Wrapping Up The Semester

So I just wanted to write a quick few words to wrap up the end of this project, or so we think. I feel over the course of the semester we learned a lot of useful information, whether about how to successfully work in a big group geared towards one goal, or just different issues within the world that we discussed through assigned readings. Design Rebels was an important class for me this semester. I got a lot out of the going ons in the world, and how we can take action towards these issues to benefit humanity. Chomp Magazine was an attempt to approach children with these issues at an early age, so they can be more informed than we've been going into this course. The more you know, the better you can take action, and the early you start, the better. I think Chomp Mag was a success to an extent, I feel we may have set the bar really high for the amount of time we had to complete it, especially for a website of that magnitude. We thought we had a lot of content, but what it boiled down to, was we didn't get a lot of the stuff in time, we didn't follow the schedule as closely as we should have, which means in the end, everything was rushed. The class presentations were good, actually going to a school and speaking with the children was a great way to reach them. I was only there for two, but the first one went extremely well, we had at least 5 people speaking, which helped a lot. The second one i was at didn't go as well, but I'm almost positive the last one was the best, we finally got the projector to work, so i was told, so that shouldn't added a big visual element to the presentation. Not to mention we had bigger numbers again for speakers.

I'm not sure whats next for Chomp, I really don't know how we can measure the amount of success we had, or how to go about continuing this project, as if i have time to do so anyways. It would be nice, but we'd really have to change the format of the website I feel, so we can update it easier, but how do you do that and still make it interactive? It almost seems like we'd need full-time flash animators to even try to attempt it. Using an ordinary website just wouldn't capture children's attention like flash movies can. I feel the next step could be talking to more schools? If we did so, we'd definitely have to have more preparation for them, have an actual planned discussion, so we're not winging everything. I think the game was a really good idea as well, and also throwing in visual elements to tie into some facts that we can list off for the children. Show images of forests being cut down, strip mining, all that stuff, just images that show how much damage our commerce and growth is hurting our planet. I wouldn't mind helping out doing so in the future, but it'd have to be with the right people, I'd want Sean Berg and Carman to be involved as well, otherwise I don't think the original chemistry would be there. Anyways, this is me closing off the discussion of Chomp Magazine, we'll see how it goes in the future, I hope its not the end, but I know we're all busy. I have to graduate. But I do think the end idea with Chomp was a great idea, kids are the future and we're discussing issues that are not going away anytime soon, they need to be informed about these issues, so they can address them in the future, just as we've attempted to do so.

Middle School Presentation

While its still fresh in my head, I just wanted to write down some observations about the presentations we gave to the Martin Luther King Middle School this morning. Overall, I do understand why it was important to speak with a class, but why the specific middle school? I have no idea. They were a tough crowd to speak with, probably mostly because of the area, I don't want to say that race was an issue, but the school was about 98% black. The first class was fine, they were the 7th graders, which were younger than the second. We also had a lot more people for the first presentation, so everyone gave their little part, it was fine, ran real smoothly and the kids got into it. The second class we talked to was the 8th grade, which were a little tougher, they acted like they were too cool to listen to the visitors speak. Its whatever. We only had 2 people to speak for the second part, which made it a lot harder and put more pressure on them, in the first presentation, people would fill in some information here and there for each other, throw in their 2 cents. Because of the shortage of personnel, we couldn't conduct the game like we had done in the first presentation, which took out the class participation aspect of the demonstration, so the kids sat down in the chairs and weren't as into it. We also had some technical difficulties with the computers and displaying our website, which was a pretty big hit. They computers we totally outdated, which meant they were a big issue with displaying them on the computers, plan B was to show it on a projector, but we couldn't get the right connection for the Mac laptop. So we wound up just holding up Sean's laptop and showing small groups at a time, which really sucked, but sometimes you just have to do what you gotta do. Next time we'll be completely prepared for the worst, plan for everything so we don't run into this kind of problem in the future. The freebie bags were a big hit though, for the gardening aspect of our page, we prepared some baggies with homemade grow kits for the kids, which everyone was pretty excited about, kids always love free stuff. One last thing I noticed in the presentation that I feel could have been beneficial was adding in some of the recycling facts that I had read over for research. We had planned on throwing those in there, but I think in the heat of battle, we just got nervous and forgot. I just think it would've been facts that the kids could easily visualize, which would give them a better idea of the impact we have on our planet with trash and how much recycling can aid in our planets health. Besides that, we did good, I should have some pictures real soon, they just need to be downloaded and edited. I haven't felt the greatest lately, so I've been trying to hang out, get some school work done,

Latest Update

Just wanted to write a few short notes, I fell behind on the journal posts because of so many end of semester projects and all that b.s. This late into the semester, I'd say everything is going well, we seemed to have gotten everything taken care of that we needed to. We got the posters printed out, the printing turned out nicely, I was happy with the results. I really liked the weird dimensions we used on them too, really sets them apart from the others, its more interesting and draws attention to itself. The website is in the final stages, hit a few obstacles nearing the end of the semester, we fell a little bit behind schedule, but in the end we did the best we could. I think its a cool website, just a matter of how successful the project will be after this semester, I don't see myself having the time to put too much effort into it. Us three "web designers" put a shit ton of hours into the thing though, there was a lot of research and figuring out specific parts of the site. Some parts of the site we had to cut corners, we either couldn't figure out how to do something, didn't work right, or just straight up didn't have the time.

I think from here, we just wait out the end of the semester, still need to get it up and running online, which really isn't that big of a deal, everything functions properly, we used the correct dimensions, once its online, we should be good to go. I think one last minute thing we need to add is the site requirements, showing the best resolution to run it at, as well as flash and browser requirements. Sometimes that become a big issue, depending on who your audience is. I think we all put a lot of effort into this project, I feel some more than others, but I dont want to single anyone out, I'd rather finish off the project, get the grade and move on. Its been a long and exhausting semester, I just want to see how the other group feels about what we accomplished.

Website Updates

What?

The website has undergone some changes. Conceptually we've figure out a better idea of what we wanted, did some research over the weekend and we also started to sketch out what the final product is going to look like. We got some inspiration from a specific website, but we have some different ideas of how we want the site to animation and function. The objective of the website it to make it fun, with lots of different animations that spring from buttons. We want the site to be highly visual, functional, and fun. Because the site is geared towards teenages, we want there to be bright colors, funky sound effects, and a style that would keep teenages attention.

So what?

I think its important to make this website give information, but make sure its not too much like reading. The text has to be divided up into small chunks at a time, the idea of the site is to get the information in a funner way than reading a magazine article. I think animations such as mouseovers and actionscripting will be vital to the feel and flow of the website. We have some talented designers working on the site, so I think we'll be fine, but we need to start getting content, so we can put this site together! The due date is coming real fast, so we just need to get working on the flash, get a url purchased, and splash page up. I'm working on that, but i'm pretty rusty when it comes to design, and the splash page is going to set the tone for the rest of the page, so I think we need to get some input from Carmania and Berg. We can meet up today and collaborate a little more during class, we should be fine, no worries here.

Now what?

The next step is to get the information thats going on the site, so I can start throwing the individual stories into the flash movies. Once we get that going, we can figure out how long each article is going to be, and what needs to be paired with the stories visually, what images we can to use, how was want to decorate/organize them. Like I said, we'll be fine. I'm actually pretty eager to get working on this thing, I can do the stories, but I think Sean Berg needs to have all the final decisions and artwork on the website, the style of art he does is exactly what this website needs to have that extra touch. John's already started on the cityscape thats going into the background of the site, the rest is deciding/brainstorming what we can to have in the animations of the scene, and where each link is going to be placed.

Website Concepts

I came up with a concept for the website that I think will be successful. Because the demographic we're dealing with is young teens, I think the website needs to be animated, colorful and very interactive. I've found some different methods of navigations through a plugin website that I think will work well, but the real idea i had was to push the website as a series of short stories, rather than actual articles. Dealing with teens, I dont think they want to be force fed information and facts, its too much like reading and school, my plan is to have a set main character, Chomp, and have him interact with different characters and have the kids learn things through the events they encounter. The idea for the character was those walking teeth that you wind up, seems like an easily identifiable object, plus relates to the name of the magazine. Its hard to describe the navigation, so I'll leave that out. For the site, I also think the logo should randomly change. I know theres some javascript we can write that will make the logo change, randomly everytime the page is loaded, which I think could make the site more effective because its constantly changing. If everything was concrete and the same, I dont believe it will be as appealing to kids.

I think this is important because the site is the most important part of our project. We do have good designers working on it, but for it to be as successful as we're hoping, it really doesn't need to be informational, interactive, and hold kids attention for longer than 2 seconds. I feel these are solutions that can help make our site as good as possible. I also feel, as one of the main designers for it, the rest of the group should follow my lead in supporting this idea. By writing their "articles" in the form of short stories, it makes it interactive, I can also take photos that reinforce this concept which takes the bore out of reading, we can arrange them in short lines of text with images, making it read more visually.

Now what to do is just run it by the group, get approval, and start working on the website. The best way to do this is convince them how its best for our target age group. Besides that, I think me and john are already on the same page with this site, we just need to talk to Berg and go from there. I don't think we're going to have any problems with this though, we all work together very well and with my past experience with them, we work out problems well. I really don't know what else to add about what comes next, we have the plans, today is the approval of the logo, then its basically jumping straight into the design. With the time we have left, we really dont have time to sit and relax. I had planned on meeting up with John and Berg last night, but we had problems with scheduling, so we can work on that later on today I guess, I dont have class until 7, after Design Rebels, so we may be able to fit in a meeting there.

The Next Step

What? Well, some of our group mates met up today in the library, couple of them missed out, but we came together and decided up on our idea for the project. The rest is creating an identity for the organization, which means: a name, logo, detailed schedule of events that need to happen. We actually came up with a rough schedule so we can figure out jobs for everyone and how all is this is going to come together. I feel the majority of the team has good chemistry, we're putting out good ideas, participating, and show that we want to make this successful. I have worked with Kit before, so I know she is reliable, same with Berg and Carman, I just think there was some miscommunication about what the project was originally, which led to a lot of confusion and frustration as to the end product of this semester project. Now that we've met up, i think we have a solid idea, now just to have everything down solid and keep everyone on schedule.

So what to do now, I think once everyone gets assigned their spot in the group, everything will fall into place. Because we plan to do an editorial, i'm almost certain that i will be doing photography as well as web design for the project. I'm probably the most knowledgeable with web design in the whole group, even though i'm not part of the graphic design department, I've had a lot of experience with it in the past and am real good with the scripting and layout of a site. The photography i'm guessing will consist of food mainly, but that doesn't mean other stuff won't make its way into the publication. Besides that, I think within the publication, we need to have specific jobs for people who are working on the writing and the design, if we have one person working on each story in the magazine, I feel it will be a failure, everyone will have different ideas and I don't think it will all flow together. I nominate Sean to be the art director for the magazine, he has strong design qualities such as color and illustration, I think to grab the attention of our target audience we need bright colors and the trendy art style thats going around now. That seems to be one of Berg's strengths. Me and John will probably wind up working together on the site, and I could probably use an assistant in the studio when photographing shots or on location. So that could be whoever. I know John and I can work well together because we get along well, not to mention we live together, so we could pull long hours if we needed to. Besides that, I just hope Milton pulls his own weight, I did see him slack off in the group presentation when he was in John's group, I don't want that to happen again.

Next, we need to set a final name, logo for the publication and get straight to work on the color palette and the overall feel of the work. Getting into contact with the proper companies and sponsors will be another important job, I think that should be Laurie's job, she is a good people person and doesn't mind making phone calls, she seems to be more informed about the concerns we're facing so I think she should take a leadership role in this project. Maybe as more of an organizer and supervisor, making sure we all stay on schedule, besides that, I don't know her design skills so I think until I do, i'd rather her not be a main designer for this project. From here on, its really just take care of our own individual jobs and everything will come together nicely and be a success.

What now?

So i really don't know which projects to vote on for this semester project. I know this will the assignment that will be the most intensive and will consuming the majority of our class time for the rest of this semester. Some people had some good work, but others seems to be generic or kind of pointless. I really liked Jason's idea of informing the youth about manipulation by major corporations in advertising, only problem is, I'm not much of a public speaker, but I guess I could contribute in other ways like design work, documentation (photography, etc.), whatever I can do. I also liked David Cherry's work, it seemed a lot like mine, but in all, seemed more put together than mine. In certain areas, our ideas overlapped so the project is pretty similar to mine, contributing to the reduction of waste. The difference would be not having an event such as me and Carman proposed, which is fine. I also think the event wouldn't have had enough time to develop, at least for my idea, with the set date being November 15th. Cherry also had the idea of utilizing screen printing skills within the advertising of the organization, which I wanted to do also, probably doing stuff over recycled paper so you get that grainy texture of paper to contrast with the imagery. I also really enjoyed Kit's idea of recording soundscapes of Richmond. I have no idea how that would carry on for a long time, but the idea of doing so, and having the possibility of getting gallery space, maybe photography matched with sound to form an exhibition.

Visiting Architect

Last class we had a visit from Patrick Farley, an architect from Watershed Architects. Having him come to class really gave me a lot of insight on how we can live differently to benefit the future of our natural world. Through his architecture firm, he is able to practice different methods of reducing the amount of natural resources stripped away from the earth and in result, conserves energy in so many aspects. I feel things like this are important to learn about, seeing that he informed me of other ways I hadn't even heard of before whether as easy as recycling. Other methods were things such as not using PVC in any building supplies for structures he builds, along with planting grass on the roofs of their homes, to give back habitat that was destroyed while building, even using alternative power such as solar or even having a water collection system so the building doesn't rely on potable water from pipes the whole time. I find things like this really make a different in the environments we live in, and the world around us, by being able to create our own energy, theres no need to destroy the landscape that surrounds us in order to gather natural resources.

This is important because natural resources such as oil, coal, and other materials are irreplaceable, and the more we destroy terrain, not only is this lessening the supply, its also ruining the earth around us, in result is also doing things like polluting the water supply. All of these things result is a more polluted environments which obviously never leads to positive results.

The next step is finding ways to convince others to live within these parameters, so that the generations to come will have a place to live. Not saying the earth will be gone by then, but theres only so much pollution and destruction the earth and take before there is no more, it is up to us to start, so in the end there is something worth saving. Even if its small things, whether recycling, using less water in the shower, turning off the light when you're not using it. All of these things can make an impact, these small add up and do save a lot more energy than we originally acknowledge. So what now? Find ways to make a difference within your household, your community, by doing these seemingly pointless tasks, we can change the world one community at a time and eventually convert these places into a less polluted, happier environment.

Group Experience

I feel there are many ways my experience from working with our groups can be applied to our class project in Design Rebels. Chemistry is one of the most important things I've learned recently within our class, getting along with people and knowing you can count on them to do their part and do quality work. I don't want to point out names, but I know there are specific individuals within the different groups who really didn't pull their weight, we didn't have that problem in the Russian Constructivism group, we all got along really well and got a lot done, i was really proud of what we accomplished. We did work our asses off making the props and everything though, it wasn't a walk in the park. I do believe we have a great group of individuals in our class, most of them at least, who can really accomplish some great things together. My ideas were to split into a group with Carmen, Cherry, Sean Berg, Vineet, Kit, just to name a few, I know all of them pretty well, we get along great, and we all do good work together, and thats important when you're working on a project such as this. One of my ideas was to get Sean and Cherry to do some screenprinted shirts, for whatever proposal we take, make some shirts with cool designs, and sell them to fund raise; its an easy way to get your name out there, plus raising money for the cause is always good. Richmond seems to have that artsy style when it comes to clothing anyways, so screenprinted shirts will probably go a long way, and if successful, they're easy to reproduce. There are other objects we can create to spread word of this upcoming "organization", everyone in our class has different specialties, i'm photo, kit is sculpture, and basically everyone else is a graphic design, but some are better than others, but either way, we can all through our skills into a hat and should be able to come up with some effective work.

Seperate from just artwork, I feel that people skills and leadership are some of the most important things I learned that we can apply to this upcoming project we have awaiting us. I believe I'm a good leader, I know what needs to get done, good at splitting up the work, even taking a good load of it myself, I'm also a perfectionist so i know the final product will be top-notch if it goes through me, otherwise it'll drive me crazy. I think attention to detail is really important completely a successful product. My goal is to try to take a management type of position within this project because I'm good at what i do, that usually means conducting the work. I'm also really competitive and don't have a problem with taking people down, putting them in their place. I dont want to sound like an asshole, but sometimes it has to be done, especially if people don't pull their own weight as they should. I know looking through the group presentations, there were people to took a backseat and didn't do much of anything, that doesn't fly with me, i'll jump on your ass until you move your feet. Okay, maybe that does make me sound like an asshole, but the point is, if you aren't doing your job, you'll hear about it from me, and i think thats what makes a good leader, even in sporting events, everyone has to do their part, and as a whole thats how you're successful, when everyone comes together and completes their desired goal.

Green Research

What i've been up to lately is doing more research on my cause, figuring out what does/doesn't already exist within the area, so i'm not pitching an idea thats going to waste my time. My idea has been to influence VCU (the school and student body) to make a shift towards green, whether its recycling, not using as much energy, riding a bike to school, maybe just switching lightbulbs or buying secondhand furniture. All of these contribute in their own way, so its really about how do we do this, but I feel this is one of the questions we address when we actually break into the group. So far, the research I've been coming up with is more reading over text from places such as VCU's policies and OfficeMax, which is contracted through VCU for the majority of their print work, mainly to find out what they're environmental policies are. It seems this kind of influence already exists, but maybe the Design Rebels part of this isn't so much starting the movement, but taking this movement that already exists while using our classes design expertise to further the movement visually. By putting our heads together, we could come up with posters, a website, etc, that will more influence the student body and employees to conserve energy and recycled within the community. I will post the links at the bottom for the sites I've researched thus far. My other idea was to push this same idea onto local businesses (possibly in correlation with ShopRVA), whether its printing menus on recycled paper, recycling beer bottles, using low energy bulbs, there are so many factors that would work into the equation. Overall, the plan is that if we can push local businesses into functioning this way, it will directly impact the local area, making Richmond a more environmentally friendly city as a whole. We could start within the Fan and branch out from there. Maybe RVA Magazine isn't printed on recycled paper?

So what? Well, millions of trees are cut down each year to replenish our continuous irresponsible use of virgin paper. By simply recycling this paper, we cut down on the amount of trees that are chopped down to create paper, but also conserves the amount of water and other resources that are needed within this process. In the end, just something as simple as recycling paper winds up benefiting in many more ways than we intend originally. I feel that Richmond is a close knit community, mainly within the art community, if we can branch out to these galleries, artists, we have a focus group to start with. In my experiences, the artists within the area are the ones who care the most, whether promoting being vegan, environmental issues, that would be key in starting a boom in this movement.

What I do next is to research a little more, probably within local businesses: Sticky Rice, Chop Suey, galleries, any place that uses paper for menus, print work such as ads for upcoming exhibitions. Once I figure out what places are and aren't working within these manners, the next is to plan around that, figuring out the best approach to converting these places. I find my idea to be solid, the next is coming up with a solid name that will stick, ways to advertise. One idea I had was to create false parking tickets, they're green, and you pretty much have to open them, so posting them around the Fan could be a promising idea. Within the envelopes can be facts about conservation: how many trees it takes to, you just helpful information that gets people to visual that actual impact. This is all I've got for now, but there will be more to come. Here are the links of the sites I've jumped around to.

http://www.identity.vcu.edu/index.html

http://www.energychallenge.vcu.edu/index.htm

http://about.officemax.com/html/officemax_environmental_policy.shtml

http://about.officemax.com/html/officemax_environmental_policy_paper.shtml

My Expectations

As far as the Design Rebels upcoming project is concerned, I'm actually pretty excited to see what happens when some of us put our heads together. So far in the class, for my group project, I was teamed up with people I wasn't sure I'd work well with, just because I wasn't all that acquainted with them. But after that small project and finished and done with, we really had a lot of fun working on the Russian Constructivism presentation, which makes me believe that there is some real talent in our class that can lead to some awesome work. The cause is really the question for me. I really don't know what I'm going to do for my "proposal" as of now, I do have an idea, but looking through the VCU website, I haven't found the answers I was looking for, so I guess I keep digging until something pops up.

I would say my expectations for the upcoming project are pretty high, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be. Just from seeing how far Derek and Alex have come from their "shop rva" project, I don't see why our class shouldn't be able to go just as far, if not farther than they have come already. Just comparing the classes in size and talent. Not to say the last class wasn't, but with a line up like me, Shawn Burg, John Boy, Cherry, even Kit, we all have really great ideas, and being able to throw all of our thoughts into one project, its really going to be an experience to remember. Me, Derek (my brother) and Berg are already discussing starting a design firm on the side, it'll probably stick with the standards of Design Rebels, but talent-wise, we have what it takes to go far.

Because "shop rva" has been such a success so far, my expecations are really high for our group, especially with the number of people we have working on the collaboration, but then again, I've already noticed that some people put in a lot less effort than others, which should prove to be a problem in the future. When I work in a group, I find myself always taking a big part of the responsibility, I like being a leader and taking action, so in that case, I think we'll be okay. I don't have any problem yelling at people who don't pull their own weight.

I don't know where the project will take us, subject wise, or how far, but I do know that as long as we can all put our heads together we should be successful. But I do feel that "shop rva" made it so far because the cause was something that would have a really good effect in Richmond, not to mention the people who took the reigns knew what had to happen to keep it going. When an opportunity like that arises itself, you need to recognize the situation and grab it. It will be something that will build a great reputation, and a resume builder. I'm also helping along with the shop rva process, mainly doing photography for the website, but I am also good with graphic design, so I could do other stuff down the road. I'm really looking forward to seeing what we can do with the remainder of the semester, its going to be a lot of work, but could prove to be a very successful one as well. Until then, I just need to come up with my idea first, search in the nooks and crannies, make sure I can find the info i'm looking for to pull off the VCU transition to becoming a green university.