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Tuesday, 14 October 2014

CCDN311: Promotinal Material

For my promotional material I decided to make small business card type things that slide out to reveal the main points of my manifesto.

Here is are a few pics of my set up and promotional material.




CCDN331: Final Manifesto

Digital Design Manifesto


Have Fun
Design for yourself as much as your audience. Be excited about what you are doing, have fun. This will come through in your work, and even if not everyone enjoys the final product, there will be someone the either does enjoy it, or at least enjoys the process you went through to make it.


Take risks
Innovate and try something new. Stand out. Experiment with different software, mechanics, art styles or methods of creating. Experimenting with new software and techniques can help push your designs further.


Iterate
Iterate and build upon your ideas. Iteration will help you identify problems with your design early on in the process, which will make the entire process more effective.


Be critical
Find holes and gaps in your designs, and find ways to fix them or work around them. A bug, glitch or mistake can end up being a feature, and can take your project in a new exciting direction.


Be Receptive
Feedback is important. Take what your audience has said on board. Listen to feedback you are given, rethink how you have done things, and find a way to improve their experience, which will improve the overall quality of the final piece.






 
References

AndersRamsay.com. (n.d.). Retrieved September 29, 2014, from http://www.andersramsay.com/2009/03/01/three-reasons-to-start-designing-iteratively/

Become A Better Designer Through Critical Thinking - Vanseo Design. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2014, from http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/critical-thinking/


Tuesday, 7 October 2014

CCDN331: Iteration

After talking to my tutor about my idea of a manifestation, we both decided it would be better for me to do something digital, rather than a physical 3D puzzle. He also mentioned that people who also think about things and do things in a way similar to my manifesto would probably already be interested/involved in a 3D puzzle, and that I should think about something that those types of people wouldn't usually be involved with.

So I had the idea to make an app in which a user would type pseudo code commands, and they would see an interesting visual result. 
Coding is something that is often portrayed as boring/difficult/constantly typing numbers etc to make software for 24/7, which I aimed to change, by showing how it can produce interesting and engaging shapes and movements, through my app.

I started with the coding and was able to get the user to draw a simple square



 






Unfortunately I wan't having a lot of success trying to get it to do anything else, so I ended up changing my idea to better suit my abilities and time frame.

I decided to switch to making an animation instead, in which the shapes would move around based on code input that would pop up on the screen.











My final animation was cut short by about 20 seconds as I had an extra bit on the end that played around with spinning circles, but I was unable to change the colours of them, and the alack and white looked weird tacked onto the end of my video which used blues/yellows, so I cut it out.




Tuesday, 30 September 2014

CCDN331: Manifestation Progress

I've been struggling to come up with an idea for my final manifestation.
Here are the two ideas I have that would actually make sense in relation to my manifesto:

A progress video
- Showing progress towards a final digital piece (whether it's a video or game or some other kind of media)
- Would have a montage of multiple different task building up to the creation of different things
-  Can include many different types of media

3D puzzle
- Fun to make (you enjoy the process of putting them together)
- The final product isn't really complete if you don't use all aspects of the puzzle (manifesto points)
- The pieces could potentially have the main points of my manifesto engraved on them?
- Show ideas like iteration (user would iterate through different ways of putting it together)

 


I have also made a mock up of the cube in maya

CCDN331: Manifesto Draft

 Digital Design Manifesto

Have Fun
Make what  you want to make. Make what you want to see/play/interact with. Design for yourself as much as your audience. Be excited about what you are doing, have fun, design based around what you like or what you are passionate about. This will come through in your work, and even if not everyone enjoys the final product, there will be someone the either does enjoy it, or at least the process you went through to make it.

Don’t be afraid to take risks
Don’t be scared to innovate and try something new. Stand out. Experiment with different software, mechanic, art styles or methods of creating. Experimenting with new software and techniques can help push your designs further. 

Iterate
Take the simplest idea for you have, then design and make it. iterate and build upon it, or make something new! Even if the project doesn’t end up working out, the skills you learn from simply making a range of small pieces will greatly help you with future projects. Iteration will help you identify problems with your design early on in the process, which will make the entire process more effective. 

Be critical
Find holes and gaps in your designs, and find ways to fix them or work around them. A bug, glitch or mistake can end up being a feature, and can take your project in a new exciting direction.

Be open to feedback
Feedback is important. Take what your audience has said on board. If the people playing your game or watching you short film say something doesn’t work or feel right, take what they have said try to rethink how you have done things, and find a way to improve their experience, which will improve the overall quality of the final piece.






References

AndersRamsay.com. (n.d.). Retrieved September 29, 2014, from http://www.andersramsay.com/2009/03/01/three-reasons-to-start-designing-iteratively/

Become A Better Designer Through Critical Thinking - Vanseo Design. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2014, from http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/critical-thinking/

Tuesday, 16 September 2014

CCDN331: Manifesto Beginnings

So here is a few points I have come up with for my manifesto. I wanted to center it around game design, and how to effectively design and make a game.

Magical Game Design Manifesto

  1. Make the games you want to make- Be excited about what you are doing, have fun, design based around what you like/are passionate about
  1. Take risks and innovate- Make something new- stand out- we don’t want or need 50,000 flappy bird clones.
  1. Practice! take the smallest idea for a game you have and make it smaller! then design and make that! and do another one! Iteration
  2. Be critical about your work, nitpicking mechanics and bugs etc.
  3. Be open to feedback- play testing is important
  4. Design to the platform your game is going to be released on - Don’t make touchscreen controls for an Xbox game etc.