MTV switch approaches

Article 11

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/08/programmes_computer_virus_art_by_alex_dragulescu/html/1.stm

• Computer virus art by Alex Dragulescu

This guy Alex had a really cool idea. He took a variety of viruses and thought about their actions and way of working. He thought about the right colors that will represent them the best and designed each one of them in an artistic kind of way. He did very common viruses (My favorite one is the STORM).

MY COMPANY

MTV Switch

It's a whole new approach to environmentalism, aimed at teens.

sensibility is on eyes; eye contact with others, with the camera
movement from light to darkness

key words:

• beauty- white, red
  
• darkness- dark blue, black
  
• fresh - light yellow, Feng Shui, green

Idea of acceptance of a challenge in spite of it's difficulty

Slogan:
Time's UP

5 Blogs

Blog articles
Felix:

1. Salomon RS7
2. Cell Phone
3. You dont mess with the Zohan
4. Q5
5. Blackberry
6. Adidas Adi Pure
7. The New Macbook
8. Cell Phone with Only calls
9. BMW X6
10. Nike's Mercurial Vapor Super Lite

Adrian:

1. Bose Headphones review
2. Poop
3. The Apple user Interface
4. The Bic pen
5. Iphone User Friendliness

Sakkti:

1. The Google Phone
2. The Apple Logo
   
3. Graphic Design Using Color
   
4. Google Chrome
   
5. First look at Windows 7's User Interface
6. The New Apple Macbook
   
7. Ipod Case
8. How to edit Photos Efficiently
   
9. The Design Environment

Hongjin:

1. Writing well for the web
2. Deadly website sins that will kill your Buisness
3. Color Symbolism
4. Getting attention with your site design
5. Shape- basic elements of design
6. color Harmony
   
7. what is emphasis in design
8. what is balance in design

Thomas:

1. Making logos
   
2. BMW M1
3. Making Web page
4. Not what to do in a Web page
5. Color coding with text

The Most interesting articles were:

• Felix's article- "Blackberry Storm" is a really cool phone; its sleek, better than the iphone, and has a battery life of 15 days!
• Sakkti's article- "The Design Environment" It was pretty new to me that the design environment affects the designs (I cleaned my room after I read it).
• Adrian's article- "The Bic pen" It was really good to find out that the shape of the Bic pen and the whole design of it is logical. I just noticed how comfortable it is.
  

Article 9

http://graphicdesign.about.com/od/websitedesign/ss/website.htm

This article states the steps for web design. It says that you have 10 steps in designing a website; the ten steps are very important and if you follow all of them you will probably get a perfect website.
The steps are:

1. Research
2. Brainstorming
3. Decide on Technical Requirements
4. Write an Outline
5. Create Wireframes
6. Design the Website
7. Build Web Pages
8. Develop the Website
9. Promote the Website
10. Keep it Fresh

Logos

Logos are used to represent the company's ideas. This logo has a mixture of opposite colors which are blue and orange. The blue represents the water that the galaxy crop is looking for and the orange is used to represent the sun and creativity. The company's aim is to rich the sun and to find water on other planets so we will have more space to live on.

color's meanings

RED: DANGER WILL ROBINSON! Energetic
BLUE: good fortune, wisdom
WHITE: Angels, spirituality
BLACK: Cool, death, sexuality
GREEN: Money, fertility, growth
YELLOW: Hope, intelligence, light
ORANGE: warmth, energy, creativity, the sun

Smiley face

article 8

http://www.logobee.com/article1.htm

This article explains whats branding is and how you can do it better. It explains that if the design is easier than it is much easier for the eye to understand it.

Colors on the web

Colors

• Color is the perceptual characteristic of light described by a color name. Specifically, color is light, and light is composed of many colors.
• A color wheel (also referred to as a color circle) is a visual representation of colors arranged according to their chromatic relationship.
• Colors that are across from each other on the color wheel have a relationship.
• The more object is contrasts the more its visible to the eye.
• Contrast can be formed by dark and light objects or by related colors with thick different colors.
• The color with the largest proportional area is the dominant color (the ground).
• Different values of the same color gives you shades.

article 7

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/whitespace

This article explains the value of white space. The white space can be called the negative space. This article explains that the white space in a picture is good. He actually says that the principle of proximity is right and free space is a good thing because it attracts the eye.

article 6

http://graphicdesign.about.com/od/elementsofgooddesign/tp/elements.htm

This article is stating the basic elements of graphic design. The article gives a brief summary for each one of the elements and it gives you links for more information about each element.

Rationale

Massimo Vignelli is one of the greatest designers in the whole world. Massimo’s style is not constant so I just took some points from three or four designs and made a poster in this style. Massimo designs furniture, maps, posters, products, packaging, logos, and Architecture. His favorite color is black and you can easily see it because in each one of his designs he has at least one object in black. He is using Alignment and proximity quite a lot and you can easily see it because of the white space that he is leaving and the way he groups objects. In some of his designs he is also using contrast. My poster is based on the “knoll” poster; I used the whole idea of mixing letters in different colors and different sizes to get a word reflected. So I wrote his first name with this style; and than I took the last name and put it over the double m and the o where it could easily be seen. Because when you look at the poster your eye will finish its first round at the double m and the o; so if u put the last name there you wouldn’t miss it. In the past he designed Helvetica and introduced it to America; and that is why I used the Helvetica font.I put the main writing paragraph behind the big M letter in blue because that's what he did on his "Knoll" poster.I put just half of the letter o at the end because your eye is completing it by itself. I believe that using the font he designed in poster in his style will be the right thing to do.

article 5

http://www.bluemoonwebdesign.com/art-lessons-5.asp

This article is telling us to keep the design simple. Simple design attracts the eye and make the design much easier to understand. There are examples on the website.

Article 4

http://www.bluemoonwebdesign.com/art-lessons-8.asp

This article is telling us about space. It says that a good design supposed to have a lot of space. Dont be frightened of space. Space is usually bold the object that you are focusing on. There are two different kinds of spaces, the negative space and the positive space. Positive space is the actual object and the negative space is what around it.

5 Photos of Fonts

Movie Notes

Helvetica used in brand names LOGO (typeface is a part of branding, branding is projecting a quality)
Used in street signs
Readability
Simple
Uniformity
Spacing more important the font itself
Modern sans serif
Overused/Ubiquitous/White Noise
Negative qualities- too corporate, too institutional

CREATING A FONT-
Hop hnu pqd
Build on letters by making words
Horizontal slicing off of the terminals (aspect of helvitica)
Metlife, Greyhound, de Bijenkorf, SEARS, Jeep, BMW, Toyota, aprilia, Kawasaki, Target, Nestle, Verizon, MUJI, Energiser, JCPenney, Staples.
Coca-cola rebranded itself with Coke using Helvetica.
Helvetica gives a sense of transparency.
Rather than being authoritarian bureaucratic and oppressive they seem more accessible, transparent, and accountable.
Fonts give a tone
A real type face needs rhythm and contrast (Helvetica has neither)
Arial is a clone of Helvetica. Times new roman is a serif
Helvetica needs too much white space and the letters look all the same.

AVANT GARDE
Counter culture movement of 1960s is act of rebellion from the children of the modernists. Movement back to hand drawn fonts.
Modernism: Functionalism, Utilitarianism, Objectivist, Simple, Clean, its really Subversive.
Post Modern: Subjectivist, Free form, Chaotic, Complicated
Michael C Place- build new modernist

Article 3

http://www.bluemoonwebdesign.com/art-lessons-6.asp

This article is talking about contrast. Contrast is very important because it catches the eye. You can gain contrast by using size, shape, color, etc. Contrast happens when there is a difference between two close elements. The greatest the difference is the greatest the contrast is.

Fonts Catgories

There are six main font's categories:
Oldstyle, modern, slab serif, sans serif, script, and decorative.
The best fonts are the one that attracts the eye.

Old style:





Modern:






Slab Serif:






Sans Serif:






Script:







Decorative:

My Favorite Font

My favorite font is the one that they are using on "STAR WARS".

I guess that this font will fit in the modern fonts category.

Chapter 8

Font

• Most of the time you have more than one font on your document.
• Concordant is the whole idea of having the whole document in one font with the same size and weight.
• When fonts are conflicting they are similar but their visual attraction is not the same.
• You are using contract you are actually using different fonts.
• Conflict should be avoided.
  

2nd Article - Balance

http://www.bluemoonwebdesign.com/art-lessons-2.asp

This article is explaining how to balance your piece of design with a variety of ways. This article is giving some kind of examples like radical balance and vertical balance. When you are using balance on your design you will get a three dimensional effect on the piece. So than when you look at the design you will understand that in three dimensional the design will be balanced and not falling apart.

The final poster

This poster is perfect because I have used Contract and Repetition. I tried to use alignment and some proximity and I think that the poster is totally fine. The poster is catching the eye and I think that the design is good.

Design Article

Lesson #1: Introduction To The Principles of Good Design

The principles of good design are the tools used by an artist or desinger to create an effective composition or design. The principles are: balance, movement, repetition, emphasis, simplicity, contrast, proportion, space, and unity. The difference between a weak design and a strong one is completely dependant upon the artist's knowledge of the design principles and how well he/she applies them. We will take a look at each of these principles in a series of art lessons.

In the study of design we should note there is no longer a clear-cut line between fine art and applied art anymore. All art, whether it is Web design, industrial design, fine art, sculpture,commercial art, or graphic art, is subject to the same principles of good design. Graphic artists compose their designs and page layouts using the same design principles the fine artists use. Just as a fine artist arranges various components within a painting to create a pleasing composition, so it is with the graphic artist. The artist may use a vase of flowers, a bowl of fruit, or a figurine to design a lovely still life composition. The graphic artist will use headlines, bodies of text, photos, illustrations, and clipart images to compose a page or Web site.

The basis of all design is the arrangement of the elements of a work of art, using the design principles. It is the bringing together of various components into one area and arranging them in such a way as to create a composition, layout or design that is both unified and pleasing to look at. For example every artist whether they realize it or not is familiar with the elements of a composition. These are:

• Line - an actual or implied mark, path, mass, or edge, where length is dominant

• Form - the mass of the shapes

• Texture - the structure and minute molding of a surface (rough, smooth, etc.)

• Value - the degree of lightness or darkness of a given color

• Color - a pigment

• Shape - any flat area bound by line, value, or color

The elements are what the artist uses to create a composition. But it is HOW the artist brings these elements to together and arranges them upon the surface of a canvas that creates the composition. A design is the result of the application of the principles of design. [Please note that the use of the word design is synonymous with the words layout, composition, or work of art.]

The principles of design, sometimes referred to as the principles of organization are:

• Balance - a feeling of equality of weight, attention, or attraction of the various elements within the composition as a means of accomplishing unity

• Movement - the suggestion of action or direction, the path our eyes follow when we look at a work of art

• Repetition and rhythm - the act of repeating an element either regularly or irregularly resulting in a rhythm of the repeating elements

• Emphasis - the stress placed on a single area of a work or unifying visual theme

• Simplicity (a.k.a. visual economy) - the elimination of all non-essential elements or details to reveal the essence of a form

• Contrast - the difference between elements or the opposition to various elements

• Proportion - the relation of two things in size, number, amount, or degree

• Space - the interval or measurable distance between objects or forms (two dimensional or three dimensional)

• Unity - the relationship between the individual parts and the whole of a composition

Many artists use these principles more intuitively than intellectually but are nevertheless subconsciously aware of them and their impact upon a composition.

Good art always starts with an idea.

Before beginning any work of art every artist or designer needs to keep in mind that every composition starts with an idea. To use the design principles effectively it is necessary that the artist have an idea to express or an objective in mind. This is vital to the success of any art work. Without an objective, the most conscientious attention to balance, movement, emphasis, contrast, proportion, and space to create a unified composition, will result in uninteresting work. With an idea, however, even though the principles may be forgotten and used intuitively, a beautiful composition may emerge. Every artist's goal should be to create a composition that is both unified and interesting to look at.

This Design article is stating the major principles of design. It states that the most basic thing in design is to put everything in the right place, which is quite right because if you are just throwing staff into your poster/ website in a disorganized way; you will lose the eye attraction. A good design is based on the major design principles. We have only studied Contrast, Alignment, Repetition and Proximity but there are much more. This first article which is an introduction of other articles states movement, repetition, emphasis, balance, simplicity, contrast, proportion, and unity. So we have much more to study about the design principles. The other important and last thing that the article says is that every design starts with idea. This is right because you need an idea of how the design will look like before you are starting on designing it.

Chapter 6

Review

• Don't be a wimp
• Don't be afraid of blank space
• Don't be afraid of size
• It is fine to steal others ideas
  

Poster according to contrast

On this poster I have been playing with the titles. And by doing that the text and the main elements in the poster are looking different. The titles are in bold so it will attract your eyes first.

chapter 5

Contrast

• It must be strong
• If two elements are not exactly the same that makes them different.
• Don't be a wimp
  

chapter 5

What am I going to need in my company

• LOGO
• Business card
• Website
• Banners
• Notes
• Fax sheets
• stationary
• Front Desk piece
• memos
  

Poster according to Repetition

The design is working in the right rules of repetition. Because the font and the bold are repeating.

Chapter 4

Repetition

• Repeat some aspect of the design through the whole piece.
• The repeating object can be font, color, size or design element.
• Repeating forms are catching the eye.
• Don't do too much repetition.

Poster according to Alignment

I have just moved the logo to the bottom right corner of the page. I took the titles and the text to the top left corner. And by doing these I have an invisible line right in the middle of the text, which is what alignment is all about. Having an invisible line that connects all the visual objects.

Chapter 3

Alignment

• Everything on the page should have a connection.
• The objects should have a visual connection.
• Organize your page.
• Invisible line that connects everything.
• If you put one text in the left side you better put all the text in the left side.
• You can put one part of the text in the right and the other on the left, because their will be an invisible line in the middle.
• You can sometimes break Alignment but you have to do it consciously.
  

Poster according to proximity

I made my poster look like this because the old design filled most of the space but than on this one; I took the Wikipedia logo down to the Wikipedia title. I made the wiki chip title smaller and putted it under the Wikipedia title and that gave me more space. Which is what proximity is all about.

Chapter 2

Proximity

• Don't use all the space. Empty space is not bad.
• When things are related, they should be physically close to each other on your paper.
• When things are not related they need to be away from each other.
• Put things in order.
• The basic purpose of proximity is to organize.

Chapter 1

Chapter one tells us about the four basic design principles-

• Contrast- the idea is not to put objects that are similar
  
• Repetition- repeat some shapes or colors it will catch people's eyes
• Alignment- connection between the objects on the page
• Proximity- Items that are related should be close to each other
  

poster

Graphic Design

1. How would you define graphic design or Design? When did it start?

• Graphic design is when you design logo or something else that will be understandable by must people. For example the train sign, everyone understand what the train sign means. Graphic design can be used for brands, Trademarks etc. The graphic design have started in the 15th century in Italy.

2. How would you define Technology?

• Technology is a branch that deals with our daily problems and trying to find solutions that will make our life easier. The technology always needs fit the function.
  

3. What would you say is the relationship between Design and Technology? How have they evolved together over time? Are they one and the same?

• Design and Technology are pretty much related to each other because you always need to design the technology so it will fit its function and you can always use technology to design your new tech. After people have designed the computer they had started to do graphic design on the computer which I think was much faster and easier. So technology and design are connected to each other because you need design for technology and you need technology for design.

4. How has your perception of design changed after reading those articles?

• Kind of, I started to understand that technology is an important of the design. And the design is an important part of the technology.

	Research method	Design process
Preparation for research	Literature review	Study historic and contemporary examples, media
Information gathering. Goal: to limit variables and identify problem	Collection of preliminary field data	Experimentation with materials and visual ideas
Identification of problem and hypothesis	Information correlated; problem defined; educated guesses made; hypotheses stated; research design prepared	Design problem identified through visual analysis and recognition
Exposition of facts and interpretation	Research plan is carried out; results are analyzed, plan is modified as necessary based on results; experiments are replicated	Work is created in a series, with each work suggesting problems to explore in subsequent work
Presentation of results and findings	Publication of findings	Exhibition of work or production of design

School's design

Our school have used different kinds of design principle,; one of them is that the building will be transparent with open spaces and a lot of light. I believe that the school have reached this goal because they does have a lot of light in the building which comes from the huge windows that you have every 10 meters. There is a lot of space in school which is good because than you will have more space to walk around the school. The big windows are good because than you will have a lot of light and you will use the electricity less. I think that they have reached the goal.

The videos

After watching the videos, I will explain why those videos shows a great design.
The first video is talking about London's underground. London's Underground map was very revolutionary, because it hasn't been designed in a geographical way. At first they had this messy map, because they have designed by a geographical way. They showed the distance between the stations and it looked very complicated. After a lot of tryouts they got a map without distance. The most updated map had only the stations. It also following the design principle of "form follows function".
The second video is talking about a new design of furniture. Around the 1950 the world has found out that they can use another materials for design for example plastic. By using new materials the designers could design new shapes and patterns. It is a great design because it never got changed.

My company

My company is B190. B190 is a company that works on a computer's design and software. The B190 is working on a computers that will be used in space. They are working on the computers of the future. Which means a lot of cool designs so it will be easy to use in space. They also design useful programs for astronauts. I will like to design their website, blog, software and probably everything.

Pre Course Survey

Questions

1. Describe some of the large design technology projects or assignments you have done in the past? (Products made such as posters, movies, web page; the software you used; and the steps in the process like planning, editing, evaluation, research) 

* In The past I have made some posters on the computer by photoshop CS3 or Publisher. I also made a lot of movies for different family events. For movies I usually used media maker and DVD maker. I had a website before I did the regular staff, and I  know how to play with html (a little bit). I also made brochures and different signs for different schools. And lastly I made some signatures to different people on the web. I am usually planning my work on a sheet of paper. I just right what I want and how it should look like and than I am just going for it. Before I start working I usually do some research on the subject.

2. What would you like or what are you hoping to learn about in this course and what prompted you to sign up?

 

* When I have signed up for this course I hoped that we are going to study about html and photoshop. I want to study javascript and flash and I thought that this course will be a good place to study it. I hope that we will study how to build a site by using html and scripts.

Design principles

Form follows function

In the late 1910s two principles of design were adopted by the Bauhaus (major school of modern architectural design developed in Germany). Those two principles were "form follows function" and "ornament is a crime". The industrial design in America has been during the years 1925 to 1939. Companies can have a lot of problems with the first principle because it is not easy to fit every design to its function. The design needs to be accepted by the people; if the design is not accepted than it won't be sold. The second principle isn’t always right because in architecture ornamentation is part of the function. The function of the design decides its form.

The computer's Mouse

On the article it says that there are two different design principles that are being used today. One of them is the "form follows function" principle which is clearly used in the mouse's design. The computer mouse should give you the ability to control the computer in the most comfortable way; which is why its design fits to your hand. The mouse design is like half egg; which is very comfortable to move and use. The other principle of design is "Ornament is a crime", which is quite right in the computer mouse. There are hundreds of mouse designs that have a lot of ornament on them. But most of the people doesn’t use them. It is very hard to fit design to its function. For example the tablet's mouse, its function is to be handy, small, and easy to use. The design of the tablet's mouse fits only to the first two principles. The tablet's mouse is not that easy and comfortable to use. So we can see that it is not easy to fit design to its function/s.

Great design

Great design 1

The design needs to be understandable by most of the people. Most of the things that are considered as good design are not always so good (too complicated).
Designs are not always fit to their needs. Designs are not so easy to use all the time.

Great design 2

It is hard to fit a design to its need.
The really important thing in design is to make the object very cheap. Good design adds value to an object. A good design is the most important feature in an object. It is not easy to design different objects; there are a lot of needs.

Great design 3

A great design should be famous.
When an object has a good design and it is suitable to the user’s need, the more people will buy it. A very important thing in design is usability. The usability is a very important thing in design but it is not everything.

The Computer's mouse design

In article one it says that the design needs to be easy to use and the computer’s mouse is very easy to use. You got only two buttons on it, left button and right button. In some computer’s mouse you have a roll button in the middle, which is very easy to use you just roll it.
In article 2 it says that the design should be cheap and most of the mousses are pretty cheap. The cheapest mouse will cost around 10 franks while a good mouse will cost about 50 franks. A good mouse will cost more because its design and its usability will be better. Just as it says on the second article that design gives more value to an object.
In article 3 it says that the design needs to have a good usability and this mouse has it. This mouse is very usability because it is small so you can put it in your pocket and connect it into a regular USB port. It also says that the object needs to have a famous design; and the mouse has a very famous design, everyone knows how it looks like.