Crafting a Brand Identity

I've got enough ideas at the moment to keep myself busy prototyping, and after meeting with Cynthia we determined the best thing for me to do today was focus on crafting the overall packaging that my projects will live in. Doing so now would also provide me a means of presenting them in a larger context tomorrow at the small Web Ecology symposium that's being held in Brooklyn. The logical direction seemed to be presenting my projects as the initial suite of a web development company. To that end, I've come up with 2 different marketing concepts and tag lines. I also have been doing extensive domain name investigations using domainr, which is an awesome tool for finding clever domain names. I Let me know which name and/or idea you prefer!

 

irratio.nl - Making the Internet unpredictable since 1265433808*

So this idea focuses on the fact that Americans are leading increasingly digital lives, and in doing so, ceding more and more control to computers. As designed, the Internet celebrates the logical prowess of the machine through structured and predictable experiences. This is evident in the way Captcha's are designed, URL shortening services, and even the "404" and other cryptic error messages we get back from websites. Instead of treating human behavior like a bug or virus that needs to be purged, we should celebrate what makes us unique, both good and bad. If humans are a little irrational, shouldn't the web be too? Irratio.nl seizes control of the web from our logical overlords by creating experiences that have are unpredictable, illogical, and irrational - just like people.

 

fix.it - Building technologies that make people more human, not less

Do you habitually take photos to immediately post on Facebook? Let your Twitter followers know how slow your work day is going? Check in on Foursquare every time you hit the town? If the answer to any of those questions is yes, then you are feeding the Internet's obsession with metadata. Our increasingly digital lives are causing psychological changes that most of us aren't even aware are taking place. If the Internet continues to be designed and used from a machine-centered point of view, we risk becoming increasingly machine-like ourselves. Fix.it looks to solve our growing problem by designing online technologies that focus on what makes humans unique - our capacity for irrational and unpredictable behavior.

 

As you can see, both ideas are still rough right now and need to be fleshed out further. I'll likely present the top one since I think it's the stronger of the two at the moment. My goals for tomorrow are to get some concept feedback and ideas from my fellow Web Ecologists while spending some time working on further prototyping. Any and all feedback would be appreciated, thanks!

 

*Note: Those numbers are the Unix timestamp of the current time. I thought it'd be a nice geeky touch.


 

a lot and also nothing

today I spent a lot of time thinking about things and doing some research, but i didn't end up actually doing anything tangible.

I found a fleamarket that's open tomorrow near me that's supposed to be pretty good where I can hopefully get a megaphone or loudspeaker for my twitter project. I also watched the pbs digital nation documentary. The documentary was pretty interesting although they seemed to spend most of their time focusing on stuff that wasn't so relevant to my project. I thought some of the stuff on virtual worlds was really interesting (where they interviewed the second life creator). I thought that they hold their meetings in the virtual space was pretty interesting, especially that the people having meetings in virtual spaces felt like moving from sitting at a table to sitting at some other table. That particularly seemed a little strange in a business environment. none of this really drove me towards a new project though.

later in the day I went downstairs to talk to a painter friend about where how to go forward, and I realized that all of the pushing that seems to be going on at parsons is trying to turn me into a really good artist through a structure, and I think this is where a lot of my frustrations with the system have come from. I feel like everyone keeps telling me different ways to go forward, but what i really think i need to do is just keep making these random things that come to me, and analyzing them, and seeing what happens. I know its inconvenient for thesis, but at this point it seems like doing these small experimental projects has led to a lot of opportunities, and has helped me a grow a lot both in terms of what I can do as well as how I understand what I want to do. I don't think that by trying to change my process overtly I'll get anywhere, since I don't even know what I would change, but by organically working through my process and letting it change itself I will hopefully arrive somewhere awesome. I guess its a hit or miss attempt, but I really don't know how else to approach this.

I started thinking about using internet data going through a router to drive a performance, so I started looking up how to monitor my own network data as well as how to hack and monitor router network data. I don't really know how I'm going to use it yet, but it seems somewhat interesting and at least a direction to go in. I know there have been some projects using this before (ping body comes to mind: http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/pingbody/index.html ), but i still want to investigate it anyway.

I have a terminal command running and monitoring my own http traffic and I have a little bit of ideas on how to montior all router traffic so things are progressing well. I also have an idea on how to get this into c++ but I haven't tried it yet so who knows if it will work. at the very least I have a few options.

anyway, thats what I did today. a little work and a few hours of thinking. things are going well I think. I feel like I have a very clear head on where parsons wants me to be going and where I want to be going and maybe a way to get there.


-zach

rough prototype of an dynamic earring structure

I spent some time expanding the scope of the mesh library in processing and finding out what its limitations are. I think I want to spend more time with it and figure out what's going on with the Voronoi duals to these triangulated shapes. I had an image in my mind of a simple earring that I might make that would be one such interpretation of these Delaunay triangulation forms. I was interested in seeing how it would move in 3D. It has quite lovely movement, but the prototype itself is a bit janky, as you can see. I think, however, if i were to create this piece in a more brittle metal, that it would look much better, much less malleable. - klee

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What I want/need to visualize

Today I am thinking/planning exactly what I need to come up with visualizations for. I am excited about the vis that i posted the other day, but I want to continue along this path and create a series of these addressing different game aspects before I commit to a couple and carry them out with full interactivity.

First I began by trying to break down what I have and what I can visualize. After considering all aspects of data, I think that my focus will be on visualizing seasons and games. Seasons will be a macro view of 152 games, while individual games will be a micro view of every event that makes up a season. In this regard I am addressing four levels of data:

Season View:
The season overall
The season day to day

Game View:
A game overall
A game pitch by pitch

Within a season view, here are some of the things I would like to show/have thought of:
- Linear progression towards a final record (wins positive, losses negative) showing winning/losing streaks through the season (April to October)
- Home vs Away performace. Did a team play better significantly at home or away? This could be shown in a number of ways and will be interesting to explore.
- Travel. I'd love to explore how a team travelled throughout the season. This has really great visualization potential, and honestly would really interest me to see just how much they are really traveling. Its easy to watch a game on tv and take for granted the amount of actual travel it takes to play games all over the united states over almost 6 full months of basebell, not includign the playoffs.- Standings. Where does that team stand compared to other teams in their division or in the wild card race at any given moment in the season? This would be great to show the actual races that teams were involved in rather than just if they won or lost. This could probably be combined wtih the first vis. Interactivity would be great as well in this vis.
- Stats. Where does the team stand in relation to the rest of the league in stats like Batting Average, On Base Percentage, ERA, etc etc. This would be interesting to see, as these stats are traditionally talked about in terms of players rather than team averages. This would also be another view that would be very interesting to see change over the course of a season.

Here are individual game visualizations I'd like to tackle in some way:
- Continue with showing overall view of full game
- Player rankings in different categories, both combined and per team, showing who performed best and who performed worst.- Pitching views. This I need to really explore, so far I have concentrated more on the viewpoint of the batter, I wonder how different it would be if I switch to the viewpoint of the pitcher. I think that this could be a much more focused, simplified vis that offers a wealth of data. Also could make for a very interesting audio experience if played out.
- Batting Positions vs innings. The vis I posted earlier shows this but I think it would be interesting to explore the patterns that this could be represented by a bit further.
I think this is everything I can come up with right now, I thought today would be good to do a great brain dump since I don't have a lot of time to commit to more intricate graphics work, and I needed to do this anyways. Just putting these down and getting going has allowed me to come up with a lot of things I haven't considered to this point, so I think that it was pretty successful. I could probably come up with more but I think that this list is more than enough to keep me busy for a bit. I'll have to think of how I could express each of these and continue from there in the next coming days. I think tomorrow I will do sketches for each and see where they lead. I also would like to begin to think in terms of expanding this data beyond the screen to a more physical representation, and what this could mean for my thesis.
OK I think thats it, if you read this far all the way through I'm sorry this is more of a conversation with myself than anything else but it helps me a lot.

-Steve

Day 3 - Branding Strategy and Naming Study

I spent yesterday researching names for my thesis (working title: Boca Loca "Crazy Mouth", Boca Local), browsing through my design book collection (Los Logos, Dos Logos, GH, Japanese Graphics Now, etc.). I didn't want to proceed any further without first deciding on a name and buying the domain. I wanted a simple name, not too long, and not too direct. Successful Web 2.0 sites have names that reflect their products without being obvious: Yelp, Flickr, Tumblr, Twitter, Loopt.

A lot of the names I wanted are of course being hawked over by speculators in hope they can sell the name for a ridiculous amount of money. After several emails to owners of domain names like bocalocal.com, obento.com, bnto.com - I've come to the conclusion that buying parked domains can be expensive. My failed attempt at stating that I am a poor grad student, wanting the domain for my thesis and only can spend $100, only to receive an email telling me the domain will cost me $20,000 only discouraged me even more. Yes, you read it right, obento.com is selling for $20,000. Even if I were a millionaire, I wouldn't spend that much on a domain name. I prefer a ".com" since dot coms are pretty much the standard, equivalent to DJing on Technics 1200's turntables. Before popular bookmark sharing site "delicious" was bought out by mega corporation Yahoo!, the domain name was del.icio.us (.us extension). Obviously Yahoo! could afford delicious.com.

So, to sum it up, I wanted an easy name to remember, something short, something related to eating, fresh, something multicultural. Boca (mouth in Spanish), Bento or Obento (lunch box Moms in Japan pack for their kids), Menta (Minty in Spanish - represents a fresh feeling).

Here are some domains that I have narrowed it down to:

mybento.com (a sense of ownership. good or not good?)
obnto.com (not sure if this works. It mimics names like Flickr, Tumblr)
bentoz.com (plural for bentos except with a Z since bentos.com is taken)
ben.to (a Tongan website!)
bentoboca.com (bocabento.com is taken)
mentabento.com (fresh lunch box - a mix of spanish and japanese. how multicultural we are in the US of A)

Any feedback on which name is your favourite is greatly appreciated. Please vote for your favourite name: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/H3RSL56

The photos below are some screen caps of different domains that are parked and also logos from various companies.

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new research

I went to kickstarter.com's open house today to practice pitching Converso.  It was a great learning experience and definitely motivated me to do some additional research.  I wanted to make the larger purpose of Converso clear, which is to motivate students to continue studying their target language.      

Converso - Refining my argument

Converso is a supplement to the college language class.  It’s main goal is to motivate students to continue studying their target language.  It accomplishes this by providing students with connections to native speaking peers and contextualizing their learning.  In Bilingualism, Multiculturalism, and Second Language Learning, Prof. Wallace E. Lambert concludes that “...perceived motivational support from the other language community was an important determinant of second-language achievement, often more so than individual motivation.”  This extra motivation could be a key component in the retention of students.  In Converso students become part of a larger language learning community that supports each other with individual attention and personal connections.  

I then took some time to research popular course management systems to see if it would be appropriate to build a module.  

Response to Cynthia’s comment

Converso is not a course management tool.  There are a number of course management systems currently being used by major universities. ANGEL Learning Management, Blackboard, WebCT, Desire2Learn, eFront, Moodle, Sakai, WebStudy,  Claroline, ATutor, TeleTOP, and Scholar360 are the ones that seem to be most widely used.  Every university has their own course management system in place and it isn’t always online.  Every teacher also has their own unique system so it would be unnecessary for Converso to have cms components.  If I were to develop a module or plugin for the existing course management system I would have to develop one for every type of system as well as something accessible to those that don’t have a CMS at all.  I think the most rational way to begin is to create something separate that everyone can access and then later once the community has been established add ways to integrate it with a CMS.    

Converso is an exclusive network.  In order to keep the outside learning experience consistent with what is learned inside the classroom students will have to use a standard form of their language.  For example a student learning Spanish in Minnesota might have a difficult time understanding a student from a remote part of Chile.  The abbreviated or heavily accented Spanish could end up being demotivating for the student.  Substantial learning requires some structure and consistency, and Converso will provide it.  

Good night,

Hilary

Day 3: Cyclical Shirt (paper prototype)

Conceptual Framework and Research:

The insulin pod that I use has to be changed and re-located every 3 days. Because of this, I think my existing shirt prototypes from last semester present a problem. I have been thinking of clothing that is modular and after a few different ideas/sketches I decided to do a paper prototype of one idea. I have the idea of creating a shirt that has 4 circles cut out in locations that the pod would normally be placed around the abdomen and lower back area (2 in the front, 2 in the back). The shirt would come with 8 patches (one set in see-through mesh/one set in the same solid shirt material). The patches could attach to the shirt with velcro, snaps, or zippers.

Imagery:

The patches would have imagery that referenced cyclical events such as the 4 seasons, 4 ages of man, lifecycles (such as that of a frog). As the pump moves around, the imagery could as well. In this particular prototype I used animals that symbolize the four seasons. Spring = Lamb / Summer = Lion / Autumn = Hare / Winter = Salamander. I'm interested in time-based references both in the interactivity of the garment and the images.

What I made so far:
Paper prototypes of a modular shirt.

Problems:

Obviously this is not a shirt that could be worn days on end. Unless you want to smell bad and have no friends. Maybe I should make a shirt that has interchangable arm-pit parts so it would be like a new shirt every day! Just kidding...or am I onto something GENIUS?! I'm tired.

Steps forward:

In the process of making this I started to think about the potential for the imagery to help diabetics remember which day they are on in their site-cycle. Some insulin pumps do not have alarms/reminders for when it is time to change the site. Changing the pump site is important for hygienic purposes and preventing scar tissue build up. The pump I was on before this one did not remind me of when to change it and sometimes I would forget - - going many more days without changing the site.

If there was a familiar life cycle (such as that of a frog - - eggs / tadpole / frog) that could be switched out perhaps that could help educate and remind in a visual way.

I don't know if any of this makes sense...I'm still working it out in my head. Sorry if its confusing.

Also, I started my sewing class today!

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Some interface designs

Today I concentrated on my project overall, and where I want it to go overall. My basic working concept is an interface that visualizes baseball data in a number of different ways and allows fans to dissect all aspects of a team's season and games. In this respect I'm also hoping to create an API for the data that I have collected which will allow others to access this data easily and create visualizations or applications of their own.
I started to plan out my interface a bit further, and I also wanted to get into laying out some stuff in Photoshop rather than just sketching it or doing wireframes. I find doing stuff like this for me is a bit of a downhill slope, once I get a few things going I have a much easier time diving into it and getting things accomplished. These are some of the initial layouts I got going, these are in no way what i would consider good, but they are what i consider a good start that needs a lot of work. I also need to start thinking more about an identity/logo for this project, I may get into this tomorrow. I have been using the working title "Score" and it has grown on me, so I think I will continue with this.

-Steve

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