2016 – Page 4 – Jamie Whiffen

February 18, 2016Jamie Whiffen No Comments

Composition Practise & Improved Proposal

Composition:

This blog post is going to focus on the composition practise that we were tasked with in our recent Digital Media lecture. I will also showcase the new and improved proposal based off of myself and James’s meeting as discussed in the previous blog post.

In the lecture taught by Jon Holmes, we were shown the fundamentals of good composition and how to show contrast within our designs to engage individual’s eyes. The following are some of the key concepts put forth:

Design it about the relationship between components.
CONTRAST in Light CONTRAST in Colour CONTRAST in Character CONTRAST in Sound
Dimensions and Scale
Balance can be asymmetrical to promote Contrast & Focus.
Rule of Thirds
Landscape colours change to show Distance.

I had designed something very similar to what Jon had demonstrated in a live tutorial within the lecture months before hand and it was quite remarkable how many of these key concepts I had already taken into account without ever having assistance from Jon. I had created the following design:

I find that my design breaks some of the rules Jon had put forward within his lecture, such as placing the hero in the centre of the composition rather than on a rule of thirds or along its lines. I used the mountains to create a valley where the hero would pass through but also to draw the eyes in towards there hero to see his scale in comparison to the massive mountain in the background. I had also designed a whale to be in the centre of the composition to help create a more interesting and abstract image that would make you ponder as to why there is a flying whale.

These key concepts will help when it comes to designing my app & final concept poster through contrast, colour, size etc. This could be used to help keep students engaged within the app and to showcase certain buttons, images and composition within the smartphone’s display to showcase certain areas of importance.

Proposal:

Since last week I have updated the proposal with the changes that were discussed with James in our meeting, I feel that the proposal is more concise and professional for it and that the project as a whole is now more defined moving forward.

February 15, 2016Jamie Whiffen No Comments

Design is KEY!

Over the last week I created a proposal based on the issues and discussions that I mentioned in the previous blog post. I spoke with James over the direction of where I would like to take the app, its working name & the target audience I shall be marketing to.

Here is the 1st proposal which will be improved upon:

We discussed a lot of things which I will change and improve on in my final proposal which will be handed in but here are the main issues:

‘StudentConnected’ is a very good working title however more should looked at and given to my target audience to receive feedback on the best option.

A few words that may be taken as slander if the proposal was to be released to the public, such as blackboard being classed as appalling with bad its design. However much I believe this to be true it is not professional to deem a service unworthy of use. This is why words will be changed to still show the distasteful, sluggish design but in a more convoluted manner. Myself and James also discussed the notion that it would be very beneficial to have created an education app in my current position as a student, giving me access to feedback whenever I needed it. It was also mentioned that it would be best to receive feedback constantly throughout the production of the app/website – I initially had my feedback stage towards the end of production however James felt this was counter-intuitive.

There was also talk by James on the issue that this service may come across as a portal rather than its own individual application – this problem had already crossed my mind and I was quite wary of staying away from that territory. James suggested that it was probably best if I was to eliminate some of the utilities within the app and to focus on creating specific features to allow the project to stand on its own two feet away from competitors. He went on to mention how Design is Key in a service like this and that I should spent a long time using wire frame to design the initial early stages of the concept before moving on variations of the apps final design.

I gained a lot of knowledge from this meeting with James, he has helped me understand what I need to create and what I need to do to create an exciting, attractive app. He left me with two questions to ponder on which I will talk indepth on in my next blog post alongside the other topics mentioned. These questions were:

This product/service/app should be what Blackboard isn’t – how could I make this more friendly and engaging for university students?

Why would they find it engaging?

February 4, 2016Jamie Whiffen No Comments

Critical Analysis – FROG LEARNING

Like Blackboard, Frog is an educational management system & web portal used within primary to sixth form institutions compared to Blackboard’s university platform. The main vision behind Frog is to create a platform that will help teachers understand students better through online education and uploaded content to the site. Frog is slightly different to Blackboard in that it allows students to create their own personalized space in which they can discuss, upload and distribute various forms of content to other students or teachers.

Frog works in similar way to Pinterest (which I have spoen about o the blog before) in that it allows users to place (Pin) content within a designated space that they have control over – allowing media such as photos, YouTube videos and Vimeo, soundcloud bytes and more to help students get their points across.

The following video showcases how Frog can be used to display this data:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyR4QH0R0dM

I like the idea of being able to create your own space for yourself or group and feel like this should be a part of my app. I want to incorporate a feature where group work can be discussed and content can be distributed on a platform like Frog. This could be incredibly useful in group work such as Film & TV Production to place images of inspiration, cast and crew contact details, soundtracks and more.

January 31, 2016Jamie Whiffen No Comments

A New Project, A New Problem, A New Solution

With such a productive semester A within Digital Media I am excited to get back into working on many of the problems that can be solved with Digital solutions. Just before Christmas I had to present a mock-up of a problem I would like to solve & how I would do it. I used the EYA category ‘Connecting Cultures’ and wanted to take it very literally – rather than creating a service, product or other outlet to help in one way that helps bridge cultures together I was interested in approaching this in another manner.

I wanted to create something that would scrap all of that and allow two people to speak in their native tongue , use their current currency and leave all of their cultural relics, signs and more the way they were intended to be. While prodiving both forenginers no boundaries in understand or fitting in, really allowing individuals to connect to another culture and not feel aliented which is to be expected with any travel. I proposed a few ways as to how I would do this which was taken with positive receptions.

This semester I have to create a real presentation with another idea that I will present with designs, concept art, advertisements and whatever else I can to prove my ambition and ideas behind my solution.

Padlet & Pinterest

These services were recommend to be used as a digital blueprint, a place to dump all ideas, photos, videos, information and more. These websites allow myself to edit my ideas and concepts as I progress towards my end goal. Padlet is a mood board website that presents itself as a way to curate ideas in a visual manner helping take your thoughts and inspiration you find on the web into one place that you can organise. While Pinterest is a place to ‘pin’ articles and websites that appear on the site to a board (similar to Padlet) that you can collect and see at any point. Subscribing to interests related to your idea fill your homepage with helpful information.

Why have I chosen to pursue using these sites? Well the answer is a simple one in that it allows me to open one page and immediately I have my thoughts and catalogues of helpful items in front of me to allow myself to very swiftly begin working without having to look for inspiration or to try and remember a thought I had. It’s all right there and both sites allow me to collect and curate wherever I am on whatever device I am on. This will help me in the longrun in the few months that I have to produce a high quality level of work due to the amount of time saved, helping me to create & produce fantastic work without worrying about silly little things that could go wrong.

Created with Padlet

Check out the two links below to see what I have been pinning on my board & liking:

https://uk.pinterest.com/jamie_whiffen/time-management-productivity/

https://uk.pinterest.com/jamie_whiffen/likes/

Personal Theme:

It was suggested that we use the European Youth Award categories as a starting point and build our concepts from there – I personally didn’t feel compelled to work within the EYA’s rules and descriptions so I have decided to create my own personal theme based off of several areas that I feel create an impact on everyone in their daily life while also helping to solve many many problems that aren’t even related. The headings I have used to base my theme off of are:

Time Management
Studying
Productivity
Getting Things Done

These subjects I feel are focusing on all different areas however they are very loosely connected and I want to create something that will connect & link these subjects into one that will help provide a better lifestyle or solution to an individual.

Research & Concept:

I began researching these topics and discovered a flurry of websites, infographics, government services & more to help people of all ages grow and become better versions of themselves. I also found most of these were places I have visited many times before when looking to improve my knowledge, skills and time management – from blogs and YouTube videos to books, podcasts and apps. These have all helped me in tremendous ways and I firmly believe that without all of this free information I would be far worse off then where I am today.

I noticed that what spurred me into learning and harvesting all of this useful advice was from my college & university education and trying to find new ways to optimize myself and my work to be in the best position. This is why I feel that it would be smart to have some sort of digital outlet that allows multiple services that can help the average university student. This idea is still very loose and could change over the forthcoming weeks towards my proposal and beyond that.

As of now I am interested in creating a digital outlet with the following features, keep in mind this will most likely change:

Features:

Articles on university time management:

5 Time Management Apps Every Student Should Have.
Waking Up at 6AM Everyday. What’s the Secret?
Why You Should Be Using Google Calendar.

Articles on studying better:

10 Top Tips for Getting That A on Your Next Exam!
How To Take Notes Better.
Best Script Writing Apps.

Articles on Post University Living:

How To Build a Website to Wow your Employer.
Best Cities to live in for Psychology Graduates.
How to Pay Your Taxes.
Rent or Mortgage?

These next features I understand have to be different/better than other competitors:

Class Calendar

Deadlines

Social Media (Can be set up to terminate after 5, 10 or 15 minutes)

Creative Platforms (Medium, Behance, Freelancer, LinkedIn)

Job Search Engine (Compiled of multiple search engines)

Inspiration & Motivational videos & images

Timer multiple timed techniques such as the Pomodoro technique

Dictaphone

Budgeting

Refme/Citeme

Over the forthcoming months I will begin slowly expanding, moulding and changing this digital outlet into something that assist the average university student with their time, studying and productivity.

This digital outlet could possibly assist in helping moving the UK university scene into a digital classroom style of learning, helping teachers with workloads and distributing content. Also in the long run could help other world issues that I am not directly tackling, for instance this could save paper/ink. This outlet also allows students to draw and make notes on exercise sheets benefiting student learning styles. There are many problems that I feel I could run into however I will discuss these and my thoughts on them in the next blog post.