Week 10 Collaboration

Today,

We looked at moving on from past designs and read about challenges we face/ faced.

Group Exercise – DISCUSSION - Moving On

Discuss these questions in relation to a group creating a design in collaboration

01 – Have you had to abandon any exhibition design concepts so far?

IMAGE: DESIGN SLEEK

Yes, the design above was the one I was gunning for as I spent a lot of time on it but it wasn’t what corporate coms was looking for so it was scraped. Im still proud of it regardless as it is a nice concept.

02 – If so, was it hard?

Not so much as I can still apply the idea in my designs down the track but disappointed that my least favourite design got chosen and my favourite was scrapped. I can still keep it so it wasn’t hard at all.

03 – Do you think it is easy to miss a better idea if it is not the first one?

No, if you remember all your ideas, no matter how small they are you’ve got a bank of ideas you cant miss anything.

04 – Do you have any techniques for creating unpredictable ideas?

I type random words, mock brand names and try to make a logo or idea behind a company.

05 – Is logic the best way to attack a design problem?

Sometimes, but other times go with your gut J

06 – What other problem solving methods could work?

Leaving it alone for a while helps me.. coming back to it with fresh eyes helps me solve problems.

07 – Do you ever doubt your design decisions?

All the time. I never think they are good enough.

08 – Do you ever consciously put on “another hat” to get inspiration?

Not really, like I said before I trust my gut.

09 – Describe somebody opposite to you in relation to their design approach?

Someone who is indecisive and plays with too many ideas at once is my opposite.

10 – Could you imagine designing like them?

No, I wouldn’t be able to design like that.

In regard to creative collaboration:

Discuss these questions - write a paragraph on each and use examples

1 . Describe how you have contributed to design solutions for other group members

On a regular basis I help others with design problems with it be technical or design help I always offer or someone asks. Generally my advice doesn’t alter their design too much, its just a little nudge towards something that they didn’t think of. With the technical help, im constantly helping others with photoshop problems so I like to think I contribute to their designs by helping them.

2. Describe how you have challenged designs by other students in your group

Rachels idea was simple but effective, I asked her for the file and played with it and I came up with the above design. I challenged her design by adding colour to it. I always try to challenge what’s in front of me to benefit others or myself. In this case I borrowed her idea to further benefit the exhibition.

3. Are you flexible when others suggest design improvements / changes?

I believe I am. If other suggest things to me I take it as constructive criticism. If theres a certain aspect that I really want to stay in the design and they want to alter it, I would be a bit hesitant but I would always do what they say to see how it looks. For example, below, I wouldn’t of coloured it with red if Rachel didn’t suggest it and it looks better in red.

4. Choose a design that group input has changed radically. Post before & after images.

5. Describe the process of shifting the design solution radically.

Rachel and I sat down and changed each colour of each shape to see how it works. It changes the design 'radically' like changing the font did. Which was an overall decision from feedback from the entire class.

VIDEO:

I found this video quite instructive, similar to John Maedas The Laws of simplicity. Those simple little guidelines that make all the difference. I liked how it was originally created to help people my age to reach the success level they want. The way he approached the explanation of CRAP made me laugh as it was true but it wasn't put so clinical for once.

OVER AND OUT!

Week 10 Origination

Today,

We had a logistics report, looked a John Maedas ‘The Laws of Simplicity’ Law 9 – Failure.

1. Using Ten Squared as an example, describe an aspect of your work or something you have worked on, where you have found a symbiotic relationship that is both complexity and simplicity

When we designed the headline for the exhibition, it was a simple concept but the pressure was on to create something with that wow factor and that appeared complex to me. But the relationship of both complex and simple go hand in hand with the finished headline as it appears complex, when in actual reality it is very very simple.

Other people said: Symbiotic – 2 organisms working towards one cause. Creating the video ad, shooting the video is simple but editing is complex.

2. Provide a conceptual example of a situation that has arisen during this project where you have had a return on failure?

The idea of going around and introducing ourselves to sponsors for the exhibition backfired as not only did it take up a lot of time, We COULD have got the desired effect with phonecalls and emails but I felt that going around in person was more personal and we would catch them off guard. This was both positive and negative in response so on one part we failed on the other we had an average success rate.

3. Homework: How are you using the laws in relation to your contribution to The Ten Squared exhibition?

Provide a short explanation and example for TWO of the laws so far.

Use your work towards and your examples.

Reference:

http://trex.id.iit.edu/news/idiom/032307/review-maeda.jpg

I use the SHE principle mentioned in Law 1 reduce because I feel that the exhibition is a lot of work to plan and create, on top of creating something to present therefore Law 1: Reduce is one of the Laws that we should be embodying into the exhibition. I am doing this by reducing the time spent on things that chew up a lot of time as there are other things that I could do to help myself further in my exhibition design. Instead of taking on as much for the exhibition I have realized a balance that will allow me to prevent failure.

Law 2: Organize is also a pretty important as one must be efficient to be successful, one must be organized to prevent chaos. I think by organizing my order of blogging and note taking has significantly reduced my homework rate. By organizing a plan of what you know you need to do, what you have done, who you have to meet ect. This make SLIP all the more important for organizing.

Logistics Report:

Company’s are prepared to provide equipment so we need to consider where things are being placed and where sponsored materials are being kept. We discussed the banner printer for students work. Sunita and tee called up everyone on the sponsorship list and they received a number of sponsors that have or are in contact with tee today. We also looked at the floor plans for the exhibition and how much space we will all need for our artwork.

 Video:

Yes, Very corny and very plain but I think the message conveyed in this video it important

because failing at something furthermore develops your understanding in that area. If you fail once, you may not fail twice. This video doesn't only shine on the failures but the successors. Michael Jordan for example: He was cut from the Basketball team but growing stronger and with determination he now has 5 MVP (most valuable player) awards, 10 time scoring champion and 14 time NBA all star; just to name a few. That cut form the team pushed him to do better and he did. Everyone experiences failure sometime its what you do with that failure.. Let it knock you down or get back up :)

OVER AND OUT!

Week 9 Collaboration

Today,

We discussed Vanity and Ego. We also expressed our feelings on ideas.

Reference: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2nOW9Iiw2RM_-3CxdybDEjvJFCj0UwiP3JMiBVGCmS7Kn1_2FDMnGqe4Mw7elGpA1Wx0qfLZbG553Tm_Nb3q1neQPWtEjTiThqJxR0GFF_QpfhNJCcTtUIdwLJXQSoQs7B8m0r51Ei7P7/s1600/milla_jovovich+Model+Wallpaper.jpg

Vanity & Ego:

Discuss these questions in relation to a group creating a design in collaboration

01 – Are you capable of being vain about your art & design?

I am capable of being vain about my work but It doesn’t come naturally.

02 – Do you have a healthy ego?

A very low ego level but its helped.

03 – What defines an unhealthy ego?

Low ego or too much ego is unhealthy.

04 – When others want to change your ideas, do you get offended?

No, I appreciate other peoples ideas.

05 – When you are asked for opinions on other’s work, do you compare it to your own?

I don’t compare my work to others standards, to me everyone’s work is on a universal level. It either works or doesn’t… You should compare yours to others in a negative way, for constructive criticism it would be okay only in some instances. Thinking in your head wont hurt though :P

06 - When you are asked for opinions on your work, do you compare it to others?

Sometimes, when a comparison is needed I probably would but I wouldn’t do it in a way that it didn’t seem negative. When it is not needed I would give the opinions that I felt, not what other people have done.

07 – If somebody plagiarized your work, would you be proud?

No, Why would I take pride in my work being stolen? I would Hunt them down.

08 – What is the difference between pride in your work, and vanity about your work?

Pride: Being proud of your work is different to vanity because you can be proud and not be vain.

Vanity: Is excessive pride and over obsession about the appearance.

Accept complements subtly.

09 – Do you expect others to listen when you speak?

Yes, it is a sign of respect.

10 – When somebody else speaks are you thinking about what you are going to say next?

If it is a discussion then yes, but generally I focus on what is being said.

11 – Do you form opinions about others quickly?

Depends, to gather opinions takes time because you need information to judge character but I generally get a feel for the person initially.

12 – What percentage of your judgements about others talents are right?

70%

In regard to creative collaboration:

Discuss these questions - write a paragraph on each and use examples

1 . Do you have a strong belief in your personal ideas?

Some ideas that I have I feel are higher than my other ideas, I generally don’t publicise my personal ideas and that’s because I don’t have a strong belief in my ideas. I don’t think that they are worth much until I get feedback or some advice or I turn a corner and accidentally come up with something great; my ideas are mediocre but I develop them into good designs.

  

 2. How do you evaluate your personal ideas over a period of time?

Time helps me evaluate my ideas because I need space between my creation because I generally stress or fight with my designs and get frustrated, I find when I’m cool headed I produce more. Over a period of 2 weeks, I could create something really good but its missing that extra zing. If I came back to that same picture after not looking at it for 2 weeks I could give it that zing in 5 minutes and make the picture complete. Time helps you gain perspective.

3. How flexible are you in changing your mind about the value of your ideas?

Not as flexible as I could be, I probably could try harder but at the moment im just doing things as they come naturally. My ideas are on the same scale, the universal scale, like others works. My ideas are valuable but they are only valuable if they become something.

4. How flexible are you in changing your mind about the value of others’ ideas?

The same again, others ideas are good, great even but those ideas are only good if you can make them worthwhile. Im more flexible on this front as they aren’t MY ideas but people still amaze me with their ideas and I still get that WOW factor but they are valuable no matter how tiny or big they are.

5. Does hanging on to your old ideas block new ones?

Not block, suppress. If you dwell too much on old ideas you become to unhinged to you new idea. That’s why it helps to let your idea stand for a while without any attention. Ignoring the old helps the new but sometimes it is really hard to block out the old when you keep thinking ‘if only I did this..’ or ‘I could of..’ I just think to myself, relax.

6. Are you slow or fast in moving on when an idea has burnt out?

Depends how much love I put into my idea. When I change over the old idea is still in my mind but it soon goes away after ive started to loose myself in my new idea. Getting carried away in research is my specialty but when I look at all of the things other people have done it pushes me to do better. I don’t think that this is a time waster and that is classes me as “slow” but for me. Time is needed to re calibrate the brain for new material. 

 Commentary:
I really loved this video because of the artistic nature of how it was explained. The imagery was really effective and the overall concept was very strong and dominant. What Stephen Johnson was saying really made alot of sense, ideas are hunches that we work on and they need a combined element to live and grow into strong ideas that maintain themselves.

OVER AND OUT!

Week 9 Origination

Today,

We discussed John Maeda’s ‘The Laws Of Simplicity’ – Law 8 Trust.

Questions:

1. Provide an example of a situation where you have to have trust – in the same

vein as the author in his swimming lesson example.

What made you trust in this situation and how did you feel?

Image:

Reference:

http://ournationalparks.us/images/uploads/zionrockclimbing3.jpg

Rock-climbing, You need to rely on the person – your anchor at the bottom to belay you so you do not fall and injure yourself. My Friends made me trust they gave me reinforcement and they told me if they couldn’t handle my weight up that high.

Other people said: Doctors/ medics, you have to trust that they’ll fix you. Nude Models, trust that maturity would be kept. Teachers appear to know everything, constantly learning, family teaches you things, scuba diving trust the instructor to tell you the truth, skydiving. Dentists – trust that they would not hurt him in Australia.

2. Where in our exhibition do we need to instill trust?

Give examples. How are we going to achieve this?

We need to trust that EVERYONE is going to do an equal part in this exhibition, to ensure that deadlines are met and that it goes off without a hitch. Especially on the night we need to trust that the utmost is being done by all parties. There could be an On the Night Checklist and a solid communication system so communications don’t break down and vitals of the exhibition do not get completed.

Other people said: People trust us to put on a show – good marketing – make them think ( instill trust ) that the exhibition is worthwhile. Movie trailers- trust that they’re perceiving the movie properly in the trailers. Talked about root canals – student nurses –

  

3. What strategies are used to instill trust? Examples? Where do we need to employ this in Ten Squared? How are we going to do this?

Other people need to be interested and with that we need to interest tham with our work and other things for them to do. Food/ Drink and Music would create the ambience we need to attract people. To instill other peoples trust in us we need to offer things that people like. Like Honey To The Bees.

Other people said: trust exercises – wine – food – no donation boxes – appears opportunistic (for charity ) – 3^rd world country – jetstar charges you for everything- staff was rude on the plane – team of people to ‘muster’ people into the exhibition food and drink – trust people -

4. If you could “undo” any aspect of the preparation for the exhibition to-date, what would you “undo”? With this in mind, what would you change now in your preparation strategy to overcome having to “undo” anything?

Undo: other art areas being involved, I feel that we should of just putted on a small exhibit with the IDM and the Design students, having other areas involved complicates things when they don’t show consistent effort.

Strategy: Try my best and hope that others do the same. I cant sit back and do the minimum and hope for the best so I’m hoping that this turns out well.

Other people said: Go through experiences help you to gain experiences in the real world.

 

5. Homework: How are you using the laws in relation to your contribution to The Ten Squared exhibition? Provide a short explanation and example for each of the laws so far.

1 Reduce

Reducing my Exhibition idea to ensure the outcome is positive.

Reducing the amount of time I waste on things that aren’t important.

2 Organise

Organise the tasks that need to be done in order of priority, checklists help me to not get overwhelmed.

3 Time

Time is saved by only going over things once, not ten.

4 Learn

I’ve learned that people don’t realise how much work has to be done.

5 Differences

The Idea of the exhibition is simple, the putting-it-together is the complex factor.

6 Context

I want the exhibition to adopt the “comfortably lost” principle because we want people to feel comfortably lost in our work.

7 Emotion

We want to incorporate some form of feeling in our exhibit as the emotions people feel when they will be looking at our work. They NEED to feel emotions when they look at our work.

8 Trust

We MUST trust that everyone will do theyre part.

  

Logistics Report:

Design team went to sponsors, got some positive feedback. Sponsorship discussion on how were going to pick up the other art faculties sponsorships slack which I find is un fair as the sponsors that we’ve gotten so far are solely for the design group, as we were assigned them. The sponsors we have will not cover the entire exhibition expenses. 

  

This video shows team building of 2 guys on wire trusting that the other one is going to ensure their safety. I think its funny how the guy on the left screams because hes scared.

OVER AND OUT!

Week 8 Collaboration

Today,


We discussed relinquishing ownership:

01 - Do you usually think your ideas are the best?

Not really, but my ideas that I feel are better are those that I classify as average.

02 - Are you shy in presenting ideas?

Depends on the work, I would be shy if I felt my work wasn’t up to scratch.

03 - Do you hold back your best ideas?

Only if I feel my idea was threatened by another or I felt that I should keep it to myself ( which is generally the case ).

04 - Are you happy when others want to change your ideas?

Yes, I appreciate others feedback but when theres more people telling you what to do, it is a tad confussing.

05 - Are you totally truthful when you are asked for opinions on other’s work?

Yes, I am but I suggest alterations and simple things they could change to make it better.

06 - Would you ever present somebody else’s idea as your own?

No, its WRONG. Take pride in your work, inspiration is okay but the stealing idea is not on.

07 - Would you borrow just a little bit?

Everything has been done before ! so why not, its not wrong to take one part of an image to incorporate into your own design. Because it is yours.

08 - How would you feel if somebody borrowed just a little bit of your idea?

Depends what they stole, if it was the ‘theme’ or overall concept then I wouldn’t feel comfortable but if they borrowed a tiny aspect then I wouldn’t mind.

09 - Do you think you have any ideas that are totally original?

Now and then but very rarely and they are generally quirky.

10 - Would you feel the same way about that original idea in 30 years?

Probably not as time would change the way you perceive that ‘original’ idea.

11 - Does a knowledge of design history help or hinder your idea originality?

It helps me because I see how other people have seen things and that leads me to my own ideas of originality but to create something original is hard therefore knowledge of those aspects of design will also have a negative effect on your mind.

12 - Would you be prepared to sell an idea?

Reference: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgERC2inXU-pe-pEyDOvFqv1v_I9DObuXiaaAR49vi9Z52054kbmdZIavAa86TrzIWGjhvx8DLh_vpscC_4AHyfxxNk-oep4cPrgSLrHMY6iZH6wfYPBc9x1RjjywCMhRcU-umTyyv_40Y9/s1600/lightbulb_idea%255B1%255D.jpg

Having an idea and selling it to a company that i felt would use my idea as it were intended and i received a generous pay out :) it wouldnt be so bad either.

Blog Exercise – The Legal Framework / Creative Content

PART 1: UNDERSTANDING THE LAW

Research and blog on the following:

1. The Berne Convention

The Berne convention is the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. As of September 2008, there are 164 countries that signed to the Berne convention.

2. IP (Intellectual Property) legislation in Australia

Intellectual property is the idea that ones ideas and concepts are/ can be protected from others.

3. Australian Copyright Law

Australian Copyright Law lets us immediately gain copyright to the things we  create.

4. Creative Commons

Is a organization devoted to giving people a “standardized way to keep their copyright while allowing certain uses of their work” ( reference: http://creativecommons.org/about)

5. P2P networks and software licenses

 Allows people to connect on the same level with the same allowances of exchanging over a network. Software licenses protect the usage and redistrubuttion of software and packages.

PART 2: DEFINING YOUR OWN ETHICAL APPROACH

Answer these questions:

1. Is it illegal to copy a design?

 Yes, It is copyright infringement.

2. Is it ethical to sell a non-original design as your own?

 No, it is not. NOONE should sell a non original idea because It does not say anything about your values.

3. What is the difference between ethics and law?

Ethics are what we deem to be as wrong or right.
Laws are rules that are not to be broken and are made up by the government.

4. Do you value others intellectual property the same as your own?

 yes, what other people know is as important as what i know. 

  

PART 3: APPLYING YOUR CODE

Make a list of 5 behaviour principles you consider essential for each of these:

1. At CDU in the MacLabs

 -Respectful

- General Houskeeping

-be aware of your surroundings

-reduce un necessary noise

-No food or drink

2. Outside class in a social setting

 - Respectful

- open to others behaviour

 - general housekeeping 

- Friendly

- not provoking 

3. In a professional workplace in which you may be employed after studies

- Neat

- Tidy

- Professional

- Meet Deadlines

- Respectful

Video: How Not To Act In A Workplace

This video shows a few blokes shooting a .700 t-Rex Rifle. I know guns have no relevance in this blog but its a pretty good example of what not to do in a workplace.

OVER AND OUT!