So far this semester, I've noticed something about motion graphics. Putting together a motion graphics project seems like a way to cram everything I've learned in my communications studies into one project. Something I've learned about recently is color theory, how colors can incite emotions in the viewer and different ways to create meanings and illusions with color.
This doesn't, or at least shouldn't, pertain to just the classroom. The pros at Igloo Design know about color and put it to good use in their showcase video "Igloo Reel 08":
Igloo's designs show good use of color and a good grasp of the principles of color theory. I like how every time the brand changed, the color scheme changed with it. The use of contrasts in the work Igloo has done caught my eye. None of it was too harsh, but it created enough excitement. Something I saw a lot was the use of colors in the same color family, different shades and tints of one color or similar warm or cool colors.
Watching the video made it easy for me to see why so many different companies hired Igloo. Their work is good and creates a strong brand image that is professional but can still be fun.
I went against the rules here a little bit and found a motion graphic that uses color poorly and is visually UNappealing. That would be wwwourmachinecom's "MTV Bumpers", another showcase reel of work done for MTV. Let's take a look:
I really didn't like these. Something about them was unappealing and even jarring to my vision. The colors didn't quite clash, but the creator of these motion graphics didn't really choose a nice palette of anything. The main colors used were red, black, and white, although pastel blues make an appearance. Red and black are both strong colors with strong emotions associated with them. Together they seemed to send a message of fear or even violence (like blood in the streets or something), possibly salsa dancing at their best.
The color choices seemed inconsistent and tacky,like the target audience for the channel would probably wear outfits with these colors and patterns. Oh yes, the patterns. Those were also displeasing, even though they were generally the only visually interesting part to the motion graphics. The checkerboard patterns and graffiti-styled writing put me off, and didn't add anything to the poor choice of colors.
Between the poor choice of color and loud patterns, the whole thing looked haphazardly put together. This may have been what MTV was going for, but somehow I doubt it. It was more "What were they thinking?" than "This is so cool!" I think MTV was going for exciting, but I must have missed that.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Usability Matters
Until reading Jakob Nielsen's Usability 101: Definition and Fundamentals, I had never heard the term "usability". Usability was something I had dealt with before in my own visiting websites, and I had experienced sites with poor usability as well as those with good usability.
Usability itself was a something I'd encountered, but never given much thought to. Now that I'm making my own website, it's something I need to be aware of because it does have an impact on visitors to a site.
The priniciples of usability as put forth by Nielsen make sense. They're easy to comprehend and it can be understood why these principles of usability--and moreover usability itself--are so crucial to web design.
I also liked how Nielsen was candid with the reader about why it is important to put the time and effort into usability testing for their company's website. He mentioned something that has been very true (at least in my experience with poorly designed websites): If they don't get what they need easily, users will leave your site.
Nielsen writes,"There's no such thing as a user reading a website manual or otherwise spending much time trying to figure out an interface. There are plenty of other websites available; leaving is the first line of defense when users encounter a difficulty". That's one of the benefits, and in this case drawbacks, of the Internet. There's such a wealth of knowledge out there that the answer to one question can be found in probably hundreds of other places.
I read an article about the multiple attempts to re-vamp the Georgia Tech Library's website. I found the article, "Redesigning for Usability: Information Architecture and Usability Testing for Georgia Tech Library's Website" on EBSCOhost through the Shepherd University library, but read the full-text PDF file from another site.
In this article, authors Heather Jeffcoat King and Catherine M. Jannik discuss the changes made to the Georgia Tech Library website beginning with the website's design in 2002. In between pages of the article, there are screen shots of the library website's homepage at different major intervals. The authors discuss the changes made and the processes of usability testing along each stage, and the screen shots helped me understand the progress better than just trying to picture the changes in my head. Figure 1 on page 3 shows a boring and confusing list of services for users to guess which one to go to, whereas Figure 3 on page 4 shows a more visually appealing homepage with the links from the list in Figure 1 neatly organized into a sidebar.
The article concluded with a statement that this project is ongoing, and that although the library's website has improved (an understatement!) Georgia Tech does not consider this the end. There are plans for more testing and incorporating the university's Digital Initiatives department into the current library site (King 7).
Usability itself was a something I'd encountered, but never given much thought to. Now that I'm making my own website, it's something I need to be aware of because it does have an impact on visitors to a site.
The priniciples of usability as put forth by Nielsen make sense. They're easy to comprehend and it can be understood why these principles of usability--and moreover usability itself--are so crucial to web design.
I also liked how Nielsen was candid with the reader about why it is important to put the time and effort into usability testing for their company's website. He mentioned something that has been very true (at least in my experience with poorly designed websites): If they don't get what they need easily, users will leave your site.
Nielsen writes,"There's no such thing as a user reading a website manual or otherwise spending much time trying to figure out an interface. There are plenty of other websites available; leaving is the first line of defense when users encounter a difficulty". That's one of the benefits, and in this case drawbacks, of the Internet. There's such a wealth of knowledge out there that the answer to one question can be found in probably hundreds of other places.
I read an article about the multiple attempts to re-vamp the Georgia Tech Library's website. I found the article, "Redesigning for Usability: Information Architecture and Usability Testing for Georgia Tech Library's Website" on EBSCOhost through the Shepherd University library, but read the full-text PDF file from another site.
In this article, authors Heather Jeffcoat King and Catherine M. Jannik discuss the changes made to the Georgia Tech Library website beginning with the website's design in 2002. In between pages of the article, there are screen shots of the library website's homepage at different major intervals. The authors discuss the changes made and the processes of usability testing along each stage, and the screen shots helped me understand the progress better than just trying to picture the changes in my head. Figure 1 on page 3 shows a boring and confusing list of services for users to guess which one to go to, whereas Figure 3 on page 4 shows a more visually appealing homepage with the links from the list in Figure 1 neatly organized into a sidebar.
The article concluded with a statement that this project is ongoing, and that although the library's website has improved (an understatement!) Georgia Tech does not consider this the end. There are plans for more testing and incorporating the university's Digital Initiatives department into the current library site (King 7).
Citation:
King, Heather J., and Catherine M. Jannik. "Redesigning for Usability: Information Architecture and Usability Testing for Georgia Tech Library's Website." OCLC Systems & Services 21.3 (2005): 235-43. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Jan. 2011.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Decisions, Decisions..!
Here I am, in what is hopefully my actual last semester. It's time to grow up, buckle down, and do this whole school thing one more time. With senior year comes Senior Capstone class, a time to show off my best work from years past and top the whole thing off with one awesome project of my choice this semester.
I was going to take Capstone last semester, but with 18 credits besides Capstone, I didn't really have time or room in my schedule to dedicate enough time and effort to my project that time.
One thing that remains from my first attempt at Capstone is my idea for my project. I was going to do a research report on news consumption in the young adult demographic (roughly ages 18-35). I felt (and still feel) that this is an important topic since my career goal is to be a newspaper journalist once I graduate.
I still have a PowerPoint presentation that lays the foundation for my research project, and I went over some things with Kevin, who I had chosen as my director. I was going to do some reading about how politics and news interact, as well as the influence of the Internet on news reporting techniques. I was going to do a survey of Shepherd students...this was going to be a lot of work, but it would be practical.
In class on Monday, all of that started to look less attractive. Monica brought up the idea of having fun one more time with all of the cool things I've learned in my communications classes, which I think is a really good point. When can I make a graphic novel, animated short, or music video again?
My new idea is a board game, but not just any board game. It's a zombie hunter board game...way cooler than Monopoly or Chutes and Ladders. I took the game design class when it was still done in Flash, so I think doing it as a board game will be less of a pain in the butt, and I have more control and creative power if I can physically reach in and touch the materials and move them around.
So now I'm torn. Should I do my old idea about news? I probably have more already done and I can pick up where I left off, but now I feel like that's boring and working on it could feel like pulling teeth later on in the semester. It's practical and useful, and it would be good to do since I already have an idea and a good start. It's just so...academic.
Should I do the board game? I have never really studied game design or game theory, since most of my time in game design class was spent alternately scratching my head in confusion and wanting to punch a hole in the computer screen. I feel like it could be fun and challenging. On the down side, it is going to be a pain to put the final thing together nicely, and I am still going to have to research. I can't just drop a board game on a table at the end of the semester.
I'm leaning towards zombie hunter board game for now, but I still feel bad about leaving my news project behind.
HELP!
I was going to take Capstone last semester, but with 18 credits besides Capstone, I didn't really have time or room in my schedule to dedicate enough time and effort to my project that time.
One thing that remains from my first attempt at Capstone is my idea for my project. I was going to do a research report on news consumption in the young adult demographic (roughly ages 18-35). I felt (and still feel) that this is an important topic since my career goal is to be a newspaper journalist once I graduate.
I still have a PowerPoint presentation that lays the foundation for my research project, and I went over some things with Kevin, who I had chosen as my director. I was going to do some reading about how politics and news interact, as well as the influence of the Internet on news reporting techniques. I was going to do a survey of Shepherd students...this was going to be a lot of work, but it would be practical.
In class on Monday, all of that started to look less attractive. Monica brought up the idea of having fun one more time with all of the cool things I've learned in my communications classes, which I think is a really good point. When can I make a graphic novel, animated short, or music video again?
My new idea is a board game, but not just any board game. It's a zombie hunter board game...way cooler than Monopoly or Chutes and Ladders. I took the game design class when it was still done in Flash, so I think doing it as a board game will be less of a pain in the butt, and I have more control and creative power if I can physically reach in and touch the materials and move them around.
So now I'm torn. Should I do my old idea about news? I probably have more already done and I can pick up where I left off, but now I feel like that's boring and working on it could feel like pulling teeth later on in the semester. It's practical and useful, and it would be good to do since I already have an idea and a good start. It's just so...academic.
Should I do the board game? I have never really studied game design or game theory, since most of my time in game design class was spent alternately scratching my head in confusion and wanting to punch a hole in the computer screen. I feel like it could be fun and challenging. On the down side, it is going to be a pain to put the final thing together nicely, and I am still going to have to research. I can't just drop a board game on a table at the end of the semester.
I'm leaning towards zombie hunter board game for now, but I still feel bad about leaving my news project behind.
HELP!
Reaction to "The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet" from Wired magazine
This article was pretty intense, and I mean that in two ways: intense as in complex and almost over my head with the technical lingo, and intense as in serious and thought-provoking.
I felt like I was doggy-paddling through a good chunk of it, since I only understood a fraction of the technical jargon used in the article. I kept my head above the water, and I made it through both the "Blame Us" and "Blame Them" parts of the article.
Once I got past the language, the topic at hand really stood out. I remember some of this stuff from when I was growing up and how things have changed since then. I remember when Netscape would appear in the Internet Explorer browser window once my computer connected to the Internet, and I can remember when everyone was searching on Yahoo! before Google existed. Seeing the names like Netscape, Yahoo! and AOL again made me laugh. I had forgotten about these three former powerhouses like everyone else.
Michael Wolff's "Blame Them" section discusses Google's metamorphosis into something that can do everything yet be (almost) nothing at the same time. Just before signing in to my Blogger account, I noticed all of the services Google provides. There are so many--49 if my counting is correct--that's crazy!!
As for whether or not the Internet as we know it is going to fade away and mobile devices with apps will rule, I don't think so...not yet. I think if this does happen, there will be a slow but steady increase in mobile device/app-based Internet use and a small and gradual decline in traditional Web use. If this is going to happen, it won't be overnight.
I personally don't have an iPhone or iPad, or anything made by Apple other than an 8 gigabyte iPod. My new phone that I got over winter break is definitely a more modern improvement from the Motorola Razr I had been carrying around since 2008, but it's a far cry from a Blackberry, Android, or anything else that could run apps.
The best part is, I don't care. I think that people nowadays are too immersed in technology and that social media, instant messaging, and constantly text-messaging each other has us too connected. Not doing everything on my phone means less time I have to spend staring at a screen, which I do enough with classes, TV, and video games. I get to interact with real people face-to-face.
I felt like I was doggy-paddling through a good chunk of it, since I only understood a fraction of the technical jargon used in the article. I kept my head above the water, and I made it through both the "Blame Us" and "Blame Them" parts of the article.
Once I got past the language, the topic at hand really stood out. I remember some of this stuff from when I was growing up and how things have changed since then. I remember when Netscape would appear in the Internet Explorer browser window once my computer connected to the Internet, and I can remember when everyone was searching on Yahoo! before Google existed. Seeing the names like Netscape, Yahoo! and AOL again made me laugh. I had forgotten about these three former powerhouses like everyone else.
Michael Wolff's "Blame Them" section discusses Google's metamorphosis into something that can do everything yet be (almost) nothing at the same time. Just before signing in to my Blogger account, I noticed all of the services Google provides. There are so many--49 if my counting is correct--that's crazy!!
As for whether or not the Internet as we know it is going to fade away and mobile devices with apps will rule, I don't think so...not yet. I think if this does happen, there will be a slow but steady increase in mobile device/app-based Internet use and a small and gradual decline in traditional Web use. If this is going to happen, it won't be overnight.
I personally don't have an iPhone or iPad, or anything made by Apple other than an 8 gigabyte iPod. My new phone that I got over winter break is definitely a more modern improvement from the Motorola Razr I had been carrying around since 2008, but it's a far cry from a Blackberry, Android, or anything else that could run apps.
The best part is, I don't care. I think that people nowadays are too immersed in technology and that social media, instant messaging, and constantly text-messaging each other has us too connected. Not doing everything on my phone means less time I have to spend staring at a screen, which I do enough with classes, TV, and video games. I get to interact with real people face-to-face.
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