strange flowers and seeds

kelly | nmdd | fordham

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final process: submission

and we’re DONE. (for now.)

direct link to dropbox for Mac downloader (.dmg)--lesser quality, does not requite Flash

direct link to dropbox for Flash app (.swf)--better quality, requires Flash

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final process: notes to self

I’ve got something interesting(ish) to post. So the process of making this app is mindnumbingly repetitive in certain sections, but also ultra important that I don’t fuck up, because it’s much more difficult to fix problems later than to make sure they don’t happen in the first place. But like I said, I have to do the same thing over and over for each card (especially in scripting the interpretations!!), so it’s very easy to make little mistakes that drive me nuts. Also very easy to get distracted. So, I wrote myself a step-by-step process for doing one very specific task. For your perusal:

Having this to reference has really kept me on track while doing all these interpretations!

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final process: one does not simply use adobe animate

I am Kelly’s project platform. I am fundamentally unsuited to the project idea. I frustrate Kelly to no end.

So. Adobe Animate. Not the best app development program, although I’m sure literally anyone could have told you that (including me a month ago, but here we are still). My complaints:

global functions. WHERE ARE THEY.

send to back. y u no work????

keyframes. love them. hate them. object names must be different in every single keyframe. there are no fewer than 100 keyframes, with identical objects on 70% of them.

a nitpick on window size. so i am confusion. why on god’s green fucking earth does the actions pane need to take up half my screen. adobe explain. explain.

This is mostly a venting update, but also to officially confirm that I have completed the entire index and am about halfway through my character spread, which is taking me wayyyyy longer than I expected, so I think I’m going to have to cut down to just the one spread for now, which sucks. I’m a little behind, but I built time into the schedule for that, so I should be fine for submission on the 7th. Also, the structure of this app means that I can add stuff later with relative ease (obviously not for credit, but for my own use), so I’m not devastated to postpone some of the spreads I had initially planned on. Anyways, I think even just getting the one done will show that I’ve learned a new medium and put in a massive amount of effort. Maybe I bit off more than I could chew, but I’d rather be chewing forever and swallow some than starve. (bad analogy but fuck it)

this entire post is a clusterfuck of frustration, too much coffee, and bad memes from too long ago to still be relevant. sorry, i guess.

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new media artist focus

The artist I am following is Jessica Ann, who is from my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, and is working to combine organic biological life with technology and art. One of her projects that interested me most is “seXXXyfish,” which “facilitates the presence of living fish in the strange, online ‘stranger-stage’ known as www.chatroulette.com.” 

A live video feed of the fish tank is streamed on chatroulette.com, along with the position of the fish, which is “translated to a mouse position inside of the Chatroulette chat box. The resulting line drawing is the path of the fish.”

A particularly interesting thing about this project is that often the fish are flagged as inappropriate content and are banned from chatroulette.com for a period of time. (Don’t forget that chatroulette is infamous for its pornographic content.)

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final process: spread layouts

I decided to keep it to one spread per category (at least for now). The current plan is for, on hover, the information to replace the card. Clicking “new” will deal new cards, and pressing save will capture a screenshot (in theory).

CHARACTER: before and after

PLOT: three acts

SETTING: details

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final process: card interpretations

doc with all interpretations here

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artist statement

Curiosity and the nightmarish fear of stagnancy compel me to be an eternal student. Using bedrock skills as a foundation, every new project is an opportunity to explore a new medium, test new techniques, and learn new skills. New scripting languages quickly lead to new modeling software lead to new creative opportunities, which in turn lead to new ways to express old, maturing ideas. The learning curve is an experience that brings me closer to the mediums in which I work, and the initial frustrations only result in more fulfilling successes.

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final process: art assets

The face:

Notes:

Pattern is the design on the back of the traditional Rider Waite deck (public domain)

Font is Colors of Autumn (free for personal use)

Colors used:

Burgundy (#643121)

Yellow (#ffd632)

The cards:

Notes:

78 cards total

Scans of my traditional Rider Waite tarot deck (in public domain) from when I first digitized my collection

Most already have borders cropped out; I will crop the others to match

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final process: research

I’ve been looking for my ideal tarot app for years. What I want:

Elegant, intuitive design

Focus on writers, writing, plot development, character development, setting development, etc.

Standard cards with standard motifs

Helpful interpretations

Spread functions

I have found most of these traits in various different apps, but I have not been able to find an app with all of them. In fact, the most important one, the focus on writing, is notably absent!

And so that’s where my project will fill the gaps.

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7 days snap story over spring break.

song is Lost at Sea by Dawg Yawp.

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proposal

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WhO52kOIgnR9DWbt77y9XD8KJSJM0QZt/view?usp=sharing

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midterm: more than music

on codepen

Wowza. I was worried that this wouldn’t actually come together...I got a little ambitious with my mockup, and it wasn’t until I actually sat down to code the thing that I realized it. But sometimes ambition pays off! 

I’m definitely more used to doing multi-page stuff, where I don’t have to worry about fitting everything onto one page with all the proper functions to show/hide them as necessary. So it was a challenge to get everything working well together when I don’t have the luxury of just sending it off to a new page.

If I had infinite time to keep tweaking, I would work to clean up my code. It all works, but it doesn’t look as nice as it could if I had the time to rearrange things so they make perfect logical sense. Also, I have no set order of attributes, so sometimes I would start my styling with a position attribute, and sometimes background-color. I think having an order I stick to, even if some attributes are omitted, would help me know exactly what I’m missing, when I’m missing something.

Also, if I had infinite time, I would really like to make my graphs interactive. In the one pictured above, I would love to have each cover come out of the record on hover. However, this would require making each of the graphs in css/js, which was even more ambitious than I was willing to be this time around.

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midterm process: mockup

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midterm process: illustrator wireframe

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midterm planning: colors

The first four colors are directly from the spotify app. The pink shade is sampled from one of the cover art images currently on my recommended playlists. The pink shade will be an accent color. Text will be white.

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midterm planning: typeface

I will be using Proxima Nova from Adobe Typekit for this project, as it is the websafe font used in the spotify app. I believe this choice will help my infographic to with with its subject material.

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midterm planning: wireframes

step zero: choose a platform/topic

notes: I chose Spotify because it’s the only social media app that I use every single day. I usually don’t think that my taste in music could be considered something worth keeping private, but perhaps I should reconsider...

step one: 50 wireframes

notes: I definitely struggled to come up with 50 unique options, and some of what I ended up with is either ugly or infeasible, but I suppose that’s the point. Just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. For reference, I used Adobe Comp CC on an iPad for all wireframes.

step two: choose 3 of the original 50

notes: the three I chose are different in layout but all feature large graphs or images, denoted in my wireframes as grey blocks. Two of the three feature design aspects found in the Spotify app.

step three: 10 new wireframes from each of the 3 chosen ones

notes: this was a lot easier than the original 50 wireframes. For the first set, I focused on the ability to navigate between screens with clicks. For the second, I focused on the bar that is on Spotify’s player. For the third, I focused on the ability to navigate by scrolling.

step four: choose one

notes: I chose this one because I feel it still holds the feeling of Spotify’s player, while having enough room to focus on a single chart/graph while being able to change the focus to another, which would be a dropdown(up) menu from the hamburger.