Friday, October 30, 2009

Wireframes, Website and the big picture

I made some wireframes for the project website. Basically the components will be:

* I italicized big deliverables

ABOUT
mission
friends and allies
contact
fact sheet
day of action?

SPREAD THE WORD
tell a friend
logo, banners, video
posters, stickers
social networks


ANIMATION
PSA
GAME AND QUIZZES
fact game bubble game mobile/map game
PARENTS AND TEACHERS
fact sheet printables lesson plans




My thinking behind these two versions of the wireframes is that the visual hierarchy will be:
1. brand
2. what you can do on the site
3. a taste of the content
4. ways to connect through the site

I am not 100% in love with the way either of them look right now. I am going to take a break for a day and come back to it.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Mood Board



As I am warming up for a weekend of making storyboards, wireframes and such, I decided to quickly throw together a little mood board. This is helping me to get a little closer to a style for the psa. I need to really get my act together on this. Production is happening now. I really appreciate the hands on aesthetic of all of these styles cumulatively.


so the credit business:
-charlie and lola (top left)
-monster by artist lori joy smith
-keith haring
-yee haw industries
-Y water
-the happy corp
-the electric company
-vimeo

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Saturday, October 24, 2009

new domain map

hello world.
here is where I am at with my ever- changing domain map. I think that it might be fun at the end of the year to look at how many times my domain map has actually changed, but i digress. for the moment, this is my map.


(click it)

I have added "media literacy" as a domain that I am focusing on more. Revisiting my domain map every few weeks has given me the opportunity to gage the ebb and flow of my project. While two weeks ago I was more about drowning, now I have broadened my focus to water safety. I also had the domain of community up there lingering on my domain map, but it wasn't until last week that it really felt like I was tapping into that area of interest. As I explore more and more I am sure that all of the areas will continue to dynamically change, but I happy with the core topics that I am honing in on right now.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

water safety psa

This is typical of what I am finding.




I think that:
it's creepy
targeted at parents
doesn't actually give any positive reinforcement

Saturday, October 17, 2009

School Beach Survey

link

Here is a survey that I am preparing for bringing into the schools in Rockaway

Friday, October 16, 2009

Midterm Presentation

Yesterday I had my midterm critique. I was really nervous about presenting. I wasn't feeling like I am at the point in project that I should be (full on production). But I presented (I didn't go way over on my time limit like I thought I would), and I got some really great feedback. Overall it was a positive experience and one that gave me the ability to step back from my work, re-contextualize my focus and start considering the nature of the fieldwork that I have already done.

My critics were Anezka Sebold and Cynthia Lawson.
Cynthia said that I should really appreciate the way that I have localized my project. She said that I should think about surveying how many New Yorkers feel connected to water and the beach community. She felt that I could tie my thesis in with the positive effects of urban dwellers. She also agreed with me about how I should analyze my user group. How independent are they from their parents? This is an opportunity to collaborate on projects. How can I best position this as something that the community helped to create?


Anezka noted that I have done due diligence and that I still have much to do. She told me to think about the inherent access issues with google. She asked me to consider expanding upon my interest in the domain of media literacy. Finally she noted that I should think about pushing to implement the idea in the curriculum for a longer term.

I feel a little bit like I need to go back to the drawing board and think about my project not specifically in terms of drowning, but in terms of overall water safety and awareness. I know this should have been an obvious move, but it didn't really dawn on me until after my crits yesterday.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Taglines

Coastal Safety Locative Media Campaign
Coastal Safety Locative Media Tools
Coastal Safety Locative Media and Narrative

Beach Safety and Awareness Locative Didactic Media

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

complex plots for courtroom proceedings

I just happened upon this funny project. The description says "Client: Private Lawfirm
Goal: Coordinate and design complex population plots for use in courtroom proeedings." It made me think about my project and about how some people really just view maps as a more complicated way to approach a topic. I agree, but I also feel that it can be used to uncover mysteries and hidden stories, which is why lawyers implore this technique so often. Lawyers after all are just telling their clients stories...




Animation Test

Although I am pretty sure that I am not going to continue with this style, I am posting my most recent test because it deals with a moment of panic and drama and it's my first attempt at animating that. Some of the animation is a little quirky and if I gave myself more time on this I could definitely tweak things here and there...

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Presentation: October 6,2009

This is the week before my midterm presentation- presentation. All the ingredients for the midterm are here but I need to figure out the recipe a little more.
The feedback I got was super helpful.
For next week, things I need to look in to:
  • make a domain map
  • make a slide that breaks out my schedule into a map
  • incorporate statistics and citations into a slide
  • pull together a style frame with the images in the map
  • precedents but only for shaping domain etc
  • storyboard the narrative
  • incorporate the notion of 21st century learning goals and media literacy (deploying technologies in the classroom, kids not just being consumers, but producers themselves, feeding into the hackability and re-mixability factor).
  • think about flickr or videos for backgrounds
  • scenarios

Monday, October 5, 2009

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Where I am

I haven't really had time to post my thoughts, but I am chugging along. What I have been doing for the past two weeks is clarifying my narrative, talking with my professors at Parsons (Anezka, Dave, Chris, Josh), talking with my contacts in the advocacy groups (mainly Jeanne Dupont) and starting to write and sketch up ideas for the ever-important narrative component. The picture posted here is a screen shot for a prototype that I am working on. I have not even addressed style but this is my 2nd go at making something very vectory. Anyway, I will post that when I make more progress on it and have specific ideas for questions about it.