Core Design

Week 8 :: Graphic interpretation of Visuals & Text

2006-11-18T17:43:07Z

Our assignment was to use one of the texts from the handout from class, and to reinterpret the visuals the graphics and using Adobe Indesign create a new layout for it, a new representation of the information.

I chose the Gettsyburg address for one main reason: I doubted anyone else in class would do it (and I was right).

I was recently given an Edward Gorey book as a gift, and I've been inspired by his pen illustrations and decided my representation would be a pen illustration, all hand-drawn. My other obession has always been Arabic calligraphy and how the calligraphy itself forms shapes and beautiful creatures and people.

So I used both ideas to create Abe. However, I will revisit this again and do it properly - I didn't realize my vision. I also didn't have access to a scanner at the time, so this assignment was done using digital images of my drawings. So it definately looks a bit weird.

Week 7 :: Monsters galore

2006-11-18T17:36:40Z

This week we were supposd to sketch creatures using the techniques we learned in class. Then when we drew a creature we liked, we had to scan it, and color it (bring it to life) in photoshop.

I'm obsessed with diving, and I vividly remember one of my night dives near Abu Nahas off a remote island, and I saw 2 ENORMOUS Giant Moray Eels. They were several meters long, and about a meter wide in diamater. HUGE, beautiful animals. Hence, my monster was born....

The sketch:

The creature brought to life:

Week 6 :: Animation Design

2006-11-06T01:19:18Z

The assignment was to create a simple animation in Adobe AfterEffects, using our building assignment from last week. This was my first time to use AE, and so the animation isn't too fancy. I will probably revisit it.

View animation.

Week 5 :: Design with typography

2006-10-25T22:44:14Z

The assignment was to create a collage using newspaper clippings, billboards, signs, and create a building. I chose one of the buildings on my way to school: this church on Broadway. I think the architecture is beautiful. I was really inspired by the Dada movement and Dave McKean's work.

I wanted to create a disjointed yet unified image of the churge. So I took pictures of it from different angles, different times of day and different resolutions. Then I made a collage of these images. I wanted to make the church appear handrawn and I wanted to saturate the collage with different splashes of color and textures. For the text, I knew that I didn't want it to be simply cut & pasted into the collage, so I created movement with them: the walking legs of text, and the askew building of text.

I couldn't decided which image is nicer. I personally like the pinks, blues and greys, but it seems most people like the greens, oranges and earthy tones more.

Week 4 :: Class 4 : Design with gradients, surfaces, colors, contours

2006-10-25T22:42:51Z

I went romantic with this one - sunset scene on the Nile, Egypt.

View image

Yogu Nakamura

2006-10-16T08:21:55Z

View my presentation, or play with it below:

My survey

"Since Flash appeared on the scene the rules as to what a Web page should be no longer apply." - Yogu Nakamura

Yugo Nakamura (b1970) is considered one of the pioneers in interactive systems in digital/networked environments, and one of the most interesting/unique interface designers. His background was in civil engineering, which led to a natural interest in the relationship between a user and his/her environment/surroundings. He is not only an engineer, but a designer, director and a coder.

His work is all about creating a new communication environment and getting an emotional response from the user. Yogu is trying to redefine the relationship between users and their interaction with the web environment; to create a “unique communicaton experience”. To acheive this, he has to sacrifice usability for aesthetics. Many of his visitors consider his work very "user unfriendly."

there's usability... but there's also joy ... there's that simple fun of being able to touch and feel, that can draw you deeper into a web experience. (Nakamura)

Consequently, his aim is to design the nature of the users' relationship with their environment.

Yogu has been strongly influenced by John Maeda, because Maeda introduced him to a new paradigm; the computer is no longer just a tool, but a "creative catalyst".

...I think I did learn what it might mean to express something
from within the computer's own environment.
that was the basic paradigm I learned from john maeda-san. (Nakamura)

He is interested in the craftsmanship of design and production and believes it is not related to technology but to the spirit. His work is organic and has a feeling of fluidity in the design; his work is mostly done in Flash. Some of his work has been in claymation. His most clever work, in my opion, is the Ecotonoha site. Users from all over the world collaborate together to build a tree. Each user can add leaf nodes to the tree with their name and a message. As the virtual tree grows, NEC will plant a new tree for every leaf created.

“I am developing an alternative approach to visual communication on the web.” - Yogu Nakamura

Samples of Work:
http://www.intentionallies.co.jp/content_normal.html
http://www.shift.jp.org/093/
https://www.ecotonoha.com/index_en.html

Personal site: http://www.shift.jp.org/093/

References:
http://www.designmuseum.org/design/yugo-nakamura
http://www.shift.jp.org/093/yugonakamura/
http://www.designboom.com/portrait/flash.html

Week 3 :: Exploring the surface of the page

2006-10-02T09:30:42Z

Assignment
Using either warm grey markers sketches or charcoal drawings create hints of cityskapes and landscapes. Scan the sketches, throw them into photoshop and start creating different evironments.

These are my four charcoal drawings. I followed the exact instructions from class to create the abstract images.

I created 9 different environments, but here I'll only showcase five images. Each one was created by layering the charcoal drawings.

The next step was to choose on of our new environments, and spend time on it, refining it, applying filters, etc.

This is my final image:

Form-Over-Function

2006-09-24T10:08:20Z

There exists a dichotomy between functionality and design. The main obstacle is trying to find the right balance between the two; usually one must sacrifice design for functionality or vice versa.

So what do consumers crave? I believe that the average person would sacrifice ease-of-use for a pretty package. I think Apple is a master of design, when it comes to all their products: laptops, computers, mp3 players, etc. They know what the market wants, and that is simplicity and beauty. All their products have dominated the markets, ranging from their iBooks to their iPods. There's a reason that iPod is outselling Sony HD mp3 players, even though Sony is in a better position, straddling both the music and electronics industries.

I personally find most modern remote controls extremely intimidating, and I probably will never ever use 90% of the buttons. More buttons translates to more complexity. So, though the 3rd generation iPod's interface might not be the most user-friendly, it definitely is the most simple, and approachable.

Even Creative Zen, another popular mp3 player, followed suite. The older models of the Zen Touch used to have seperate buttons for all the different functions. The new generatoion Zen Vision stripped all those buttons in favor of 4 large, sleek "zones". Now the new design is simple, and probably less intuitive, but my guess is it will sell better than the Zen Touch.

After all, as Maeda argues, in the end it's all about giving off a "perception" - even if it’s through deception. These basic, combined interfaces give the perception of being easy-to-use, and user-friendly. I'm not arguing that designers should (or do) forgo functionality over form, but that it is less of a priority.

It's a simple formula: IF (temp > MAX_TEMP)...

2006-09-24T03:40:31Z

My initial reaction to the O-Ring Damage graphs/plots was that they were created within a different context than convincing NASA officials to postpone the Challenger launch.

I'm a S/W Engineer, and in my field, I always had to communicate with clients with varying ranges of technical understanding. It is fundamentally understood that one must understand their target audience and present their information accordingly; we just want to get our point across.

The obstacles one might face when presenting/displaying information are: time, creativity, context, and target audience. For the NASA Engineers, the context was clear: proven how temperatures affect O-Ring resiliency. Target Audience: NASA officials/non-Engineers. Time: not much.

The essential problem with these graphs was not an issue of technical jargon or incomprehensive graphs - it was an issue of poor communication. The O-Ring Graphs were cluttered with unnecessary images and were not plotting the correct data against each other - i.e. they were out of context. I do not believe that the NASA Engineers created any kind of data plot to show the officials, but instead regurgitated different documents they had archived, hoping that the officials can extrapolate the information themselves, with the help of their side notes.

Week 2 :: Digital Scrapbooking

2006-09-22T09:24:51Z

Assignment
Select a detail from the banner and zoom in about 5 times, or till about 400%. Using a drawing tablet, redraw each zoomed in picture with black/white brushes only.

I picked this image/detail from my banner.

I zoomed in and redrew the image: View the image:

View my process.

The problem is I misunderstood the assignemnt. I thought the point was to zoom in and just work on the details, but apparently each zoomed in shot should have been completely redrawn that you don't recognize what you're looking at each time.

Week 1 :: From ink, pen, & paper to electronic design

2006-09-18T08:45:59Z

Assignment
Collect images of your day over a 24 hour period and create a 3000 x 600 pixel banner.

This is a sampling of the pictures I collectred throughout the day:

View my images

These are some of the different banners I created:

I decided to turn in the following banner of my day. My "24 day" starts in the evening since my day usually starts then. I'm mostly nocturnal. My day starts off with a Natasha Atlas concert. Next I am on my way home, and it's raining outside. These night images are from Times Square, all the way to my home. The next set of images are from my bedroom since I went to sleep and woke up. I went to school and worked on my physical computing lab. I then went for a walk in Washington Square park, and Macdougal St. I had lunch with a friend at a Mexican restaurant. I ate a taco. Then we went for a walk towards the West side. These images are from murals, graffiti, artwork, anything that caught my attention. And we ended up wandering all the way to 8th Ave. We took the L-train back to 1st. Then I went home.

View my banner