CCDN 331 Project 4: Manifestation PROMO

Speech Notes:

So for my manifesto I explored the idea of the talents and skills I possess, that I don’t get to use at all during my time here at Vic. So most of you should know that I’m currently a third year Media Design student, but what you wouldn’t know is that I was previously studying Visual communication design and fine arts at Massey before I came here. I only moved to Vic because Media Design is what I’m good at. So what I’ve found here is that I have been so confined to briefs for the last 3 years, I haven’t had the chance to create something for myself, to use my skills as a painter for a project. 

I got the title “Looking & Seeing” after further analysing this topic by comparing my thoughts between a digital painting, and a physical painting. When we witness a digital painting, we don’t really pay that much attention to it or the details within it. It’s just another image that’s on the screen in front of us. I like to portray that process as only “looking” at something. On the other hand, when there’s a physical painting in front of us,  it’s almost like we’re forced to pay attention to it. We start to notice the careful brush strokes for example, or the several paint colours that have been mixed together, or even how many coats of paint that that person has used. Like for me for example, I had to paint the black background quite a few times with several coats of paint just to get it right. But this process I like to portray as “Seeing”. 

One question you’re probably going to ask me is why I painted Marilyn Monroe. Aside from her being an icon for generations and many generations to come, the image of her is what inspired me to start painting again once I had finished college. The only thing is I have never had time to paint her, as I’ve always been busy with assignments day in and day out. So I took this opportunity for this project really to create something that I have been wanting to do for a really long time. 

CCDN 331 Project 4: Manifesto FINAL

“Looking & Seeing”

Design school is hard. Media design school is especially hard because we are so confined to following the brief. There are few, if any cases absolutes as you go through media design. Much of design education is about learning key techniques and skills and then trying to apply them to your work in interesting and innovative ways. However, many of the design skills we have learnt leading up to these university years are somewhat, left behind. One of which for myself, is the importance of craft, more specifically painting.

Now you may ask, why are you doing a Media design major if you’re so into your paintings? Why not do a Fine Arts major instead? Well, Easy. For me, it’s not about what major you are doing; I could be doing any major at university and still enjoy my painting. In my opinion, painting and basic craft is what we should all know and love, regardless of our various skills. It’s something that we have all grown up with, something that we have the ability to do. 

Why is craft and painting is so important to me? It’s important to me because I feel it’s something we have abandoned as designers, especially in Media design. We are confined to briefs and being stuck in front of the computer screens all day that we forget the different interactions we get when we are doing such activities like painting. I have analysed this further and thought about the differences between creating a digital painting and a physical painting, which has lead me to the title of this manifesto which is “Looking & Seeing”. I’ll leave you with this quote that I think is suitable to start my main topic:

“Computer imaging tends to flatten our magnificent, multi-sensory, simultaneous and synchronic capacities of imagination by turning the design process into a passive visual manipulation, a retinal journey. The computer creates a distance between the maker and the object, whereas drawing by hand as well as model-making put the designer into a haptic contact with the object or space.“ (Pallasmaa, pg 12).

Looking vs Seeing. The computer is usually seen as a solely beneficial invention, which facilitates efficient design work. I express my serious concern in this respect, at least considering the current role of the computer in the design process. To me, there is more value in physical paintings than digital paintings. Yes there are the facts that digital paintings allow you to erase and save and print as many copies as you could ever imagine. But when you only have 1 chance to do it right, and 1 copy of something that you’ve put time and effort in creating, wouldn’t you think that is worth more than something you can go back and edit later and that anyone could get their hands on? To me, when you witness something that’s been digitally created especially a digital painting, you’re only looking at it. You most likely look at it once and just skip on to the next one, paying it no further attention. With a physical painting on the other hand, you’re not looking at it when it’s right in front of you. You’re seeing it. You see the little tiny details within the painting because it’s right in front of you in a physical form. The careful brush strokes for example, or the different mixing of several paint colours, are only visible clearly through seeing a physical painting.

Haptic experience is EVERYTHING. One thing that interested me that Pallasmaa said was the haptic contact or experience you get when it comes to the processes of digital creation and physical creation. I think about what I feel when I’m creating something digitally for an assignment. I have to go through the process of learning the program, I need a lot of concentration, it’s very intense and I feel very close-minded when I’m creating something for a brief. On the other hand, when I’m painting, I feel mostly relaxed. I can listen to music at the same time and I’m yet still open-minded. I get a sense of enjoyment and nostalgia, and most importantly I can create for myself. You rarely get any of those experiences when it comes to being on the computer.

Pallasmaa, J. (1996). The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses. 

John Wiley & Sons, 2013 

Goldstein, M. (2010). A Design Education Manifesto
Retrieved from http://designcrit.com/mfa/design-education-manifesto

CCDN 331 Project 4: Manifestation FINAL

CCDN 331 Project 4: Manifestation Progress

Current progress for my manifestation

CCDN 331 Project 4: Manifesto DRAFT 2

Design Manifesto

Jay Tapp

“Looking & Seeing”

Design school is hard. Media design school is especially hard because we are so confined to following the brief. There are few, if any cases absolutes as you go through media design. Much of design education is about learning key techniques and skills and then trying to apply them to your work in interesting and innovative ways. However, many of the design skills we have learnt leading up to these university years are somewhat, left behind. One of which for myself, is the importance of craft, more specifically painting.

Now you may ask, why are you doing a Media design major if you’re so into your craft? Why not do a Fine Arts major instead? Well, Easy. For me, it’s not about what major you are doing; I could be doing a psychology major and still enjoy my craft. In my opinion, basic craft is what we should all know and love, regardless of our various skills. It’s something that we have all grown up with, something that we have the ability to do. 

Why is craft is so important to me? It’s important to me because I feel it’s something we have abandoned as designers, especially in Media design. We are confined to briefs and being stuck in front of the computer screens all day that we forget the different interactions we get when we are doing such activities like painting. I have analysed this further and thought about the differences between creating a digital painting and a physical painting, which has lead me to the title of this manifesto which is “Looking & Seeing”. I’ll leave you with this quote that I think is suitable to start my main argument:

“Computer imaging tends to flatten our magnificent, multi-sensory, simultaneous and synchronic capacities of imagination by turning the design process into a passive visual manipulation, a retinal journey. The computer creates a distance between the maker and the object, whereas drawing by hand as well as model-making put the designer into a haptic contact with the object or space.“ (Pallasmaa, pg 12).

Looking vs Seeing. The computer is usually seen as a solely beneficial invention, which facilitates efficient design work. I express my serious concern in this respect, at least considering the current role of the computer in the design process. To me, there is more value in physical paintings than digital paintings. Yes there are the facts that digital paintings allow you to erase and save and print as many copies as you could ever imagine. But when you only have 1 chance to do it right, and 1 copy of something that you’ve put time and effort in creating, wouldn’t you think that is worth more than something you can go back and edit later and that anyone could get their hands on?

Haptic experience is Everything. One thing that interested me that Pallasmaa said was the haptic contact or experience you get when it comes to the processes of digital creation and physical creation. I think about what I feel when I’m creating something digitally for an assignment. I have to go through the process of learning the program, I need a lot of concentration, it’s very intense and I feel very close-minded when I’m creating something for a brief. On the other hand, when I’m painting, I feel mostly relaxed. I can listen to music at the same time and I’m yet still open-minded. I get a sense of enjoyment and nostalgia, and most importantly I can create for myself. You rarely get any of those experiences when it comes to being on the computer.

Pallasmaa, J. (1996). The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses. 

John Wiley & Sons, 2013 

Goldstein, M. (2010). A Design Education Manifesto
Retrieved from http://designcrit.com/mfa/design-education-manifesto

CCDN 331 Project 4: Manifesto DRAFT 1

Design Manifesto

Jay Tapp

“Looking & Seeing”

Design school is hard. Media design school is especially hard because we are so confined to following the brief. There are few, if any cases absolutes as you go through media design. Much of design education is about learning key techniques and skills and then trying to apply them to your work in interesting and innovative ways. However, many of the design skills we have learnt leading up to these university years are somewhat, left behind. One of which for myself, is the importance of craft, more specifically painting.

Now you may ask, why are you doing a Media design major if you’re so into your craft? Why not do a Fine Arts major instead? Well, Easy. For me, it’s not about what major you are doing; I could be doing a psychology major and still enjoy my craft. In my opinion, basic craft is what we should all know and love, regardless of our various skills. It’s something that we have all grown up with, something that we have the ability to do. 

So now you’re asking why craft is so important to me? It’s important to me because I feel it’s something we have abandoned as designers, especially in Media design. We are confined to briefs and being stuck in front of the computer screens all day that we forget the different interactions we get when we are doing such activities like painting. I have analysed this further and thought about the differences between creating a digital painting and a physical painting, which has lead me to the title of this manifesto which is “Looking & Seeing”. I’ll leave you with this quote that I think is suitable to start my main argument:

“Computer imaging tends to flatten our magnificent, multi-sensory, simultaneous and synchronic capacities of imagination by turning the design process into a passive visual manipulation, a retinal journey. The computer creates a distance between the maker and the object, whereas drawing by hand as well as model-making put the designer into a haptic contact with the object or space.“ (Pallasmaa, pg 12).

The computer is usually seen as a solely beneficial invention, which facilitates efficient design work. I express my serious concern in this respect, at least considering the current role of the computer in the design process. To me, there is more value in physical paintings than digital paintings. Yes there are the facts that digital paintings allow you to erase and save and print as many copies as you could ever imagine. But when you only have 1 chance to do it right, and 1 copy of something that you’ve put time and effort in creating, wouldn’t you think that is worth more than something you can go back and edit later and that anyone could get their hands on?

One thing that interested me that Pallasmaa said was the haptic contact or experience you get when it comes to the processes of digital creation and physical creation. I think about what I feel when I’m creating something digitally for an assignment. I have to go through the process of learning the program, I need a lot of concentration, it’s very intense and I feel very close-minded when I’m creating something for a brief. On the other hand, when I’m painting, I feel mostly relaxed. I can listen to music at the same time and I’m yet still open-minded. I get a sense of enjoyment and nostalgia, and most importantly I can create for myself. You rarely get any of those experiences when it comes to being on the computer.

Pallasmaa, J. (1996). The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses. 

John Wiley & Sons, 2013 

Goldstein, M. (2010). A Design Education Manifesto
Retrieved from http://designcrit.com/mfa/design-education-manifesto

CCDN 331 RAP 9: Writing Manifestos

This week's lecture topic was on writing manifestos. We were given some good pointers and some very useful.. let's say guidelines on constructing a good manifesto. First of all we have to have a good argument. If we can't argue our point through then what's the point right? Personally I think everyone has different points of views, so whether or not everyone else agrees or disagrees on what you're trying to point out and argue, you are still allowed your own thoughts and opinion. Whilst thinking about my idea, I find it very hard to distinquish the difference in my manifesto and whether or not to go for, or against my topic. This needs more refining but having one more tutorial will surely help me with this, and help me complete my manifesto. 

CCDN 331 Project 4: Manifesto IDEAS & NOTES

Interaction Interaction

vs

physical digital

painting ———> digital

- environment

- more value in physical drawing vs digital drawing

- difference between looking & seeing

- what does art have to offer in the process

Painting

- relaxed
- open minded
- nostalgia
- enjoyment
- creation for myself

Digital

- learning the program
- concentration
- intense
- close-minded
- creating for a brief

CCDN 331 RAP 8: Makers + Making

The lecture topic was about Makers + Making with the subtopics of Craft, Technology and Design, of course. When I found out about this topic I immediately thought about one of the papers I am currently taking for my Media Design major and that is MDDN 351 which is Wearable Tech. I was particularly interested in the slides which contained such designs for dresses and pretty much mainly fashion. Since I am doing that course, it is my job to regularly research different types of materials and styles of craft to help aid my future projects. I was also interested in the comparison to crafts versus digital. I saw some pictures from the slides that gave me ideas for my manifesto. I am thinking about taking a side either craft or digital and creating something that would look good as an end of year piece not only for myself, but for others.

CCDN 331 RAP 7: Sensuality, Haptic Experience + The Body

In this week's lecture, we were introduced the topic of Sensuality, haptic experience and the body. I've studied a little bit of these topics before especically in first year and a few cases in media design when I've had to design something aesthetically pleasing but yet has some interesting interactive features as well. Haptic experience, or haptic perception as I see it is recognizing objects through touch. I was holding my iPhone and I thought about how its designed. Like being said, with the "sexy" design of some things which fit perfectly with our sensory perceptions, we barely if ever recognize any faults with the designs. This goes the same as gaming controllers, which is something I use regularly as well with perfect designs.

CCDN 331 RAP 6: Nature + Sustainability

In the last lecture, we were introduced the topic of Design + Nature, with the sub-topics of culture, environment and sustainability. Nature is romanticised in western society because we are now so surrounded by unnatural materials such as plastics. What I found interesting is that some designers put other cultures into their design which is often misleading or misinterpreting that culture. I've thought about some of my previous work and this somehow relates to me too. Sometimes people tell other cultures who they are rather than understanding and learning through experience.

CCDN 331 Rap 5: Hacktavisim: Design + Activism

In this week's lecture, we were introduced the topic of "Hacktavism" which is Design + Activism. We started off the lecture with another guest lecturer, Walter who spoke to us abut his previous work with hacktavisim and what it actually is. He sai that hacktavisim is the use of computers and computer networks to help promote such things as political ends, human rights, freedom of speech and information ethics. It is carried out under the premise that proper use of technology can produce results similar to those of conventional acts of protest, activism and civil disobedience. The term has been around since 1995. He showed us on this website moddr_ his previous work consisting of such thigns as the "Pirates of the Amazon" , "web2.0 suicide machine" and "commidify.us". I also liked the term that this was also known as a sort of "Cyber Terrorism". 

Critical Selfie Final Critical Statement

For this project, I explored one of the critical statements that we were given from the first project. For my final, I took 8 images sequencing with the narrative of -

 "Design should inspire people to see the world in a new way", and to what extent is graffiti socially acceptable, and socially noticeable? 

I explored the way we as human beings, don't usually pay attention to the little things whilst we are living our daily everyday lives. When it comes to graffiti or "bombing", we hardly notice it unless it's all colourful and fills up a whole wall. But how about the little stuff? The calligraphy that artist and taggers do when they want to make themselves known, to show that they are not afraid to prove to themselves and everyone else that they can tag. 

With my images, I explored streets and places in Wellington that go unnoticed, and graffitied it myself. Not actually physically do it but photoshopped it in. I wanted to show different areas that can be graffitied, and areas that usually wouldn't be graffitied that would be more noticeable. As you go through each photo, the graffiti gradually gets more noticeable, and socially unacceptable, as compared to the start where it's most likely socially acceptable, since it's hardly noticeable. By doing this, I explored a new way in seeing this world of graffiti, and to get people including myself to actually pay attention to the little things that are right in front of us. 

Also on that note, my haiku - 

"What cannot be seen,

Can sometimes be beautiful,

Or just wreck your day."

This sums up and backs up my narrative more but elaborating that we cannot see graffiti right in front of us, but when we do, we either think it's beautiful and a work of art in the calligraphy form, or ruin your day by knowing that's its ruining public property. In other words we ask ourselves, is this graffiti a form of activism, art or just plain vandalism? 

I'd also like to add that I graffitied my photos using the words from my haiku.

Critical Selfie Final Haiku

Critical Selfie Final Images

CCDN 331 Rap 4: Material Culture + Globalization

In this week's lecture, the topic of the Material Culture and Globalization was introduced to us. I found it interesting how different cultures had different values of things, which takes me back to the research I did for the first project where I had the statement - "Design should be sexy" and explored how different cultures have different points of views when it comes to design's being "sexy". There was also a fact where apparently the happiest people in the world were stated in one single place, due to their state of living or what not. I disagree with this since different culture's especially myself being Filipino, value things and see things differently from other people and other cultures. I think back to when I was in the Philippines, and seen little kids as old as 5-10 running around laughing and having a good time, but yet looked back at the lifestyle they were living and obviously came from a poor family. And yet they did not care, or knew what it was like to be rich. They were happy the way they were, and I thought this was a god example on how we as humans in the different cultures, value things differently especially relating it back to the material world.

Critical Selfie Stage Two

From my feedback on the first stage with my initial idea and first shoot I didn't quite like where the project was going for me. It was very uncomfortable and I felt too "seedy" doing what I was doing, so I have decided to change my idea up a bit but will run with a critical statement however. The statement that I have decided to go with for this stage and for the final is "Design should inspire people to see the world in a new way". So to go about this, I decided to do the opposite of my previous stage and ventured out to places and streets in Wellington that were a lot less populated, where it gave me a chance to really look around in my environment and to critically analyse my idea and approach. I noticed by walking down alley ways and some certain streets, that people never really pay attention to their surroundings and are always busy with something else like their cellphones. I stopped for one second and payed attention to what was around me, with the exception of my camera I noticed a lot of things that could be changed and seen differently. 

One experiment I conducted on a few people I know was that I first off showed them this photo: 

I then asked them what they thought about this photo and they simply said it just looked symmetrical and was of the McDonald's on Manners St. 

I then showed them this picture, which was the original:

They were surprised and shocked at how they didn't even notice the one little change to this image, and had seen something that looked normal into a completely and entirely new way.

So I then went on and conducted and took more photos similar to this one, but with graffiti instead to see if people can realise how plain something can be, but in reality can be turned into something fun and exciting.

Here are some of the photos:

Other photos that I would be interested in doing this too:

Critical Selfie Stage One

My original idea was to go with one of the critical statements that was presented to us during the first project. The statements to choose from are the following:

- Design should be sexy
- Design should be environmental sustainable
- Design should serve as a symbol for consumer identity
- Design should speak to craft and the human hand
- Design should reflect innovation
- Design is just an excuse for making more junk
- Design should inspire people to see the world in a new way
- Design should connect people

So for the first stage, I went with "Design should be sexy" since it was the statement that I had worked with in the first project. To start off with this project, I walked through the more populated streets of Wellington and tried to think about the "sexy" that captures my attention. One thing I realised were the amount of advertising everywhere. I veered towards the women's advertising at this point since it was what I found sexy, and compared the different shops that advertised using women and their idea of "sexy".

Here the photos from the first stage:

CCDN 331 Rap 3: Photography

In this week's lecture, we were greeted by a special guest speaker Leon. He mainly spoke to us about photography, which for most things I knew about. He explained to us the important things when taking a photograph such as framing, and lighting which I do quite a lot of when it comes to my own work. He also spoke to us about our photo essays and mentioned how photographs create meanings and narratives to some extent. I agreed with this and related it back to my own work.. however am currently finding this current assignment hard to properly start because of the lack of ideas and inspiration.

CCDN 331 Rap 2: Mirroring + Mapping: "The Flaneur"

In this week's lecture, the flaneur was introdcued to us. We were asked, why would the approach for the flaneur be appropriate to common design practice? I hadn't had a clue to be honest, nor did I ever hear the word "flaneur" before this lecture. But I then realised that this was crucial to our next project, which was shortly after introduced to us. It got me thinking about ideas, how to truly express my thoughts and ways of thinking. I thougth about passive observation as well. The ability to observe the world from a design point of view. Taking the observational context into play, but yet still being a bystander. Being able to pressure, and provide insight as a designer. The ability to look at the bigger picture. To be able to see he truth of what's really going on in the working world. 

Project 1 Write-up + Video

The phrase ‘Design should be sexy’ gives us the idea of expensive, appealing and high-end quality design. Its con is the cost of and expenses of creating ‘sexy’ design. Design can be time consuming and as Benjamin Frankly phrased it “time is money.” Talent and labor both cost money and which therefore drives up the final cost of the product. Companies spend millions of dollars advertising high end products that will hopefully be perceived as appealing and desirable.

We state that design should be sexy but at what cost are we producing appealing design? Things such as materials are one of the things to consider while it can affect our environment. The video challenges the phrase design should be sexy by showing how the product has been crafted taking time and effort in order to make the product look appealing. Creating such high end products use more costly resources and tools to make. The video shows the wood being altered to make it look appealing and making it look newer than the original. The more time it takes to make something look “sexy” the more money it will cost to produce and the more expensive and costly the product will be. Cost and things such as materials affecting out environment to make something look sexy has a negative impact on design.

CCDN 331 Rap 1: Theory + Application

Soo..the first week back huh.. I'll admit I wasn't so sure on what to expect coming to the first lecture. But a couple of things sparked my attention. First off nice group photos, at least you all have a sense of hunour. Secondly, I hadn't had lunch yet and the picture of the Burger King advertisement made me hungrier. It also made me think about the countless false advertising that fast food franchises do when they take photos of these "real" burgers but are actually little rubber models of them just to make it look appealing. And then when it comes back to us, the consumer, we're presented with a "McFilth". Mmm real appetizing. Stay Hungry. I am looking forward to the rest of the trimester to hopefully learn more in Design Live Theory, and to apply it to the depths of my design mind. I will find my voice as a designer.

GFDA: My Pledge

Parkemon Reveal Trailer

All I will say is to watch it in 1080p on full screen. The quality is real. Don't forget the popcorn!

Making the Film

So luckily, it was the most beautiful day we could ever wish for. Josh, Marina, my friend Wayne and myself, all went down to the Abel Tasman National Park..no I'm joking we went to Mt. Vic. But no one needs to know that. We made a day trip there where we thought we could capture the most gorgeous shots of our app, along with the views and surroundings. It was actually my first time up there, and in fact my first time in that part of Wellington, so this experience was entirely new to me. With the app on Josh's phone, I put my hand up to do all the videoing and all the video editing since I had good experience with the camera and video. My 2 designers were a little camera shy so my friend ended up being the actor, which he didn't mind at all. He'd been in my previous projects anyway back from first year. So we wanted to create a commercial like video, kind of like a reveal trailer for this awesome award winning app. I shot different angles, directed the crap out of everyone (I actually felt like a true director, all I needed was a clapboard to say cut!), and took some amazing shots of the park while we were up there. But the thing that was my favourite that I had managed to capture, was the lighting. Pay close attention when you watch the video over and over again to the lighting please, and the views they were truly amazing. 

The editing side, was somewhat painful. I had to get it perfect. The intro wasn't too hard to make but compiling all our clips together took time. I ended up editing the video first on Adobe Premiere Pro, which is my favourite program to use for it. Then once it was all compiled, I rendered it in 1080p (hence the 2.32GB file we had) and further edited it through Adobe After Effects. I added the song in which I have credited in the video description, and Josh added the text in the video which wasn't too hard to do surprisingly..although it was 3am in the morning by this point. But never mind, we were still trucking along. So once everything was done and sorted with the final rendering, we viewed it, and it's safe to say we're surprised with what we came up with. This was truly a great experience. I have also, for fun purposes added a couple of photos we documented whilst we were up there, just to show that during these dark times of hand ins, we still can find time to ourselves and enjoy reality a little bit more. 

Individual Report: The Prologue

Team Parkemon. What an experience. I haven’t had many great experiences with group assignments in the past but this one surely proved me wrong. So it was pitch day at our design room. I had an original idea that I’d wanted to present in front of both my MDDN 352 class and the NWEN 304 class as well, but never got the chance to do it. So when it came to finding a group, I knew I’d had to start from scratch. Since Josh and Marina are friend’s of mine, we decided to group up and find some NWEN guys to help us out, which is when Scott and Damo came to us. This was a good looking group so far, we’re all capable of finishing this assignment and we all got along with each other. So we had discussions on what kind of app we could create. One thing we didn’t want to do was to create an app similar to what everyone else had already presented and pitched. We wanted to create an app that was educational, but fun to use at the same time. Thus where Parkemon was born. 

We discussed the app a little bit and decided on how we were going to approach things. The main idea was that the app was going to be targeted towards the younger audience. An audience that could recognise and relate to the original game pokemon, and maybe some young adults too that wanted to feel a sense of nostalgia. 

So we planned our meetings, decided we would meet up at least once a week to see the progress that everyone has made. Me not knowing too much about the coding side of it, entrusted the NWEN team to create us our foundation which they delivered with amazing results. 

I also took leadership at the start of the app and tried to organise everything, but over the course of time the team itself grew stronger together and had taken on their individual leadership roles on what they’re doing. I was very pleased to see this. 

I spoke to my design team and first off asked if anyone had any experience in character design. I did have some experience but thought I’d be more useful working on the front end stuff and the user interface design. Thankfully, Marina had done some work overseas with companies that did character design, so this was a bonus. I gave her the big task of creating the animals or “parkemon” Which left me and Josh with everything else.

The first step that I discussed with the group was that we needed to make the app appealing to our younger audience, we needed it to be visually recognisable. So I said we needed a colour scheme that would work well with the app. After trial and error on different types of colour schemes, we had found the perfect one. It was a mixture of blue and shades of orange along with the standard black and white and grey. This can all be found on my blog, which I have noted down at the bottom of the page, where I get into more specific and deeper detail about everything I had worked on. 

So after the colour scheme was decided and finalised, I went on and created concepts for our app logo. One discussion we had about this was deciding on the name of the app. We had jotted down the name Parkemon originally as our team name, but also added a “name in progress”. This didn’t help when it came to logo designing. So after further thought about what the app was called, I just said hang on. Why not just name it after what it is. Keep it simple, no messing around and just name it Parkemon. You have to admit it does have some ring to it. Plus it’s easily recognisable as well. So with the name being set, finally I can get onto designing the logo. I tried a bunch of fonts out, added images to some, but there was one that stood out to me. I had a look at certain existing logos like Facebook, where in the app icon the “F” was definitive and stood out. So I took this idea and created the same for parkemon, where the “P” would be our grand stamp on the app market place. I kept it plain and simple, white text with a small paw in the P. This really looked good on our colour scheme, it was very vibrant but bold at the same time. 

After finalising the logo, I then went on and designed all the icons we’ll be using in the app. We had wanted to use icons originally instead of text, to make it more fun and appealing. So i designed all the icons from the logo, to the animal icons to even the smaller stuff like weight and height icons. These can all be viewed on my blog however, as I mentioned before. One thing I noticed whilst designing these icons is that like the logo, the white really does stand out better than black on the app. So I went on and made all the U.I. icons white, not including the animal ones. The animal icons ranged in different types of screens that we were using them in. This was one of the difficult ones to make simply because of time. Marina had originally completed a fews animals for me to work with, but hadn’t completed them all to it’s final product. This was quite a hassle and no, I am not blaming anyone for it since we all had separate hand ins throughout the whole project. So I understood the time constraint that everyone was working with. Anyways, I had created the animal icons for the parkedex, the map, and the leaderboard which all had different designs. It sounds like I made the job harder for myself but I really didn’t, these icon designs suited these pages. So as you could guess I had to create these icons over and over again to get the right sizes when the app was getting built, and also to created more professional versions of them once all the animals have been given to me. Originally I had put the icons through photoshop, just because it was my place to be and my home. But I changed over and out them through Adobe Illustrator since it didn’t look as pixelated. When it came to putting the final all together the icons looked fantastic. 

So enough about icons. Moving on, it was actually really hard to keep track of everything that I had done for the group, and everyone feels the same way. We had met up quite a few times and shared files between each other like there was no tomorrow, so I probably will miss out some things that had happened. I created most of our presentations both on pitch day and on interim day, created the slides and images within them as well. I had researched the real life animals that were in our Parkedex, added the information about them and found all the interesting facts about them as well. I then had to create questions within these, which will be used in our rescue scene. Also one thing about the rescue scene..

Originally our idea was similar to Pokemon, but we had discussions about how the battling and capturing would go within our app. We all had agreed that the battling and capturing really didn’t sound good at all when it comes to the native wildlife and endangered species of the park. This was a conservation app. So we wanted to flip it around entirely and came up with the brilliant idea of rescuing the animals, instead of battling them. This way, you rescue an animal and it joins your team! Your parkemon team of course. 

Moving on from that, I had also helped out a bit with the CSS and a little JS, that just needed styling and tweaking. Also the information for the parked needed to be added so that took some time. My icons looked pretty swell in the app while I was doing this too. Just a random thought I had at the time. 

Our team kept in contact regularly as well, mainly through emails and occasionally facebook. This way we had always been updated on how everyone is going especially if someone didn’t make it to a meeting. Us designers did not however end up using github, as we did not know how to use it and found that it was more easier and efficient to just use the standard USB. This was the way we transferred our files, along with emailing them too. It was just a lot easier and convenient for us. 

I think I’ve rambled on long enough about Parkemon and our life story, The rest of my content is on my blog which can be found at: http://jaytapp.blogspot.co.nz

Please check it out it has some cool content. 

But all in all, this project was a great learning curve. I have nothing negative at all to say about my team and it was a great pleasure to work with them. We all got along fine, and worked together not as a group, but a family. Because we here at Parkemon, are a family. 

Jay Tapp, Founder and Senior Lead Designer of Parkemon Studios

Interim Presentation

For our interim presentation, we initially had 2 applications to show. Since we hadn't had time to meet up together between us designers and the NWEN guys, we decided to just stick with what we had and presented our progress so far. Josh and I worked on the front end side of the app and created a prototype that showed off the design side and the aesthetic side of our app. The NWEN guys had the functionality side of the app. Here below is also the link to the app we created for the interim, and also the slides that I had created for the presentation.

http://jaytappdesign.com/Parkemon/index.html

Icons, icons and more ICONS!

So I pretty much put myself in charge of all the icon designing. This probably rubbed off the logo designs. But never mind, someone had to do it. We discussed what different pages/screens we had and what icons we needed for each one. So there I go working away creating all these icons. I was actually happy with most of them since I wasn't really used to designing icons that much, but I have compiled them in the images below. I didn't realise how long it takes to actually create icons, it was very time consuming especially with the time frame we had for this assignment. Most of them were used for our final too, however some of them just didn't match up to our theme in the end so we had to cut a few of them out eventually. The animal ones were the most annoying to design. Only because I had to do many of them. During this time when I was designing the animal icons that we needed, we were still waiting on the final images for the animals as well. Which meant I'd had to design mock up or prototype icons that we could use for the interim so we at least have something there. The 2 pages at the bottom is a clear view of this. Notice the difference in quality when you compare the 2, kind of like a before and after. A prototype and finish. The finished product was the one we used in the very final version of our app and I must say, it looked sweet on the phone.