Wednesday, February 24th 2010 in BSPR, assignments
Tuesday, January 12th 2010 in BIID, assignments
Download here
PPT: Præsentation_Interaktion.pptx
Monday, January 11th 2010 in ideas
Wednesday, December 16th 2009 in BFPW, assignments
Mine ambitioner og den faktiske implementering
Der har gennem denne blogs udvikling ikke været nogen faktisk differens mellem mine ambitioner og den faktiske implementering, med den undtagelse at jeg gennem længere tid havde haft det ønske at opdatere min forhenværende hjemmeside til en ny version der bedre integrerede både blog og portfolio aspekterne – desværre var kravet om brugen af wordpress dog en hindring in denne sammenhæng da det ville kræve mere arbejde at tilpasse wordpress til det jeg ville have, end at lave det fra bunden. Med dette konstateret, satte jeg mig for at bestemme hvad jeg egenligt ville opnå med denne blog. Min hjemmeside bestod i forvejen af en photoblog samt et portfolio, så jeg besluttede at denne blog udelukkende skulle være til ITU-brug.
Dette betød mere specifikt at bloggens målgruppe udelukkende bestod af lektorer og censorer. Trods den snævre målgruppe besluttede jeg dog at skrive bloggen på engelsk, denne beslutning foretog jeg på baggrund af demografien af min hjemmesides besøgende. Af de knap 150.000 besøgende (i dette tilfælde ækvivalerende til omkring 1.2 million hits), fra 2008-2009, var kun omkring 15% fra Danmark. Forhåbningen var det kunne lade sig gøre at trække blot en brøkdel af den trafik over på ITU bloggen for en smule interaktion gennem udviklingsprocesen. Derudover har jeg valgt at holde sproget relativ formelt.
For mere om den designprocessen, læs:
creating in photoshop – en beskrivelse af hvordan jeg helt konkret designede layoutet ved hjælp af adobe photoshop.
.psd to .html – en uddybning af hvordan jeg koder html siden fra bunden, ud fra photoshop-designet.
creating the menu – hvordan jeg tilpassede min menu til wordpress informationsstrukturen.
Gruppearbejdsprocessen
I vores gruppe var der fra starten af et stort ønske, og enighed om at arbejde individuelt. Vi besluttede således at hovedsageligt arbejde individuelt, men samtidig være til hjælp hvis et gruppemedlem skulle få brug for det. Det var dog min erfaring at grupperne reelt ikke agerede nogen betydelig rolle i udviklingsprocessen af bloggen, da kollaborationerne foregik på tværs af de præ-definerede grupper.
Det individuelle udtryk
Som tidligere nævnt bestod den reelle målgruppe kun af lektorer og censorer, jeg valgte derfor at kreere en meget simple side med fokus på indholdet. Derudover fik vi fortalt at siden skulle kreeres med afsæt i vores gruppe blog (som jo kun kunne bestå af en blandt få standard templates fra wordpress), jeg besluttede derfor at holde mig til samme minimalistiske stil, og samme overordnede farvepalette. Ved påbegyndelsen af studiet forventede jeg at der ville produceret mere visuelt materiale, jeg lagde derfor ud med en forhåbning om at have et billed til hvert post, men jeg måtte dog erkende undervejs at dette ikke kunne lade sig gøre uden ekstra arbejde. Jeg endte derfor med at kreere billeder jeg følte passende til hver posts indhold undervejs (med undtagelse af nogle få posts). Dette betød også at layoutet blev mere tekst-tungt end forventet da det blev designet.
Jeg valgte derudover at erstatte changelog’en med en lignende kategori jeg valgte at kalde for “process”. Dette skulle dække over en kategori der kun dokumenterede mere overordnede ændringer, eller snarere udviklinger. Idet jeg selv føler jeg har en omfattende viden om at kreere hjemmesider i xhtml og css følte jeg ikke det var nødvendigt at dokumentere hvert enkelt lille trin i tilfælde af at noget måtte gå galt.
For mere om metoder og individualisering af designet, læs:
thoughts about the logo
Videreudvikling
Til videreudvikling af bloggen vil jeg arbejde mod mine oprindelige ambitioner, og derved flytte væk fra wordpress platformen igen – for på den måde at kunne benytte mig af et mere omfattende CMS system jeg kan skræddersy til mine egne behov. Jeg kunne dog godt tænke mig at bruge nogle af de elementer fra denne blog, dette kunne gøres simpelt ved at flytte nogle af posts’ne i mysql’en til den nye database.
De elementer, jeg mere specifikt, godt kunne tænke mig at genbruge er nogle af de kreative processer vi har lært af John Paulin, da jeg føler disse vil passe godt ind i konteksten af resten af min sides indhold, og vil kunne fange brugernes interesse i højere grad end en faktisk “blog” (som i dette tilfælde) der i alt for høj grad ikke har noget indhold, som er interessant for udefrakommende.
Samlet set er min konklusion at webdesign delen af dette kursus blev en underlig blanding af hverken at være en mulighed for at lære html (snarere opfordrede det blot kursusdeltagerne til at tage wordpress templates og ændre lidt i dem, uden at give en reel indsigt i hvordan en hjemmeside bør konstrueres), og heller ikke give en reel indsigt i nogle visuel-design mæssige teorier. Jeg formår ikke at se hvilke kompetencer webdesign delen af dette kursus skulle give, og mener personligt det havde været meget mere gavnligt at give en mere struktureret tilgang til webdesign – eksempelvis basal html, fra bunden, i stedet for at smide kursusdeltagerne ud i en blanding af php, mysql og html. Trods kursets introduktions-status mener jeg ikke dette er urimelige krav.
Monday, December 14th 2009 in BIID, assignments
Abstract:
This essay discusses the design process of a student attending an introductory course of interaction design at the IT University of Copenhagen. Written from the students point of view, the process is described in depth and is supplemented with the thoughts and choices put into the creation of the final concept, also known as Supporters. The paper is concluded with a reflective conclusion of the process and literary documentation of the theories used.
Download assignment: BIID-Reflektionsrapport
Monday, November 23rd 2009 in BIMK, assignments
This is the presentation of our current status on the BIMK essay. Presented on November 23.
Tuesday, November 10th 2009 in process
For the menu I wanted a mix of both dynamic and static elements. I some of the categories I wanted to show the latest posts underneath, in another I wanted to show links to the sub-categories rather than the posts. And finally I wanted some to link to static pages such as “contact”.
Another thing I was quite specific about was having the correct font for the category titles. The reason I wanted this was because I wanted full control over how the page was displayed cross-browser and cross-platform. This way I could be sure that what I designed was what people would see (whilst this might seem an obvious choice it happens far too often that websites are coded poorly and don’t display similarly in different browsers). As I used Helvetica when designing the website in photoshop, I knew I would have to convert the titles to images that would then be loaded on the website – this is because Helvetica is not a standard font, which would result in the website rendering differently on computers that don’t have Helvetica installed.
Sunday, November 8th 2009 in process, techniques
During the relatively short course of this subject, I have been asked several times about how you take your photoshop-design and actually implement it. Back when I started designing websites I remember this was one of the things that caused me the most trouble. This was probably due to the design-oriented approach I came with – I was more interested in creating the designs themselves than learning how to code proper html.
I tried lots of poor solutions such as photoshop’s “export as html”-function and Microsoft’s Frontpage. But first when I learned how to (more or less) properly code and structure through HTML I was able to integrate the photoshop layouts properly.
In the following article I will show you, how I undergo the process of taking my photoshop image and creating a functional website out of it.
Saturday, November 7th 2009 in process
For the “logo” I wanted something really simple that at the same time served a purpose and reflected the core idea behind the blog.
My initial thoughts were that it should serve as a button (link) to the front page, so I played with various round circles which I thought seemed most intuitive for a button. I had during the design process also been very keen on creating something that was iPhone-friendly, hence the rather simple layout with a continuos stream of posts. This lead me to increase the size of the logo so that it would make browsing back to the home page easy on a iPhone – as well as seem more iconic when viewing the page as a whole.
Friday, November 6th 2009 in process
The first step of the physical creation of my website was creating the visual layout in photoshop. I lay down a few guidelines when undergoing this process, first of all I like to define the precise sizes of the different elements in whole tens; for instance the posts are 600 pixels wide – I find that this makes things a lot easier when coding it, and ultimately results in more consistency.
Secondly I set up guides in photoshop to ensure that things are perfectly aligned, this usually doesn’t mean a lot for the future processes but if needed, it’s far easier to have done these things precisely to start with.
Thursday, November 5th 2009 in process
This is the second version of my wireframe, I went for a more “traditional” blog layout. I rethought the concept of my blog and what it should contain, and ended up concluding that I wanted too much with my other concept – however this doesn’t rule out the future opportunity of integrating this blog into a more extensive website.
Wednesday, November 4th 2009 in BIMK, assignments
1st revision of our disposition. NOTE: Written in danish
Indledning:
Studenterrådgivningen (SRG) er en selvejende institution af staten, der tilbyder gratis psykologhjælp og hjælp fra socialrådgivere til studerende på de lange- og mellemlange uddannelser.
De studerende ringer ind og får en tid. Efter 1 til 3 ugers ventetid, kommer den studerende ind og taler med en psykolog i enerum, enten 1 gang eller over flere uger/måneder. Folk kommer med en lang række problemer de gerne vil have hjælp til at løse, så de kan fokusere på studiet.SRG har kontorer over hele landet og er finansieret direkte igennem finansloven.
Indtil videre brander SRG sig via deres hjemmeside (www.srg.dk), forskellige pjecer der omhandler depression, koncentrationsbesvær, etc. og små annoncer til studenter-medier (humanisten, studenterblade, urban, osv).
Problemstilling:
At studenterrådgivningen (SRG) ikke når deres målgruppe på grund af manglende bevidsthed om deres online branding
Monday, November 2nd 2009 in BIMK, assignments
This is the preliminary sketching of our disposition. NOTE: Written in Danish.
Indledning:
“Video killed the radio star”, således lød det i 1979 da tv’et var blevet et dominerende medie, nu blot 30 år senere kan man høre varianten “internet killed the video star” på youtube og andre websider.Internettet er blevet tilgængeligt for alle, et sted hvor man kan socialisere, købe varer, søge informationer og meget mere. Det er derfor blevet et populært medie gennem hvilket firmaer kan nå deres kunder – men måden de gør det på varierer meget i både metode og kvalitet.
Vi vil i denne opgave redegøre for og analysere nogle af de strategier og metoder, som nutidige firmaer benytter sig af når de skal brande sig selv på internettet.
Problemstilling:
At virksomheder ikke når deres målgruppe(r) på grund af manglende bevidsthed om deres online branding.
Friday, October 30th 2009 in ideas
This is an idea for my blog layout, the general idea was to have a horizontal scroll displaying a list of text-based entries where the newest was displayed as the largest for more intuitive browsing.
Friday, October 23rd 2009 in process
This is a VERY quick mockup of my initial thoughts for the structure of the main page for the new design.
The idea was to have new entries represented by small thumbnails which would obviously link to the full entries with a large view of the project + description. In my mind this layout would function more as a portfolio than an actual blog – which I find preferable due to my personal lack of motivation to run an actual blog.
I previously had a photoblog running where the goal was to post an image each day, however the activity quickly declined and I was unable to catch up with the number of requests of entries whilst maintaining, what I found to be, an acceptable standard in quality - based on that observation / experience I found that I’d rather have seldom posts with more effort put into them, than a frequently updated blog-like concept.
Friday, October 23rd 2009 in process
This is the original blueprint from which my concept is based. On my current website I have 2 main divisions, namely photography and web design. This has been bothering me through a longer period of time, and whilst keeping the two apart is easier in a design context, it does not encourage updating, as well as it might be the cause of some confusion for visitors.
Therefore the idea is to have the blog function as the outlet for all my creations, a stream of photographs, web designs, wallpapers, and hopefully movies too. Therefore the blog needs to have a simple indexing function that will make browsing seamless, but it will also need a versatile design that will “adapt” to the content displayed and support the presentation rather than being the presentation.
Wednesday, October 21st 2009 in BFPW, assignments
This video is a short walk-through of my blog. Click continue to view the video.
Thursday, October 15th 2009 in techniques
The hybrid chart, is a slightly more structured way to think creatively. As many (if not all) other techniques for creative thought processing and innovation this technique provokes you to think in extremes, that will then eventually affect your design. The thought is that an extremum will merely pull your general design a bit in its direction, thus keeping your design within an element of reason whilst forcing it to go new directions.
This technique was introduced to me during a lecture at ITU, and proceeds as follows. First of all you create a chart consisting of 5 rows and columns. In each of the middle 3 upper cells you write 1 word, which you wish to have associated with your subject. In each of the 3 middle cells to the right you find a random image. There are no restrictions nor requirements for these images, just that they are more or less random. In each of the 3 central bottom cells you now write 1 random word, and last of you write 1 word in each of the central left cells, that you think describes your person.
Thursday, October 15th 2009 in techniques
I was introduced to this exercise by lector John Paulin at ITU. The goal of this exercise is to draw out the essential elements of a design you’re working on, this is done by cognitive process of transferring information from a particular source (in this case your design, the source) to another particular subject (the target).
The idea is that through this process of transferring information you will naturally and subconsciously emphasize the elements that are most central to the subject, thus clarifying your essentials for future development.
So, how does it work practice? We were to take our blog design, and imagine how it would be designed if it were a magazine cover instead. A magazine cover has a rather limited space in which it needs to represent the entirety of the magazines content. Therefore it is essential which elements you want to lay emphasis whilst still give a broad enough representation of the entire content to capture the interest of as many viewers as possible.
ældre mænd i bevægelse – vision
Sunday, October 11th 2009 in BIID, assignments
The following is my BIID group’s (group 10) vision for the future development of our project regarding the physical and social activation of elderly men. NOTE: It’s written in Danish
obligatorisk opgave – mobile medier
Thursday, October 1st 2009 in BIMK, assignments
This is the start of my group’s synopsis for BIMK. NOTE: It’s written in Danish.
Tuesday, August 25th 2009 in BFPW, assignments
This was the very first assignment we were given. The task was to create a schedule displaying our anticipated workload for the next 5 months. The idea was that any out-of-school planned or regular activities should be noted, to help ourselves visualize our estimated free time, and through that optimize the disposition of our workload.
I found that I had no noteworthy commitments, and therefore chose, merely to make a representation my educational workload. Therefore my schedule ended up being rather conservative, it shows a simple representation of the amount of pages that have to be read each week, as well as any major assignments – which are marked with red for a more quickly recognizable nature – likewise any vacation is marked with blue.