to make claims that you can’t back up and can’t do
Don’t have a site under maintenance
Don’t leave it dead ( keep using it)
An archive for all your work (just finished best pieces)
Do not have a rant if you’re linked to twitter
Your Portfolio website should:
Have good quality images of your work
Have contact details easy to find
Be kept up to date
Make your skills clear
Links to social media
Include testimonials
Be concise when talking about work and yourself
Show your best stuff
Have a downloadable portfolio (PDF)
Sell yourself with your about me
Make sure you spell check
Have easy navigation over the site
Have a niche your aiming for
What should you consider having for an online presence
Responsive HTML for cross-platform devices
Link to twitter / social media – on going feed showing your passion for design
Use your site regularly or others will loose interest
Make sure pages are easy to bookmark and have universal layouts
Make sure the platform you use if easy to update
Think about having a personalised domain for ease of access and memorable
Olwen’s lecture on Social Media was really interesting and made me close all of my public accounts immediately incase a ‘lets google Ben exercise’ came up. But more seriously, what you share online can have an impact on your career and so our new project Digital Me will help me to present myself in a professional manner and to those who google me. Having the same name as an old tv show member really does help to obscure my presence but this does have its downfalls when wanting to gain a reputation as a designer. I have since bought my own domain and have began to build my online portfolio. I will reveal this in a later post. I have created a Facebook presence where others can like my profession and stay updated on my journey which is also linked to my website. I will also start using Twitter again to work on Networking and to have a live feed to my followers. My private accounts have been updated to remain private which will keep my personal and professional lives apart. I have also began creating a light-hearted profile on myself which I feel will make me unique to the other designers in my area.
Looking back on the past few weeks, I have had the experience of being able to dive into different areas of technology that I haven’t explored before. To begin, scanning and printing our heads was the first time I had experimented with this type of process and it was a great way to create a physical model. I researched into the 3d printing market and over the past few years it has become increasingly popular. Although it is still an expensive piece of equipment.. the price of production has fallen dramatically for your typical machine. Also researching my dissertation area alongside this module I have tried to connect the two together.
Slide 2
My dissertation looks at Singularity and its advantages to art and design. In response, I feel 3d printing has already revolutionised 1st world countries, even if we don’t see it yet. 3D printing has allowed a new and creative way to produce objects with precise accuracy while remaining relatively cheap to do so. 3D printing has proven to be life-saving in many situations from printable limbs to more recently a replica of a child heart-defect which allowed doctors to operate on prior to surgery. We are already living in an age where electrical devices prefer to keep their components in a solid state and hard to get to, so this process will improve the increasingly ‘locked’ designs.
Slide 3
Next I looked at the Raspberry Pi. This device is a major step forward to distributing internet access and improved education to 3rd world countries. It is not only used by these countries but also enthusiasts who have developed their own software and coding compatible with the device to monitor and record information on projects. The raspberry pi has exposed connections which allow sensors to be attached such as a microphone, thermometer, camera etc.
Slide 4
Comparing this to one of the first computers weighing in at over 6 tonnes to a device no larger than deck of cards is remarkable and really expresses how far technology has moved over the past 50years. This again refers back to my dissertation area of Singularity which is the point in time where Artificial Intelligence surpasses Human Intelligence. At this point we are unsure of what this may bring, but one things for sure, it is predicted to happen anytime within the next 5-100years.
Slide 5
I have also had the opportunity to work with augmented reality. This is the section that interests me most. Films such as Iron Man and Avatar really exaggerate the augmented world through holographic computers and mapping systems. But the question is whether we will ever match this level of Augmentality. Companies such as Google and Microsoft have both taken a step in the direction of augmented reality through their products Google Glass and Hololens. Both have the hypothesis of an over layered world which will supply us with information and social media but do we really need this and/or will it turn us into even more consumers from the subliminal messages by bigger cooperations. one major implication to this is the risk of privacy, however in my opinion, for the world to push forward with this type of technology we will have to give up our privacy for more target- based analysis and recommendations.
Slide 6
After looking at the Gartner Hype cycle I realised we are moving towards a point which may mark the start of the third revolution. The previous 2 revolutions marked the Industrial revolution which brought the transcontinental railway and connected most of the world, the second marked the age of electricity and from this, the lightbulb. Both of these helped mankind overcome the physical limitations, now we are exploring the ways to overcome the limitations of our minds and senses.
Slide 7
My proposed outcome was directed at how augmented reality could help educate children in a fun interactive way. For my example I used an animal safari. At each animal stop within the safari, the children have the opportunity to collect a card which is designated to that animal, on the card there are fun facts about that specific animal and the types of food it eats etc. On the reverse side, a silhouette of the animal which can then be augmented through the app to embed a virtual animal onto the card. As it moves around the user is able to zoom in and spectate it in its environment. The edges of the card act as a pen in which the animal can roam, sleep and hunt. This allows the safari experience to continue into the household.
Slide 8
Another example would be for medical illustrations, diagrams in textbooks are highly detailed in most cases, however their 2d structure limits the imagination of the audience. With augmented diagrams the user can zoom in and single out specific sections of a diagram in its 3d environment. I feel the human body would be a great model. An option would be available to reveal different layers of the human body from the skin down to the nerves system. At each stage the viewer can maintain their position on the body and watch as it unveils its internal infrastructure. Animation of the living organs would also add to the experience and capture the attention of the viewer. This may spark interest in young students to continue their education into biology and further medical research.
Slide 9
As for using these techniques within my own practice I feel that 3d printing and augmented reality have a perfect connection to graphic communication. To implement this within my own work I would like to augment diagrams within my sketchbook to make my work interactive through a different media. I would also like to embed videos which may have inspired projects by placing it within the page which the reader can simply scan and watch instantly. I feel it would be a great idea to also place audio files within my sketchbook such as a memo or explanation for a piece of work. This would have a more personal connection to the audience as it engages them to pay close attention to what I am saying as people tend to skip over information when reading from a block of text. As for 3d printing and 3d digital models, I think experimenting with my drawings and turning them into digital models would be an interesting way to experiment with depth and texture giving them an alternative composition.
Ben Walton 
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