Choosing my 5 loves and/or hates was simple process. First of all, I found it hard to think up a technology that I dislike, so my search was soon narrowed down to loves. A discussion exercise with a small group of peers quickly inspired my idea to involve portable technology, focusing on the most common; The technologies you would find in your everyday bag.
I began to think about what I kept in my bag, and questioned others about the contents of theirs. A simple way of visually documenting this was through photography. This was a task that could be carried out by myself, and also remotely, via the Internet, asking friends to email a photo of the contents of their day bags, with an example photograph of my own as a guideline...
I began to take a closer look at the most common ‘technologies’ people carried around with them. The top 5 appeared to be the mobile phone, the mp3 player, the camera, portable gaming consoles and the USB memory stick. I picked the top 4 of these and picked the bag itself as the 5th technology.
I immediately started to map out the website in my mind. I wanted hand drawn illustrations, and GIF animations (a process we had just learnt in a com tech session) to make it fun and interactive.
Heres a few attempts at GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)...
We had crash courses in Dreamweaver (a web design software, which would later make me re-think my ‘love’ of all technologies). Once we got stuck into these programmes (we were also knee deep in Final Cut, a video editing programme) the intentions of the brief started to become a whole lot clearer to me. This was about exploring the basics of programmes, getting to grips with some of the technologies available to us as newbie’s in the world of visual communication and introducing us to useful software. It was okay to be having ideas above our stations (I certainly had), the brief was pushing us to familiarise with these processes, helping us to identify which process is needed for the outcome we visualise and want to achieve.
Dreamweaver felt like the key skill in this brief, frustrating as it was, I enjoyed experimenting and finding my way around, conquering framesets and creating a very simple website which combined fashion with function.
I found myself needing to take breaks from html and took this time to concentrate on the content for my website.
Camera.
I decided on creating an A5 booklet/pamphlet of photographs I myself have taken while travelling around (flickr) The book exhibits the portability of ‘the camera’, in a format that is portable itself. For me this was a great process, as the pamphlet is something I had envisaged doing for a while after recently seeing and becoming inspired by photo look books by photographers such as Juergen Teller and Terry Richardson...
Terry Richardson...
And my attempt...
It was also simple. Printing photos straight from my computer (using QuarkXpress) on cheap pink paper, giving it that DIY zine look.
Phone.
An animation I made using Final Cut, with the help of a class we had in using Final Cut for making animations. I only had the time to focus on the actual animation, which shows a phone talking about how he likes to be called, and have his buttons pressed and like to be kept in your bag because its cosy. Given more time and access to the correct equipment I would have liked to have included a voice over, that would actually make the narrative of the animation far more easy to understand!
Below are all the parts needed to make the simple animation, which I then edited in photoshop and imported into Final Cut
Nintendo.
This was just a fun little idea of using a comic strip to show people using their portable consoles. I just made drawings, scanned them and then pieced them together using Photoshop. A process I am comfortable with.
Music.
I just used a collection of video clips taken with my mobile phone, with a song played over the top, and a simple narrative of walking, in different locations, but always having my I-pod with me to listen to. The great thing about this was I could take as many tries and videos I wanted, stored them in my phone and then transferred the videos onto the computer through bluetooth. I was then able to edit the videos and play around with the order and add audio in Final Cut.
Alot of the graphics you see on the website I hand drew and scanned in, such as the buttons. He's what planning them looked like...
Because I was more enthusiastic and interested in making a website, I left the DVD till last. It took 2 attempts to get a fairly functional outcome. There were a few things about the software which were not obvious, but I eventually managed to work my way around and ended up with a simple DVD.
Uploading the website to the internet is something I didn’t manage to complete. After 2 solo attempts using 2 different methods, I gave up, as it was extremely foreign territory to me and decided to hand in my website in via trusty USB pen!
Although I was quite successful in coming up with ideas and using the software to show a range of new skills, my level of ability is still very basic. I would have loved to have made the website much more interactive. The brief is bringing learning into the 21st century as everything to be handed in is digital. It has allowed me to explore ideas and has left me feeling excited and enlightened in more of the skills involved in communicating visually!
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