Guest Lecturer DAAaaaaave JOYCE

Dave Joyce of digital media company Language came into us to talk about both his experience in the digital media field and also his direct involvement with I.T.B. itself.

So Dave, or D.J. as he’ll undoubtedly come to be affectionately known as started out with telling us a little about his company; “Language”. Language have been involved with I.T.B. since 2006. They’re responsible for the radical new design of the prospectus and the general look and feel of all the literature from the college, Language also developed the I.T.B. Logo.

In 1999 I.T.B. was a dower, un hip place with no color! OBSERVE:   

Oh god!

But then with languages aid we threw off the shackles of  banality and injected I.T.B with Awesomeness! BEHOLD:

Don't know about you, but it makes me want to learn!

     All exaggerated sarcasm aside, language really have done a great job making the college literature far more visually appealing. DJ said that his were the first company to use such methods in an I.T. And that nowadays a lot of other instiutes are “adopting similar styles” (COUGH..lawsuit) But as he said in the lecture, imitation is the strongest form of flattery!

The innovative colour system implemented wasn’t the only change: pictures of real students and lecturers were used as opposed to stock images of.. beautiful people, Images of the campus itself proudly adorn the college literature, and the colour system is also used as a means to identify different areas of the college.

Dave then told us of the process through whic a new I.T.B. logo was chosen; Its started with a brief, then moved on to design ideas, finalizing and prduction. Its actually and exremely long process, broken in to many more multi tasks, breaking further into and infinite swirl of tasks task task tasks TASKS Taaaaaaahhhhhhskssss!  Um, anyway …..

The design Brief, involved a  lot of detail (apparently) it displayed who it was for, what it was for .. what it says??? (yeh, cus thats totally different somehow) And mandatory inclusions. Language quickly set to work, in the colleg, with the help[ and ideas of students as well as their own staff. One of the ideas but forward was to base the idea on a “Lorenz Attractor” which is a 3d dynamic system which exhibits.. yeh, i don’t know what it is either, but its one of these bad boys here:

Designs were drwan up and meetings were held to decide on a final image, that image we’ve all come to know and love is the reult of a combination of the Lorenz Atttractor, the “idea Spark”, And of course the big ass wave design from the canteen. After the design was chosen colour was implemented and ba da bing! LOGO Finished!

Language also designed the LINC logo and the Ten years anniversary Logo which both compliment the general scheme of things… whish i was a magical visual person, i  think that what this entire insustry is based around…OH NO!… maybe i shouldn’t be on this course.. I’d like to end on the class being extremely receptive and asking aul DJ lots a questions, and spewing enthusiasm at him at the end of his lecture! but save for Margaret and a few others we just sat there in silence, While everyone felt awkward, and dave cried for the future of his industry… yeh that actually happened….

Guest Lecture with Ruth Mc Partlin

Ruth McPartlin of FLuid Rock came in, to talk to us about her successful career in different areas of digital media, she worked for mulitple different companies including lockheed martin, apparently!

Jesus! i mean, thats fairly serious, Lockheed Martin are the backbone of American Defense, they make missiles for christ sake… i have no idea what she did there, organised ad campaigns on jets? Anyway, just like last week my alarm failed and i arrived late again! So heres what i managed to salvage from that lecture:

• Firstly Ruth told us of her own begininings in the industry.
• Then she told us of the different elements that led to her success.
• She showed us a few of her projects.
• And then the Change in being an employer, and being an employee.
• She told us of what  tasks were required of her position, both as an employer, and when she was an employee.
• She told us about trends, what was new, and what was to follow.

Well! there ya go! a summary in the middle of the blog! that’s a bit out of place isn’t it?  Heres a breakdown: Ruth told us that one of the key factors to success in anything, was to realise your own strengths, and to maximise them.. the usual stuff then. Another major factor was that oi luck! Huzzah, thats comforting, no matter how awesome you are without a bit of jamminess, you’re screwed…. Good thing i’m incredibly jammy, except when it comes to dentists of course, i mean come on! A Root CANAL! i’m twenty one, not forty!

ahem, Ruth went on to describing some of her earlir, projects, she worked on lotto campaigns, and for AIB Online, and also for The Irish Times. The Lotto campaign was, at the time the height of innovation, however i do not recall when it was released, i may have still been into G.I.JOES at that stage. THe other campaign mentioned was The AIB online banking venture, which was fully prepared and ready to go, but then it was pulled at the last second, which must’ve been frankly depressing, especially considering the scale of how successful online banking is now… oh well. The Project Ruth Seemed most pleased with was Her work with cultural ireland. The goal of the project was to create a kind of social network of sorts, between irish students and american students. The site allowed them to tansfer stories, text images vieod and music, long before you rapscallions and ysr BEBOs nd the likes.

Long before broadband aswell, theirin lied the Huge problem with the whole idea…Hey i’m going to swap videos with my mates, now to upload a single two minute video for the next three hours! As you can see that technical issue would lead to massive amounts of FAIL. Lovely idea though! I suppose its kind of like one of those footballers who always tries his best… but really isn’t the best…. like Kuyt here:

Go on Give him a clap for effort

 Lastly Ruth talked about the key elements of our own careers, things we needed to do, like managing or being an efficient member of an effective team, Having the right STUFF; training and skills and keeping up to date with them…. and of course TAKING CHANCES!!!

END

Guest Lecture with Maria Brown

Maria Brown gave us a lecture on interviews and interview techniques. She struck me as huge people person and really into; and excited about her work, which made it all the more awkward when i said “in interviews it’s assumed you’ll lie.” I had also arrived late… so she probably was not impressed… at all.

  Oh well! i still stand by it, people ask you unrealistic questions in interviews all the time! unless you’re going for  a proper career move asking someone what they’ll be doing  in five years is ridiculous.. i could be in iraq in five years!

Oh yes, the lecture! Maria went through many of the standard questions that one is constantly berated with in any interview, further cementing the fact that there’s no honesty in an interview, its all about how well you’ve learned off your lines… excuse my cynicism but we’re in a recession!

 Maria went over the best responses to give to such questions, and opened the floor to hear the classes responses. She told us that when asked about our weaknesses in an intrerview.. to dress them up as strengths… you say things like i’m a perfectionist! thats my weakness! its all lies! Why do i want to work here? so i can eat this week! Why here and not somewhere else? Well because it was your turn on the list. Interviews are a skill, theres no doubt, but they are a pretentious, shameful skill, albeit extremely neccessary considering current circumstances.

The entire idea behind this lecture was preparation for mock interviews for several fictional positions. I’d say the lecture was a great help, as it basically gave us all the exact answers we’d need to prepare for an interview… that said, my own preparation, may have been a bit lax…

 Of course there’s an issue with all of us been given the same advice and then all of us having mock interviews at the same time …. perhaps the possibility of extremely similar answers from 80% of us might arise.  Nonetheless, in the real world the proper procedure for an interview will really pay off… its a pity i never get any call backs…. seriously! what have i got:  Terrorism on my C.V. under hobbies?  

All in all, excusing those first few minutes i was late, it was a good lecture  on a subject i despise! hopefully i did well in my mock interviews, if not i guess im virtually unemployed and genuinely unemployed!

Day Out (Trinity Science fair)

Lastly, we went to the trinity science fair, we arrived early tho so we were forced to refresh ourselves using the super hip cafe there. Their extorcionist prices and unbelievably snobbish menu… Anyway enough with the sidetrackery. The exhibit started up and we were given the tour by an extremely timid man, we began with The universe in a box, which “apparently” was a disply of what our universe would look like if it were cubed!  …sure.

 We then moved on to the magic flashlight, which through Magic science, allowed the user to create a visual design simply by shining it  at the wall, it also played music inkeeping with whatever you were doing with the flashlight. Afterwards we saw the “THE ORB” if you’ve ever seen star wars or any other sci fi this would’ve impressed you. It was a flat disc standing vertiaclly on a powerful motor,  the edges of the disc were lined with L.E.D’s. When the device starts up it begins spinning at great speed, playing off human eyesight it begins to form an orb shape. The lights acitvate using precise maths and timing and the image of  a rotating detailed globe of  the earth appears. This was excellent, the image ran for a few roatations and then it began displaying newsa articles and weather conditions from around the world,although this is undeniably awesome, the effect on the eyes severely limits practical application of this technology, it looks cool, but it wrecks your eyes!

There was another device which monitored and informed you about all the earthquakes happening in the world. We were next shown a laser which reacted to motion; The laser consisted of three mirrors which spun at great speed thus deflecting the laser and forming multiple patterns, depending on how one placed their hands near the motion sensors.. although this may sound interesting, it really isn’t! the lasers seemed generally quite erratic, so it was difficult to determine what  effect one was actually having on it…. But one only has to think for a second of all the practitical applications of it…. and such.

We were then shown a group of lights which reacted to sound, a room full of “southern lights” which i thought might’ve been a bit cooler than it was, i mean who wouldn’t want to see some alternate Aurora Borealis? It was just aplain room, with painstakingly detailed lights placed all over it… however this labour of love, was lacking in interest… oh well.

We had a look at supermans crystals ”neutrino crystals” which capture neutrinos which are (science) and used to (do something) it was pretty cool..although far too complex to explain…. After which we explored a room filled with spinning siren lights, which would follow a body around the room… flawlessly, slap on a gun and there’s your first terminator, in flashing light form!     

Afterwards we saw lights/electricity powered by dirt! which is pretty cool, perhaps we should start investing in dirt, it’ll be worth a lot of dirt some day. The electro dirt was powered by placing some Form ( insert science here) of bacteria into the dirt and that somehow completes a magic circuit.  See… Simple! Lastly we ventured into the silver celled dome of mystery/ opium den. There were dozens of L.E.D lights in the seams and roof of the dome, and the walls were a reflective mirror/foil like plastic, there were plush bean bag chairs everywhere the point of this one was kind of lost one me…. i’m sure it had a scientific reason for being there.

I found that this applied to Creative Digital Media in a sense! Creative digital media is all about creating something new or reinventing something old, there were plenty of both at the science fair.

Day Out (Hugh Lane)

Hugh Lane Gallery

We then ventured to the Hugh Lane Gallery, to see what ridiculously over priced art was available. The gallery has a varied collection of  Traditional (good) art and abstract (weird) or modern (yuck) art. Let me state for the record that modern art is entirely pants and i wish it and all its followers fiery death… Anyway there were some lovely pictures there, though they were steeply outnumbered… and sadly harder to remeber than the “modern” art pieces…. hmmm, perhaps thats the point of modern art, to be so crap you can’t possibly forget it. There was a large painting which was donated to the gallery, of a Blue square/recatnagle, i went closer to see was there hidden detail or multiple shades or a secret message or a magic smell or the secret to life… There was not, the picture is just the colour blue… not a wholly unappealing blue, but something i know in my heart doesn’t qualify for art! At the same time, when i got within a foot of the painting the security guards came over, informing me that they work off the same security system as the Louvre, and that when someone is within a foot of any painting there the security systems set off a buzzer on the security guards. The security guard then proceeded to reveal his disdain for this art that unimpressed him so.

He claimed that a person would need to take high quality acid to even consider modern art. He was a nice man. He informed us that a large painting on the back wall, with miinscuale desgin, and GIF colour (at best) was worth around  €1.6 million I suddenly had a new found respect for modern art… maybe i should be a modern artist. We were also told that a painting could be sold for millions and then not even given to the buyer for a period of up to five years! Jaysis! Lastly i recall there was a small picture  roughly an A4 in diameter coloured in a single value of mauve (bleh) and that it was worth 15, LARGE! Its amazing what you can sell to people. The artist Francis bacon’s studio was also a feature and although he was unquestionably a very talented artist, he was also unbelievably messy! Disgraceful! There wasn’t much of his pictures to be seen, which is a pity because some of his pictures really do qualify for art. Lastly there was the excellent gift store… i didn’t buy anything! but i was still and excellent gift store, all sorts of books about insane artists, and one book  i found which a pperared to be th deranged ramblings of a crack addict.    

 This trip applied to the Creative end of digital media, how we interact with our consumers… and how much we can charge for services rendered… If anything this exhibit further showed me that its not what you present to a consumer, but what you make it out to be that matters!

“talent helps, but it won’t get you half as far as ambition”

Day out (Bodies)

Bodies

Firstly we went to the Amabssador to see the “bodies” exhibit. Although san interest insight into human anatomy, it’s also disgusting, and a prime example of peoples perverse curiosity. Anyway! The exhibit contained a variety of different bodies, some were skinless, or in half, or in athlethic poses… all were shameless and naked.

There were also displays of organs, diseased, healthy and disected. Displays of nerves and even foetus’s, for anyone with an interest in anatomy, it was a surely a fantastic sight… to me it was more of a disturbing display of weirdness. Don’t get me wrong, i liked the unique quality  of the show, i just think whoever thought it up is a depraved maniac.

 And now, in more detail!                                                                                                      With the initial body models,  the vast majority of them were men, as stated they generally were in different poses, as if to simulate what they once were in life. We had volleyball players , dancers and composers, each of the bodies was disected or “designed” to a specific end, some demonstrated the use of certain muscels.

Some bodies had their heads opened and brains showing… as you do, The dancer bodies consisted of a half skinned corpse dancing with a skeloton. (cus thats normal)  One body of an over weight women had literally been sliced, top through bottom into three pieces…. to demonstarate the effects of her unhealthy eating habits… of course. The most amusing of all was the body whose muscles had been bent off him, no longer attached fully to tendon or bone, his muscles stuck out of him and  he looked like a puzzle, waiting to be put back together.

Then There was a body disected into  something like 40 slivers stretched out over a table. There were also displays of singles organs, including a healthy heart, brain and set of lungs. Of course with that said its obvious that there had to be a diseased blood clot riddled heart as well, as a brain disected, revealing the different areas of a clot, and of course the smokers lungs, the smokers lunbgs were charred and blackened, and beside that diasplay was a cheesy box for dumping your cigarettes… smoking is bad!

There were interesting displays of nerve systems as well as veins and arteries, the veins had been filled with some liquid to bolster their size and to solidify them, it almost didn’t look real. Lastly there was  the section filled with foteus’s at different stages of life, peoples morbid curiosity will never cease!

Although this was an interesting and memorable event, i can’t really say how it applied to digital media. its very well advertised! on buses and posters everywhere, of course the one body used on all the posters is nowhere to be seen at the event; and where was drowning pools “let the bodies hit the floor”  it would have been perfect!

Talk on Guide Dogs

We received a lecture on The irish Guide dogs for the blind group. The idea being, us as budding young studenst with Raw talent and ambition are to design… or at the very least assist with their advertising for awareness campaign. It was a great lecture, it was very informative, and included both a lovely puppy in training, and also  a calender for everyone in the audience! 

We were told of the goals of the group and of the costs of running. The group provides a completely free service, on a first c0ome first served basis, to those in need of assistance. The group provides both guide dogs for the blind and assistance dogs for autistic children. We were told of the arduous training regime, and standards that need to be upkept to maintain  these dogs. It takes a long time to properly train the dogs, and, for obvious reasons; rigorous testing. The group also teaches impaired individuals practical, and often neccessary skills. It costs up to €38,000 to train a single dog. and even upon complete success, the majority of these animals must retire by the age of ten. These dogs are relied on for the most basic of needs! if a dog is out of action, its owner is out of work. We’re trying to raise awareness over broken glass on the ground injuring dogs, and as a knock on effect taking blind people out of work. As stated the group is entirely  voluntary organistation, and costs over €5.2 million a year to run! thats like a lifetime supply of disney world tickets!  The government covers 15% of this staggeering amount, the rest, naturally is covered by all those slaves to conscience. the caring public. All throughout the lecture, the puppy in training came over and wandered throughout the audience, liberally smelling people… licking shoes and rooting around. Thankfully there were no “oooh im afraid of dogs people” hippies! thats all they are! dogs are great! Anyway! after the lecture we split into groups to discuss methods of raising the awareness  profile of the group, after little arguemnt, our group “Team MEGA SNAKE” consisting, of Tanya, Carl, Adnan and myself concluded that the message would be best conveyed through a Concern/trocaire-esque slideshow, which would show both the plight of the group and of the impaired of course, but also the great benefits and improvement in quality of life the group grants. hopefully our project will come together nicely, and succeed in getting the group more followers.

That said here’s a dog, not just any dog….

Lecture with Edward Melvin

Edward melvin (THATS BRIANS BROTHER!) came in to give us a lecture on what he and the company he works for; “I-CAN” do.  (TANGENT)I was about ten minute late on account of my inability to go to sleep or wake up at appropriate times, and more than a little surprised to walk into class and find McSweeney filming everyone, theres a lot to be said for puntuality

Anyway!  Edward (Jaysis!  Brians brother!) began by showing us exactly what his company did. “I-CAN” are and advertising/comunications company which work in a variety of different fields throughout digital media, such as marketing, multimedia, online strategy and plenty of others. 

Edward then proceeded to show us some of the projects he and his company have taken on and completed over the years, There was a rich variety of webpages, menus and advertisements on offer.

Edward then began running thorugh some of the Do’s and Don’ts of the digital media world. He began explaing his companies core beliefs, ideals such as Engaging with and converting their clients. Converting, broadly meaning basically any form of successful interaction.. at all! seriously.. like Clicking! Clicking=Success!

 Edward gave us a brief a run down of how many staff work for “I-CAN” and what they do, such staff included a small set of skilled individuals… and probably a couple of useless slackers too… how i envy them. Edward highlighted the point and need for advertising campaigns, and broke up the mechanic for how a campaign is generally run.  They follow along the lines of

• Meetings
• Strategy
• Brief
• Brainstorm
• Proposal
• Concept
• And of course lots of MONEY!!!

Edward went through each stage explaing the importance, of each particularly the Brief and the concept. Edward then went on to show us several In game advertisements… it was going to happen sooner or later, just wish i’d capitalized on it first! The advertisements, occur in game graphics, and often convey an appropriate alluring message to the user, usually claiming that theire system is inadequate. Its ridiculous of course, considering the rate at which technology is rocketing! 

Edward then went on to describe in detail  a web project team, both the elements a team consists of, and the specific work they do. He was quite enthusiastic in his descrip[tion claiming such work required hard work and discipline, and thus was satisfying, of greatner note tho, was his slide, which i though was great, but no one else laughed at. so here it is again!

 

Laugh i say! This lecture was an interesting insight into the digital media world, i didn’t find too many surprises in what i had previously imagined… no bad surprises anyways… yet.

Visual Language Week 11

In class today we went over the basics of semiotics and the funcionality of the sign again. We also looked at the seven features of interactive web design, including: User centric design (UCD), simplicity, typography, white-space, layout, colour and conventions. Later on in the day we had a tutorial in how crap macs are and why i want them all to burn in mac hell…. cough, yeh, what i mean is we had a class in which we had to design a button in photoshop and none of the devil macs i used seemed to function… for some reason. so i haven’t actually gotten around to designing a button…. yeh! anti climactic!

 Afterwards we wrote a web critique on a web page of our choice, making reference to the interactive web design principles… this i HAVE done… on my perfectly fine WINDOWS computer. ;)

 

Web page Review

 

 

User Centric Design:

www.uci.ie is used to book movie tickets, watch movie trailers, read movie reviews and check up on available movie timetables. This websites audience would mainly consist of teenagers and young adults, the page allows for all types of user though. A user can quickly identify whatever it is they’re looking for, by quickly scanning through the webpage. The links are clear and to the point, allowing easy navigation throughout the website, Because of the simplicity of the design, and the uncluttered look of the page, it is difficult for a user to get lost while using this webpage.

Simplicity:

This website is well presented and very basically displayed, it provides quick effective information and doesn’t weigh itself down with unnecessary details. The colour is used effectively to direct the users vision, it identifies the borders and boundaries of the page and highlights the relevant information, and does not waste time with distracting items or images. The page contains very little non data ink, it’s relies on its content more than other unnecessary items.

Typography:

The website makes use of three type faces, all very similar, all quite clear, sans-serif fonts The larger bold fonts are used classically for the header, whilst the smaller fonts are used for the specific details, and for some of the less relevant links off the webpage. Web page makes use of an excellent user feature allowing the user to enlarge or decrease the entire webpage. Although one could do this on any webpage if they knew how, it just goes to show the sites mass usability for all levels of user.

White-Space:

There are clear margins and borders on display on this webpage. It makes great use of the white-space concept. There is generous and highly visible padding in between the sections of the webpage. To fully view the webpage the user must scroll down, the designers wisely decided not to sacrifice clear design and pleasant layout for a much more cramped look. The white-space is also employed to space out the text effectively, further clarifying the page.

Layout:

This webpage utilizes a classic design to quickly and clearly convey its message. It makes use of a header, footer and three columns. All of the very important details are in the central column, including movie times and a movie trailer application. The left column is used as the navigation bar, whilst the right column is used to book film times. The much smaller size of the two bordering columns helps indicate the greater importance of the central column, where most of the relevant content is on display

Colour:

The webpage makes good use out of a complimentary colour scheme, using yellow and blue, white is used as a third, neutral colour. Different shades of blue and yellow are used to highlight and refine the different sections of the page, light shades of yellow are used to gently highlight the movie information while darker shades of blue are used to increase the impact of the headings. Black is also used for the detail text, against the light yellows and stark white, the black is quite clear.

Conventions:

This site does make use of several conventional design ideas. Firstly the page utilizes the western left to right format. A user menu of links is visible in the left column; thus making this the main navbar with additional, more technical links being displayed atop the header. Hyperlinks within the page are clearly underlined, and any user can identify their purpose as links. Emphasized text is also used, the webpage uses bold text to highlight the importance of the “Book Now” feature. Another convention used is the user sign in bar just below the navbar in the left column, These features are universally recognised throughout the web.

Visual Language 10

Today in the lecture we looked at many amusing signs and such. We recapped on gestalt principles and we had a good auld look at semiotics. We later did another photo shop excercise, i chose the excellent Liam Neeson to immoratalise.  Btw he is awesome. Twice!

Oh Yeah!