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Fall 2009, Proj 3, Final
Fall 2009, Proj 3, Iteration 1
For Project 3, I decided to explore historical propaganda posters and investigate how visual tropes within these posters are carried over into contemporary design. This exploration deals historical consciousness in reading images, visual literacy and the aesthetics of authenticity.
Fall 2009, Proj 2
- Read : assigned sections on “discourse communities” from Shaping Information: the Rhetoric of Visual Conventions (Kostelnick and Hassett). (This and other reading reference posted here.)
- Identify : existing visual conventions of the community you have selected to study in seminar.
- Design : An Initiation to ________ , introducing new visual conventions that might logically follow, or interrupt, if such is the more compelling strategy. Any media, any point of delivery.
You can view my project here.
Fall 2009 Proj 1, Part 2
ASSIGNMENT
Based on observations culled at your coffee house:
- Write a story from the perspective of a player in the experience, i.e. a particular customer, barista, dishwasher, busboy, manager, delivery person, etc.
- Design a Culture Probe that aims to discover what/how/why ritual exists within the experience.
TITLE
“What’s Your Story?”
Fall 2009 Proj 1, Part 1
After reading Clifford Geertz’s writing on thick description, Meredith asked us to form groups and go out to local coffee shops to make ethnographic observations. We sat at Global Village for over an hour, observing the comings and goings of customers. Out of these observations, we took a shot at writing thick descriptions. And out of those thick descriptions came the first part of Project 1 for studio.
The assignment: Write a story from the perspective of a player in the experience, i.e. a particular customer, barista, dishwasher, busboy, manager, delivery person, etc.
THE REGULAR
Remember the Central Perk? You know, it was that coffee shop on Friends—the one where all the Friends would hang out on that enormous, well-worn antique sofa? They’d chat about blind dates gone wrong and exciting new job prospects in between some friendly ribbing at Gunther’s expense.
Who was Gunther? Seriously? Have you even seen the show?!
Ok, here’s the scoop. In any given storyline, he was relatively minor, BUT at the Central Perk, he was THE guy to know. The barista. And with the exception of some nameless, lineless busboys, he basically ran the place. You see, it wasn’t only the fact that the “friends” hogged the best spot in the house on a daily basis that made them regulars at the Central Perk. They knew the guy that made their brews, and in my book, when the barista knows your name, you’ve reached the pinnacle of coffee shop patrondom. That’s right folks, you’ve become A REGULAR.
Take my story, for example. Freshman year, I’d awkwardly walk into the Global Village and, like clockwork, I’d screw up my order, fumble with my money, and then stand around uneasily drinking my coffee. (Black. no cream. No sugar. God I must have seemed like a hopeless case!) I’d even see people I recognized from class, but instead of approaching them with a friendly hello, my method of choice was to gawk. That’s right, just stand and stare. [Chuckle] Socially inept was not even the phrase to describe my former self. Socially paralyzed was more like it. A socially paralyzed, rather unfortunate mess. That was, until I met Trixie.
Spring 2009, Proj 5
Assignment:
Interface Futurecast
- Look back to the environments, motivations, experiences, interactions, content, participants, and technologies you touched on this semester.
- Select one or a combination as a seed, a kernel, a grain, a nugget, a pinhole that begs for further investigation.
- Do not confuse the above with revisiting, reassembling or refining a previous project.
- Design a series of related interactions (feedback loops) in a closed or open system of interfaces that connect content to participant.
- The outcome should imaginatively (wildly!) speculate about technological and cultural advances of the future.
Spring 2009, Project 4
Assignment:
Design Six Dynamic Interface Moments
- Determine three motivations for a person to interact with an interface.
- Determine three different possible attributes of experience a person might have interacting with an interface.
- Using stop-frame animation, video, Flash, or mechanical means, combine a motivation with an experience in six different combinations.
- Design six interactive moments:
- 1 interactive moment: Combine 1 motivation with 1 attribute of experience.
- 2 interactive moments: Combine 1 motivation with 1 attribute of experience. Combine the same motivation with 1 attribute of experience that shifts the motivation.
- 3 interactive moments: Respond to 1 motivation in 3 different designed environments. Maintain comparable attributes of experience across all
- Compilation of 6 interactive moments: Editing is advised. Movie day!
- The outcomes should afford user surprise, delight, and/or reflection.
Spring 2009, Proj 3
Assignment:
Design a Typographic Interface
- Free write in response to “interfaces for interfaces.”
- Jumping off from a thought in the free writing, compose a text (fiction, essay, instruction manual, or other rhetorical form) about an experience with an interface.
- Read/perform the story in class accompanied by some typographic representation.
- Design an interface using only (1) your text; (2) its typographic embodiment; (3) any technological means.
- The outcome should employ visual rhetoric to augment the text.
Photos by Alberto Rigau
Prototyping
The phrase I chose to prototype was “What if online shopping had crowded spaces?”
At first, I had no clue what to do. Everyone was scrambling around for materials and it looked like they all knew exactly what they wanted to make (they didn’t, but they sure played it cool). I picked up some popsicle sticks and some orange rubberbands and came up with this:
With this protoype, I was trying to respresent crowding, but in a way that was still connected. Since I was unsure of myself, I also put together a few more representations of crowding- a pile of nails in a little box, a group of corks tied together, and a roll of paper. Once our 30 minutes was up, we set up all our projects and went through and talked about each one- sort of a mini-crit. Since no one knew what the parameters or expectations were for the prototype, it was an interesting discussion. The first thing Denise said was (paraphrased) “Ok, so these prototypes show that you’re all designers. You’ve all tried to come up with solutions to resolve the question that you chose. And that’s ok- that’s what you’re trained to do.” Out of the prototypes that I set up, she chose to talk about my popsicle stick creation (which was the one I planned on going with- the others were afterthoughts). She said it was interesting because, when you picked it up, it had other qualities like movement.
Once we talked about everyone’s projects, Denise gave us a little insight into how we might think about the bigger picture of our phrase. She said that we were going to take 30 minutes and make another prototype, but that we needed to think about it less as a solution/resolution and more about the idea—the portrayal and representation.