DES105 - EllieC

An online journal for DES105

[des105ellie]

Designer Sentence

I will be a calm and empathetic conceptual designer who creates experiences and develops my own aesthetic.

[des105ellie]

Design Topic 3: Event Poster

The Event Poster is the third topic I’ve chosen for Task 1. This one was a bit harder to come up with an idea for but I eventually settled on a book signing event.

I decided to do an LGBT author, specifically an author that focused on a less-represented aspect of the LGBT community (asexuality). There were quite a few authors that I could chose from but eventually I settled on two final possibilities:

Claudie Arseneault

Laura Pohl

Upon researching them and their books, I chose to do Laura Pohl as my author because the style of her books looked like they would catch my eye if I saw them as a reader.

At first, I chose the event poster style based on what I thought looked nice, however I quickly found that it didn’t feel right as a poster for Pohl.

So, I wanted to match the event poster to Pohl’s book cover style. Fiddling around with the colour palette and formatting gave me this as a new iteration:

While the colour palette felt closer to what I wanted, however it felt a bit too amateur and basic, so I decided to try out a portrait-oriented poster style, and after searching this one caught my eye:

It took a lot of fiddling and messing around, eventually leaving me with only the basic formatting still used (font style, circular image, and back/foreground style).

I like this iteration more than the other ones, however I don’t consider it quite done yet, so I will develop it a bit further and then use that as the last iteration in my assignment. The posters were developed on Canva, using their templates (1, 2) as a base, and the author photos were used from Pohl’s website.

I’m choosing to do the iteration phase for this topic, using the Get Visual method from the IDEO Field Guide framework.

[des105ellie]

Design Topic 2: Photo Sequence

The Photo Sequence is the second topic that caught my eye for Task 1. I thought of an idea relatively quickly for this one. Deciding on a story for the sequence was a bit difficult but I eventually managed to narrow it down to 5 basic points:

Home

Find evidence

Find culprit

Catch culprit

Punishment

Originally, I had the idea for the culprit to be a child however that idea was quickly scrapped because I don’t have any children, nor do I know anyone with them. So, I thought to myself what is something that I could use that can create the same mess/evidence that a child can?

Ding, ding, ding!

My cat, Dolly!

She was perfect cause she gets the zoomies a minimum of about thrice in the night and I get home late due to work so she has plenty of unsupervised time. So, using her as the culprit was practically a foregone conclusion.

Deciding on the finer details for the narrative was both harder and easier. Number 1, 2 and 5 were the easiest to achieve. This was because they either didn’t rely on Dolly (who could be hard to catch a good picture of), or because they

In the end the story points I decided on were:

Get home late from work (Late at night and in uniform – maybe in car?)

Find evidence of mischief (Either knocked over plant/crockery or her food bad open and tipped over)

Find the culprit (Picture of her from a distance – bonus if she is slightly hidden)

Catch the culprit (Picture of my hand pinning her down)

Jail (Have her under a laundry basket or something)

I think the most difficult part will be number 4 because I have to try to get the right angle without accidentally hurting her while also making it look somewhat realistic.

I’m choosing to do the ideation phase for this topic, using the Impose Constraints method from the Bootleg framework.

[des105ellie]

Design Topic 1: Pocket Experience

The Pocket Experience was the first topic that caught my eye for Task 1. It took me a while to think of an experience to do, until I remembered the colour game I had seen people on while on walks.

I don’t know the actual rules for the game that I have seen but I figured I could tweak it a bit to suit my purposes. These tweaks included, a numbered list of colours to use, and a specified time period to work with.

As such, I then identified the two main points that were needed for this pocket experience to work.

A method to choose a colour: A number randomiser was the first option that came to me but upon further investigation into the requirements for the particular topic, that method was deemed unsuitable. Instead I chose to use either a die or simply choosing the number off the top of the head.

Deciding how long this colour would be used for: This was based off of the first point. A die would be limiting the time period by either single digits under six or by 10-minute increments (for simplicity’s sake) however by deciding the number personally between 1-60 this allows for a more specified time period to be used.

Though there are two methods that can be used to decide on both number variables, it would be up to the user and what they have available. Due to the nature of the game I chose for my Pocket Experience, I decided on a simple and easy to remember title, ‘Follow the Colour’.

According to the equation given on how to develop a Pocket experience, i.e. ‘Experience = action + affective response (emotions, senses, etc.) + memory’

For ‘Follow the Colour’:

Action: increasing both the frequency of, willingness to and enjoyability of going on walks. By making the game about ‘following’ a colour for a specified amount of time a single room would limit the success of the game as such, they would have better success doing so throughout a large building or outside.

Affective response: fun, enjoyment and discovery. By playing with nostalgic memories of childhood similar games such as I Spy, and Colour Counting*. Other people might have had similar childhood games that they played so nostalgia would be one of the main feelings that would be associate with the experience.

*A game that my sister and I played on car rides where we would pick a colour and count how many vehicles we could of that colour.

Memory: Nostalgic memories of childhood games that may have a similar premise. In the future this could be something that encourages people to go out and exercise more, and potentially teach it to their children as well.

I’ve chosen to focus on the user testing phase and do the I Like, I Wish, What If method from the DSchool framework for this topic.

[des105ellie]

Observation Activity

Thick grass, sandy mud under the bench, leaves and twigs fallen from the trees

Trees embedded in a mulch bed, haphazardly line the buildings

Chatter from students walking to (from?) class

A voice over a loudspeaker. It sounds like a sports announcer

Black and white dog with a blue harness

J building rises behind the library and I building

A mans laughter

Almost entirely clear blue sky, very little clouds can be seen. They are white and sparse

Birds are twittering

Thongs squeaking and slapping on the stone path

Flagpoles with USC banners, they flutter in the wind

Two women greet each other warmly

A child's cry - leaving or being left at the uni day-care

High waisted blue jeans are popular

Pink button up contrasts nicely with fiery red hair

Baby pink headwrap (turban? Unsure of the specific name)

Clinking (from bags? Chains?) heard from afar

Stone paths made with red brick outlines by yellow/cream

Red golf cart, slight whine from the otherwise silent buggy

[des105ellie]

Journal Entry - 28/07/22

What did I do in class?

In class we talked about the module content for the week and went a bit more in depth for it. After that we set about completing the three activities for the week: Designer sentences, Creating a Tumblr account for our journals, and an observation activity.

2. What did I find most interesting?

The observation activity was the most interesting part of the workshop for me.

3. What specifically is interesting to me about it?

Specifically, it would be just how much is going on around you that you automatically tune out. Like when you really focus on everything that your senses are constantly cataloguing, its surprising how much there is.

4. Describe the part of class that is most relevant to my life or studies.

While on the surface design methods don't seem to have much of an impact on my study (Bachelor's of Creative Writing & Publishing), I think it could help me with cover art design, interactive book design, and potentially helping other authors if editing is the route I want to go.