Inspiration lll

http://adventureworld.ourentry.com.au/#/visitor-info/eats-and-drinks/

inspired by the idea that putting everything (parts) into one, and it allows users to click on each part to proceed to explore further. It also gives fantasy feeling to the users as it looks fun and enjoyable. By looking at the visual, users will be engaged to hover on each part of the content and click to find out more information about it. The visual is the thing that first draw users' attentions.

Another inspiration is from WWF Food Story where it tells the users on how humans' food consumption pattern can cause changes and effects to the environment. The website is attractive yet it used plain and soft colour as well as vector art as moodboard. I found that there is a weakness in that website is that users may be attracted when reading the content but after awhile they might forget. Seems that the impact is not so strong. However, it uses interaction such as drag and move to enhance the user experience while reading it.

source: http://assets.wwf.org.uk/custom/foodstory/

inspiration ll

magnifying feature to see the details of the product. Happened to visit these websites that consist of zoom in feature to show the detail of the product itself. This is somehow related to my project as it requires users to zoom in and explore the content. Therefore I thought that I could implement some of these features into my website that fits the concept "magnify".

Topshop website:

link to the website here

ASOS website:

http://www.asos.com/May-28th/MAY-28TH-Deer-Watch-Black-Matte-Plastic-Buckle/Prod/pgeproduct.aspx?iid=2393974&cid=5088&sh=0&pge=0&pgesize=20&sort=-1&clr=Black

zoom in feature, move mouse cursor up and down to view the details.

I have looked into Behance.net by using keywords such as magnify, zoom in, meat, and burger to look for inspirations. I have found an interesting illustration of a burger. The burger is separated into groups (ingredients) and this inspired me of categorizing each stage of process into different parts.

http://pinterest.com/liwei3/inspiration

magnifying?

Visited Behance.net to look for inspiration for my content by searching using keyword "magnify".

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Moms-toy/328873

somehow, it's still kind of related to factory as it's showing different part of the process. for example the links below:

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Ninja-Assassin-The-Spybook/2455581

http://www.behance.net/gallery/The-Spy-Book/4199203

art direction // moodboard

As the concept of my project is magnifying. The users are required to explore and find out things in the website in order to know the result. So I have planned to have a mysterious theme for my website. As the idea/content of my website = "factory" is a non-existing kind of building. therefore, i was thinking to have surrealism art direction for my website to create that kind of "mysterious" feeling.

I have looked into several photo montages artists' works and one of them who has inspired me: Jerico Santander.  I have done researched on this artist's work during my first year and I found out that most of his works create mysterious mood. He was inspired by surrealism artists to lead him to produce artworks towards surrealism. He used several pictures and combine them together to form a complete artwork. Example of his works:

source: http://www.jericosantander.com/

Beside his artworks, I also found some other photo montage artists who produce amazing and impressive artworks. Most of these artworks are towards to surrealism and hence create a mystery and fantasy mood in terms of the colour used and the design element in the particular artwork. 

source: http://www.zimbio.com/Sarolta+Kovacs/articles/bQdzZljzKBU/Surreal+Photo+Manipulations


http://www.tutorart.com/index.php/daily-inspiration-439/

Here I also found some example of factory that brings out the mysterious mood: 

source: http://www.behance.net/gallery/Mannequin-Workers/844033

Here is another example (less similar) of how the mystery mood I want to create:

source: http://www.behance.net/gallery/Mystery-Case-Files-MillionHeir/485184

http://www.behance.net/gallery/-/819113

overall mood:

 
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one point perspective of view.

source: quitdoingitlabs.com

source: http://www.ea.com/monopoly-hotels-ios/images/vip-guests

source: http://www.behance.net/gallery/Haunted-Mansion/784313

reference

My website will be connected with user's Facebook in order to share the website to his/her friends through Facebook. The pictures below are similar to my concept where it allows users to post to their friends wall/own timeline. The only difference is that in this website, they are able to choose to share or not and they are also allowed to select who and where to share to.

The wall post will look something like this:
User is allowed to share the result (indirectly to promote the website) to their friends on those social media sites such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and others.

source: http://www.scienceofimitationmilk.com/

inspiration // research

I was browsing through Youtube and I have came across a video that somehow related to my final project topic(similar), which is the:
Kony 2012. A documentation video that talks about a no1 criminal in the world, called Joseph Kony. The creator/main person of the video, Jason Russell, was trying to raise awareness on this person to the public in the world. His aim is hoping to stop Kony and arrest him in 2012 and he created this campaign called Kony 2012. In the video, he mentioned that there is a problem before stopping Kony as 99% of the people in the world do not know who is Joseph Kony. I did not know who he is until I watched this video and heard from other people (friends), saw related posts in Facebook, Twitter, etc.. This matter (referring to Kony) could not be stopped by only the few people, it needs supports, back up therefore they have created something like propaganda to tell the public about Kony. In order to invite more people to support this campaign and together to stop this horrible crime, the first thing to do is to let them to know who is Joseph Kony. It is pointless if people do not know who he is, what awful actions he has been done, how were the kids living in Uganda, they would not know how serious is the matter, and they won't even want to try to stop it. This video kind of inspired me and linked to my final project because it tells me what is the most important thing to do before doing an action.
Although this video was uploaded in March 2012 but the campaign is still been carried on and it expires on December 31, 2012.

Kony 2012

They have used many different methods to tell people and one of it was using media (the internet, mostly through social websites to help promote this people) and influential people such as celebrities, senator, the government... In the video, Jason mentioned that those influential people are very useful in promoting certain matter/object because they can affect the people. People will tend to change their behaviours and follow what they are doing (so called "fans"). We also saw there was voice of Barack Obama which shows he is supporting and agree on this campaign, and then this influences other people as people follow because he has power, and status. 

I was wondering how can I find such influential people / object that can help change the audience behaviour towards the matter? Or what is the other way can be as strong as this method to promote my event? I might want to consider these in my Final Project later on. 

And then, I watched this video called "Kids React to Kony 2012". There is a bunch of kids being shown to the Kony 2012 video and were asked a few questions regarding Kony 2012. Each of them have their own opinions toward this matter and I was amazed by the way they talk. They have such strong point of view and they were not afraid to show how they think and feel, contrast to the kids in Malaysia where they are afraid to ask too many questions as teacher might not be happy and might beat them up. Anyway, the main point of posting this video is that I want to show how media is able to influence people and how fast and how wide (in terms of the audience) it can deliver the message to. This video shows that the kids are mostly aware of Kony 2012 because they said they have watched it on Youtube and they saw other people posted on Facebook. The kids in the video do know what is the purpose of creating Kony 2012 and they showed they are supporting it. In this century that we are now living, people get information from the internet (websites), and spread it very fast. It was just a short video (30 mins) and already influenced so many people and it gets so much attention. 

Again, social media websites is the fastest way to do so as so many people now are using it. People now also rely on these social websites to get latest information. 

I might want to consider implementing "social media" into my project. hmm... 

Kids React to Kony 2012

source:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc&feature=related (kony 2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-mzeZ6fQcE&feature=relmfu (kids react to kony 2012)

Interactivity & Interactions

This book talks about interactions and memory. How to use interactions to increase memory span.

Book: Benyon, Turner & Turner 2005 - Designing Interactive Systems

" The first and perhaps the oldest theory is decay theory which argues that memory simply fades with time, a point which is particularly relevant to working memory which maintains memories for only 30 sec or so without rehearsal.."      -pg 359

" Another account is displacement theory which account for forgetting from working memory." - pg 359

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There is this research done by SMART Technologies Inc which talks about Interactive Whiteboards and Learning, how it improves student learning outcomes. This  interactive whiteboard is a touch-sensitive screen that works in conjunction with a computer and a projector.

This interactive whiteboard applies three learning theories which are Constructivism, Active Learning and Whole-Class teaching. These theories show the understanding that student engagement is crucial to learning and as a growing collection of international research proves, interactive whiteboards promote student engagement.

The research also mentioned that the interactive whiteboards managed to increase motivation and enthusiasm of students to learn something. This shows that compared to static whiteboard which using chalks or markers, interactive whiteboard is more engaging, and it encourages students to learn hence it benefits the learning outcome. This also shows that interactivity or interactions can provide motivation and focus.

Besides, the research also mentioned that there are different types of learners which are visual learners, kinesthetic and tactile learners, deaf and hearing impaired learning, visually impaired learners. For example, kinesthetic and tactile learners are usually more visual and auditory in nature. They are able to reinforce learning through exercises involving touch, movement and space on an interactive board.

One of the review and understand of interactive whiteboards is:

Lesson are more memorable because students are more engages and motivated. Students are able to focus more on the learning moment rather than on worrying about capturing everything through note taking.

Beside from the observation from the US on interactive whiteboards, it mentioned that interactive whiteboards help to improve student's ability to retain and recall the information, while observation from the UK said that, interactive whiteboards are also easier to understand compared to a traditional whiteboard.

I find this research is important and helpful to my final project because it helps me to understand that how interactivity/interactions benefit and enhance learning outcome compared to a static and tradition. It also helps me to understand that how interactivity actually helps to improve one's ability to retain the information. These can be applied to my final project later as my aim is to raise awareness on meat consumption causes global warming, my objective is to explain and tell the audience how is it happening. After they learn, I hope they would remember the information (message) and change their behaviours (reduce meat intake). I also realised that using interactive media will help in explaining or educating people.  

source: http://downloads01.smarttech.com/media/research/whitepapers/int_whiteboard_research_whitepaper_update.pdf

Inspiration || Idea

Talk about my inspirations:

1. Meat consumption

During semester break in April, one of my high school friends contacted me and we discussed about what is her final project going to be. She is a degree student who is majoring in Graphic and Visual Communication Design in Singapore. She has a theme for her final project which is "sustainability". We discussed and searched for ideas and topics, eventually we found this interesting topic = Meat consumption causes global warming.

She was required to do a campaign that talks about sustainability including design a poster. We discussed about the poster and I found that it is very hard to visualise everything or information that I want to tell in a piece of paper. It is very challenging too. This inspired me to think of using interactive media to let the audience to know about the message. I was thinking it would be much easier to use an interactive media instead of a static media to deliver message yet it is entertaining. 

Her project theme and the usage of poster and interactive media inspired me to create some sort of awareness campaign to the public. I find it interesting that actually most of the people are not aware of the fact that meat consumption can be harmful to the environment as well as our health. And this would be a great opportunity for me to explore and create such awareness campaign for my final project to show effectiveness using interactive to raise awareness. 

2. Smell senses

Integrating smell senses into my final project?
It is very interesting as I realised that there are not much projects that focusing on smell senses and this made me wonder how multimedia can do with smell senses. There was one time that I wondering why can't we get smell of the perfume from the internet, as I was browsing through a perfume website. The design of the bottle  and the description are attractive, but how about the smell? What if some of the people do not go to the shop personally, how would they know the smell of the perfume, and how do they know whether it is suitable for him/her?

All these questions inspired me to do an interactive artwork that related to smell senses for my final project. It can be a piece of interactive work that helps audience(users) explore the smell of perfume, it's quite challenging but interesting. Or I was thinking is it possible to emit smell through mobile devices or laptops? A lots of research need to be done in this case.