Brief 2 | Presentation Feeback

The presentation was held on the 17.11. and I was satisfied with the way how my pitch was and the general feedback I got was positive. Damian liked the fact that I related my research back to my work and I was talking about the relations. He then mentioned that I should always talk positive about my work, especially when I was presenting different approaches and concepts and described one idea as being boring.
Furthermore I should not have showed the final product since companies should be keen to see more of the product.
What I liked about the presentation was Jacub's presentation layout, Lucy's implementation of vivid media, Sahre's talk about her own culture, Chloe's Illustration work and Rachel's passionated talk.
All in all it was a high standard of pitches and luckily I could win the pitch...8)

Brief 2 | Presentation

I prepared the presentation and tried to show my own evolution and development for this project in a structured method with rich information. Additionally my intention was to show connections between my research and work and synthesize my own branding.
Some example slides:

Brief 2 | Finalizing

After having finished the branding/identity of myself, I edited/designed the last bits of the web layout and finalized the coding:


So, finally done with interactive website. Now there is the need to prepare the presentation...

Brief 2 | Implementation

The feedback from the initial presentation on the 10.11.08 was leading to the conclusion, that I still needed to add certain things and animate parts.








Final version:

Brief 2 | Prototyping / Usability testing

After my tutorial with Damian on the 06.11.2008 and I presented my draft at that stage, we were talking about how to add 'life' to the interactive website to date.
I was looking at different on/offline research sources.

http://www.mccann.co.uk/


http://www.themixhead.com/

What I liked about mccann web is the simple use of animation, not overpacked with information, two colour based and still very curious and the need to see more.
So I adapted these key elements and was trying to transfer them to my project. I filtered my idea to the core, what was left was the 'circle' or 'ring' as my key element:

- circle
- ring
- cycle

- shi + circle = shircle --> shircle of design

- creativity
- buddhism/hinduism
- universal
- cross culture


Meaning for circle:
- A circle is like the number zero - a form without beginning or end
- It is a smooth form, no rough sides to stick out and cause trouble
- It rolls with the flow
- It is a round river rock that issues flow over
- etypal symbols. They can manifest themselves as circular rooms, the magic circles of shaman
- an important dream symbol representing oneness, completion, wholeness or coming full circle
- Underachieving, being unfocused, running in circles
- If something is circled, it may suggest that it is important or requires attention
- wholeness, perfection, or well-roundedness, among many other meanings
- Consider what the shape means to you personally, and its context in the dream
- Totality; perfection; infinity; the All; the Collective Unconsciousness
- Gatherings of consciousness. If significantly placed, it can represent the Anima
- The self-mastery process; raising consciousness
- Heart, circulatory system
- Clock, clockwise, clockwork - Heart, circulatory system, emotions
- To dream of a circle, denotes that your affairs will deceive you in the proprotions of gain
- Triangle = The whole of the 3 part self (Trinity)
- symbolizes infinity, the circle of life and the eternal unknown. You, the dreamer, may have come to a greater degree of spiritual awareness, so the dream could be spiritual in nature

Processing these information and various meanings about circles/ring, at this stage, now I needed to add life to my website and ADD VALUE. But what does it mean for me myself and my work process? The circle symbolizes me in a certain way that my design should be: immortal/infinite (I know it sounds cheesy) and very distinctive with a strong design/brand recognition of shisivarajah. It can also been seen as a bong between the viewer and the web, regarding it is a ring ('Marry my design').
For me personally adding life was combined with adding characters. Having had the idea of SHIRCLES before, I started illustrating vivid characters with just the use of circles, being the core of my website.
I developed the idea furthermore and illustrated birds using the same key contents.





I then moved on branding myself and still used the circle for the whole branding recognition.
As a further step I brought all the different elements together into one constellation:



I added my favourite quote to the right top hand, recreated typographically and added a flasy effect to emphasize light/bulb. I changed the background to a darker grey rather than a pure black, because it is too contrasty with the green. The black is too dominant in my case and very man based.
My next step is to add small animations to it, it is still liveless.

Brief 2 | Storyboard / Alternative design + evaluation

So back to the brief, I was working parallel to the mini project on the actual interactive portfolio. I went back to my initial brainstorm session and broke down what I liked about certain ideas and why.


I reflected on my sketchboards from week one. What was most appealing to me was the simplicity of the circles and the idea of the floating circles. I went back to my online research about yugop.com and analyzed the key elements of this web layout:


The simplicity of the colour choice and the interplay of the circles themselves was astonishing. This webart being very 'coding' based, my intention here was to make it as simple as possible and appealing to the viewer.


My storyboard (probably adding more and more
I reduced it to two simple colours (#333333 and #99CC00) regarding the loading time as well and vectorized images to save on space. The circles are positioned in a 3d space and layered independently.
I started creating my idea in Flash with the FlashHelp function and various actionscript books, since the coding for 3d spacing and layers is demanding:

Essential ActionScript 2.0
by Colin Moock (Author)

Learning ActionScript 2.0 for Macromedia Flash 8
by Jen deHaan (Author)

Flash MX for Interactive Simulation
by Jonathan Kaye (Author), David Castillo (Author)


First draft of my core idea:


The actionscript coding (only a tiny small part of it):

Brief 2 | MiniProject / Self-Reflective-Article

In between our Brief 2 we had as a task to create a self reflective double spread article, where we
- advertise ourself as a designer
- with personal details
- why we chose this MA course
- skills
- aims
- identify public
- use of image/text, typeset, typeface
- AND an usp: unique selling point

I researched different magazines like ID, eye, source, mag-art:


My intention was to be rebellious and risky with the general layout design about my spread and cross borders. I tried to break rules (like a few articels I saw in different mags) and used certain elements of typography. I purposely didnt use the 2 or 3 column horizontal style and shifted these around. I then cut the chosen pictures very sharp to emphasize the general lines and be consistent with the general layout.

Final doublespread:
Presentation Feedback:
- use of more colours (e.g. colour of branding)
- attention to detail with margins and spacing
- choice of pictures
- signature needed?
- contact details?

Brief 2 | Lecture: Golden Mean / Fibonacci Spiral

Golden Mean:
In arts, two quantities are in the golden ratio if the ratio between the sum of those quantities and the larger one is the same as the ratio between the larger one and the smaller. The golden ratio is a mathematical constant, approximately 1.6180339887.
At least since the Renaissance, many artists and architects have proportioned their works to approximate the golden ratio—especially in the form of the golden rectangle, in which the ratio of the longer side to the shorter is the golden ratio—believing this proportion to be aesthetically pleasing. Mathematicians have studied the golden ratio because of its unique and interesting properties.





Fibonacci numbers:
In mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers are a sequence of numbers named after Leonardo of Pisa, known as Fibonacci. Fibonacci's 1202 book Liber Abaci introduced the sequence to Western European mathematics, although the sequence had been previously described in Indian mathematics. Fibonacci sequences appear in biological settings, in two consecutive Fibonacci numbers, such as branching in trees, arrangement of leaves on a stem, the fruitlets of a pineapple, the flowering of artichoke, an uncurling fern and the arrangement of a pine cone. In addition, numerous poorly substantiated claims of Fibonacci numbers or golden sections in nature are found in popular sources, e.g. relating to the breeding of rabbits, the spirals of shells, and the curve of waves. The Fibonacci numbers are also found in the family tree of honeybees.



lit. / image source: wikipedia

Brief 2 | Shi Branding

I went back onto my first mindmap and started to think about my personal branding and what I could be identified with easily. Looking at my personal history, the key facts here were easily found: my origin, my native tongue, native country, present.
So I went back to the roots and started researching my language which is TAMIL. It is written in a non-Latin script. The Tamil script consists of 12 vowels, 18 consonants and one special character, the āytam. The vowels and consonants combine to form 216 compound characters, giving a total of 247 characters.


The marked letter in the chart below means SHI, which makes sense in my case to replace my identity with one single tamil letter.



Resulting from this, I combined this with a subtle use of typography and merged it.
This is the first draft for the Shi Logo.



It still needs improvement, but I will concentrate on this with having the main concept for the portfolio.