Cybernetic Self - Formative Assessment Response #1

This is my responses to my one of the feedbacks I received from my formative assessment which was to design the poster of the prize/challenge that will be placed at the back of the final product.

My target audience is 5-10 years old so the tone I wanted to convey was playful and friendly.I thought of achieving that by creating a happy character with a common name, something that the young viewer can connect with.

I tried to make the character appropriate enough for 5-10 year olds and not too childish because I don't want the poster design to make the viewer think they are too childish. The character is smiling to give off the friendly feeling to the viewer.

The things he says in the speech bubble is meant to motivate the reader,make them feel empowered and feel good about themselves like when he's asking "are you a winner?" and replies with "ofcourse you are", he'scalling the child a winner which motivates them to enter the competition and makes them think that they have a chance to win.

I tried to use as much colours as I could for the poster without being too much so the poster doesn't look dull.

The paper size for this poster is A4 because it's big enough to fit all of the information and at the same time, big enough for the text to be seen easily so the children can read it.

I started off with the 'win a prize' part because the main point behind this poster is that there's something that can be won, I made the text big because of that reason so it attracts the viewer's eye immediately and it's something that will interest the reader. The type of the text is called Blockhead, it looks like it has been drawn on which goes with the idea of the viewer having to draw for themselves as well.
The second type used in this poster is called Futura Book, I chose this because it's playful, not serious, easy to read because it's light and I can fit a lot in a short space without seeming big and busy.

Going back to the character, I added a speech bubble and made it look like the character is talking directly to the reader which makes it feel personal.

I added some sort of step by step guide of what to do which can be done in 3 simple steps like draw, colour and send. It's just some extra information that could help the child reading it understand what to do. I tried to make the competition look as simple as possible because I felt like if the competition was complicated or very time consuming, the child would be put off and lose interest very quickly, by displaying that it can be done in three simple steps with simple being the key word, it would encourage the child to enter the competition because it looks easy to do.
I combined imagery with text to display the step by step guide because I felt like a child would understand the imagery more than if it was just text and it's easy to understand which is a bonus.

Cybernetic Self / Process and Production feedback - Formative Assessment

31/10/2016 - Sara

Cybernetic Self

- Design the poster of the challenge/prize that will be placed at the back of the final product.

- Publish/print one of the zines I created to make it look neat and professional.

- Out of the two narrative zines, the 'interaction' story was most liked, use that as my go to narrative.

- Maybe create more narrative like a zine?

- The size of the zine was appreciated - better than having it big because it's easy to hold and can be placed in pockets easier.

- The hand drawn narratives was liked more than the digital version of it.

- Create/re-design a better version of the current phone prototype.


Process and Production

- Make the thumbnails of my designs bigger. I want the viewers to take notice of my work.

- Make more references in my spare time by looking at what other designers are doing and link it to what I'm doing in process and production.

Final Design #2

These are images of the prototype that I have created by hand. I'm showing the front and back of it, as well as the inside and what it looks like with the story strip inside it.

This is just a prototype that I am presenting as an example, it's not the final product which is why it is not in great condition, I still think there's alot of work that can go into it.

This was created out of  480 gsm paper because I wanted something strong that didn't bend easily when I was making it and doesn't lose its shape when holding it.

The size of it was inspired by my own phone, Sony Xperia M4, only because it was the only physical phone I had on me that I could draw around.

The back of the product can be taken off, the reason behind that is the story strip can be placed inside the product easier and better than if the back was attached.

Final Design

I have gone with this design because I think it's a fun design, something I feel the young viewer would enjoy to explore.

I think my target audience would feel comfortable with this design because they are so used to holding phones in their hand, this would be something that they would enjoy holding because it comes naturally to them.

I have created a final design page with information about the product. I tried to include as much information as I can and tried to keep it as simple as possible so it would be easy for my viewers to understand how the design works.

I have included information like environmental issues, features etc because I have created it in a way that I'm going to present it to someone, for example, someone who is going to invest in it and I feel having those information is key.

Design Brief Sketches

After writing out my design brief, I have worked out what I'm going to do. My next step was to sketch out some designs that I could do to display my narrative. My idea was to create something that relates to technology because I feel like that would attract my viewer's attention since they are so used to using technology.

I thought of creating the narratives as a booklet in different shapes like an emoji or a text message. I thought of an emoji because they are popular at the moment, they are used a lot so the viewer would recognize them easily. I thought of a text message to represent me giving them a message like I'm stating a message and I want them to read it.

The other sketch is doing the narrative in a shape of a phone, I think I prefer that idea more than the other two because I'm trying to send a message that the viewers spend too much time on the phone so what better way to display my narrative as a phone, it feels like I'm taking the piss. What I like is that it would fit perfectly in a hand so it would feel natural to them and it would give them a sense of being on the phone without actually being on the phone which I feel like they will be more interested in it.

Cybernetic Self - Week 4

18/10/2016 - Lecture

This was a quick seminar. Basically we are in that stage of our project where we have to finalise our ideas.

We have to create a five page PDF which will contain any vital information relating to my project and that PDF will be shown in assessment. It's a small PDF which will mean I have to select what information I will include that best displays and explains my final idea.


Print v Digital

Design Problem/Brief

In response to my previous blog titled 'My next step - Feedback', where I spoke about what I will do next in my project after receiving feedback. I came up with creating a campaign with the narratives I have created to get kids to use less technology, from there, I have created a design problem and a brief in response to it.

I think creating a design brief will help me so I know what the problem is and made it clear for my viewers as well. I have stated my aim, how I will achieve my aim, target audience etc, I tried to think of every piece of information that I could think of to help me as much as possible. I am writing it out like I am presenting it to someone.

Cybernetic Self Development: Zine

I chose a narrative which I have developed further. I re-designed it on Illustrator which I will then compare it with the zine and see which style I prefer better for my final design.

This is the first draft of my narrative on Illustrator. I have created this by going over the zine on Illustrator by using the 'pen tool' and filling it in with colours.

I wanted to make it colourful and bold which is why I have used bold colours and used different primary colours together. I made it colourful because strong colours attract the attention of young viewers.

Since the look of the design is playful and loose, I wanted to use a typeface/font to represent that, the problem was I couldn't find any that satisfied me, in the end, I decided to create my own. I basically used the 'brush tool' on Illustrator and wrote the words free hand to give it that loose and 'wacky' look.

I gave it a title, 'interaction', so the viewer knows what it is about. I also included a little saying at the end as a way of me giving the reader a message, I'm trying to state something. I made it rhythm because when something rhythms, it's easier to remember.

My first opinion of it is that the black lines around each object and the writing is too thick and black, makes everything feel heavy so I could decrease the thickness slightly.

The colours of the characters, especially the character with the green top, kind of makes the characters fade into the background which isn't what I want, I want them to stand out so to solve that, I could change the colours of the background, make it lighter and make the characters darker.

This is my second draft of the narrative...

As you can see, I have made the background lighter and changed the colour of the top of the character on the right so he stands out more.

I have decreased the thickness of the lines which I feel has improved the design. I think the words can be seen better because I reduced the thickness of it.

My Next Step - Feedback

After I received my feedback from Tracy, I decided to evaluate my idea and think of what I can do next to develop the current idea I have. This is what I have came up with, I came up with various solutions of what I can do next.

When I received my feedback from Tracy, I immediately thought of creating three different narratives of the stories I have came up with but create a past and future one so I would have the same story so how technology has affected us but one would be staged in the past, present and future so it looks at the difference between them, I thought it was a nice idea but it didn't really answer the question, 'what am I trying to do? What is the point in what I'm doing?', it states a message but that's about it, I wanted my idea to be more than just stating a message.

Another solution I came up with was to create a campaign, initially, it was to get more people to become active but I thought it was too open, I had to narrow it down, I then thought of trying to get young viewers more connected with their inner child instead of them being obsessed over technology because they could become the people in the stories I made in the future. I could achieve it by getting them to make more stuff just like when I was little for prizes which would attract the attention of the young viewers, I'm still trying to think of stuff they could do which doesn't involve technology.

I like the idea of creating a campaign to get kids to use less technology because I have researched the effects it has on their social skills and development skills as they grow up and it could make them less social or their attention span could decrease even more.

For this to be successful, I will have to ask myself, Who is my target audience? be more specific with that, What is my aim? How am I going to achieve my aim? Those are questions that are important for me to answer. 

Amount of time the young viewers spend on devices - Research

For my research, I wanted to find out how much young viewers spend on devices to get an idea of the statistics behind it.

I came across this article that the BBC wrote which I think is very useful because not only it tells us how many hours children spend on the screen but it also compares it to how it used to be about 20 years ago. This is great because I'm trying to emphasize how technology has changed us, how we evolved with it and this article is a good example.

Reference

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32067158

Wakefield, J.W. (2015). Children spend six hours or more a day on screens. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32067158.

It says that in 1999, children aged 5 to 16 would spend an average of three hours in front a screen compared to 2015, where children would spend an average of 6 and a half hours in front of the screen. When it says screen, it represents TV, gaming consoles, mobile, tablet or computer.

I have designed a diagram to emphasize the difference between 1999 and 2015. This is on average the amount time spent in front of a screen in 1999 and 2015.

The teenage girls spent about 3 and a half hours in front of a screen in 1999 but in 2015, the time increased and it is reported that they now spend around seven and a half hours on average.

It is the same for young children as well, the time has increased but not that much, in 1999, they would spend on average two and a half hours but in 2015, it only increased by two hours. I do think the time will keep increasing though for the young children.

What is the reason behind the increase?

- We live in a world where we are surrounded by technology, more so than ever and there's an increase of devices since 1999 so it's hard for someone to not have at least one device since it's everywhere and affordable. 

Back in the day, magazines were the ways for a child to connect with the media but now, they can connect with the media in so many ways, more interesting than reading a magazine.

The article says that the internet gives the children more freedom in exploring their own interests, more so than the magazines did.

In conclusion, young viewers are spending their time behind a screen more than they did in the past but who can blame them, there weren't many devices back in the day and they weren't as affordable as they are now so it's easy to get sucked into using a technology device because there are so many options to choose from. Nowadays, technology will always beat a book or a magazine because it's more interesting, it requires less thought because unlike reading, you don't have to visualize what you are seeing and using technology is the easy way to communicate without any effort.

The effects technology has on the social skills of young viewers - Research

Reference

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/09/children-texting-technology-social-skills_n_1137570.html

Bindley, K.B. (2011). When children text all day, what happens to their social skills?. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/09/children-texting-technology-social-skills_n_1137570.html.


I came across this article by the Huffington Post which looks at the effects technology has on the social skills of young kids. There's a question that caught my eye which I thought was interesting to think about, "Will they be able to hold their own in conversation?" I thought this was interesting because we spend so much time communicating online but how does it affect our social skills in person or does it affect it at all?

The article states that many of us don't exercise our face to face socialization muscles as much as we did in the past, this could affect those who has to talk to strangers they have never spoke to before, would they know how to interact properly? Well, Melissa Ortega who is a child psychologist believes that "they don't know how to handle conflict face to face because so many things happen through some sort of technology." Conversation needs practice and kids who are dependent on technology will struggle to interact. Another thing that could affect them is to initiate conversations, since they are not used to it, they wouldn't know how to start a conversation.

Another part that I found interesting was the difference between speaking to someone on a device to speaking to them in person and the difference is big, for example, it's easier to read someone in person because you get to see their face, how they move, their eye contact and the pauses between the interaction which then you have to respond on your feet right away, it's more powerful and it stimulates the brain more than speaking to someone behind a screen, from that, you get to learn facial expressions and what to say, this is what is lacking when speaking to someone on a device.

Let's forget for a second on how kids are using technology and focus on why they are using it. Kids are using technology to soothe and entertain themselves, they have nothing to do at times so they turn their attention to technology instead of using their imagination to entertain themselves which what kids used to do in the past, that could have an impact on their creativity.

Research - Autopoiesis

Autopoiesis was one of the keys words given to me in this project so I decided to research it further because it's the one that really interests me because it's about self identity and how we created an identity using technology.

Below is a video where Paul Pangaro talks about cybernetics but also explains what autopoiesis is. This was helpful to me because it gave me a clear idea of what it is.

02:45 and onwards is the part where he specifically talks about autopoiesis.


Foundational principles of cybernetics from paul pangaro on Vimeo.

He talks about self-making, "I can make myself", he says that in biology, every living aspects of ourselves contributes into making us and all of the processes of what's going on makes who we are an the result of that is we have created an identity of ourselves that other people see. We have that idea we think we are autonomous but we still depend on each other because that's how we learn and we use what we learn to create our autonomous persona, that leads to having to socialize to learn from each other to be our identity. Everything combined equals to our culture, the way we interact and behave and how through language, we can exist in other people's lives.

It can be confusing at times but basically, when we socialize in person or online, we create our own identity each time, this is where technology comes in because most of us socialize online and it's how we learn from others and how it affects us as human beings. How we depend on socializing to learn is the same as how we depend on technology to learn aswell, to create our own identity. We can become one.

Cybernetic self - Week 3

11/10/2016 - Lecture

Rafa Alvarez - Distance

This was for a German article to celebrate skype's anniversary and their impact on relationship. This image could relate to those who get involved with a person without actually meeting them in person, how we only show the other person only what we want them to see and not the whole picture, incase they leave you for who you are.

I believe the middle part is pink to represent the feminine, that's where the room is tidy and has stuff like a teddy bear, the blue part is her masculine side where everything is dirty and messy. She could be embarrassed to show it because in society, we are taught to act our gender and society will make fun of us if we try to act like the opposite gender.

Next, we were shown a piece of work that KesselsKramer worked on for the Hans Brinker Budget Hotel which I thought was brilliant.

Who are KesselsKramer? 

- Kesse;sKramer was established in 1996. They are an independent agency in Amsterdam, London and Los Angeles with 50 people of 10 different nationalities.

The Hans Brinker Budget Hotel weren't doing so well so what they did was, they contacted KesselsKramer to help them find a way to get more people to check in, to makes things worse, the hotel standard was very low, how do you advertise a low standard hotel? Easy, play to your strengths, what KessesKraner did was they advertised it in a way that told people, this is what you will get (basically nothing) and showed people how bad the hotel is, they were as honest as they could have been. It was that bad, that it was good in a way.

Below is some of the examples of their work...

This advertisement was shown for a reason, which made it successful was the internet because it spread the news all over the world, it's such a powerful tool and since we're doing a Cybernetic Self project, we too can use the internet as a tool to spread our project but not only that, we can use it to spread our work to attract clients and show it to people who we want to work for like companies. This is some of the ways we can use the internet.

The next person we looked at was Anna Ahnborg. Her work looks at how perception is used online like how something is said or seen, how we use the internet or filters to change what we say, she achieved that by distorting and changing the words in a way that she's asking the viewer, "can you read it?"

The next person was someone I could relate to more called Joan Cornella. His video piece called 'Instaboobs', looks at how we're not always who we show on the internet and how people will go to some extremes by tricking people into getting likes because to them, likes are so important but he did it in a narrative type way which is something I am doing at the moment. This piece shows the dangers of the internet and he likes to look at the unnatural connection between human beings and social media. He's conveying a story and stating a message, I want to do that aswell.

His designs are simple, there's not much detail and it's mostly just bold colours with no shading or whatsoever. The facial expressions on the people is what I think works because it makes the viewer smile or chuckle because it's a weird look but it interests the viewer and makes them carry on watching because it has humor in it.

For my story to work, I need something that gets the viewer carry on reading or watching and I think a slight of humor in it would work, just like how Joan Cornella's work did.

Cybernetic Self Feedback

11/10/2016 - Studio Groups

In this week's group, we had to display to everyone what designs, sketches, experiments we had done so far as we are in that stage of our process.

For my work, I mostly spoke about my narrative idea and how technology has affected the way we live which I created a series of stories. Tracy's feedback to that was useful because she pointed out that I created an awareness of a problem but what exactly am I doing? What am I trying to do with it? These are some of the questions I need to answer to development my project further.

I thought to myself, I created a campaign but what's my point? What is my next step? I want everyone to be aware of how technology is controlling us, how it affects the different aspects of our lives. My next step would be maybe to look into the future and how we will be like if we continue to use it at the rate we are, what does the future hold for us? The beauty of this is that, none of us know how it will be like so I can create any scenario I wanted and make it as creative as I want but at the same time, not underlying the message.

The next idea I came up with was, I could create a series of past, present and future of technology and see the evolution of it but also, have abit of something for everyone as different people of different generations can relate like pre-internet people and post internet. Instead of creating it one after the other, I thought of displaying it at the same time, create three zines so one past, one present and one future with same characters, same scenario but different story and you would have to read it at the same time, so three different zines read at the same time if that makes sense, just to emphasize the evolution.

Cybernetic self Experiment #5 - Zine Development

I liked this idea of creating a narrative so much, I decided to create another story relating to this idea but this time, I'm looking at how it affected our interaction between each other.

The story behind it is a guy walking his dog, sees someone he knows and greets him but the other guy, instead of greeting back face to face, he decides to call him and talk to him through the phone. I chose this story because there's many people who can relate to this, people who rather talk to someone behind a screen rather than face to face or if they were out to dinner with friends, they rather spend their time on their phones than talk as a group.

This design is more focused towards teenagers, young adults because they are the ones more likely to relate to this story.

I added colour to this one beause the other one was in black and white so I added colour to contrast because I thought all these narratives I make could end up being a booklet so it's nice to have different styled designs instead of the same, keeps the viewer interested.

Cybernetic self Experiment #4 - Zine Developed

This design is about how technology has affected the way we interact and behave, this story specifically looks at the relationship side of life, I thought of a story that people can relate to so that the audience would connect with it on a personal level. I think this is a great way to point out any issues there are but do it in a way that the viewer can follow with ease.

The idea of doing it in a style of a story came from Tracy's feedback that I received from my studio group which I mentioned on my blog earlier. The style was inspired by 'Anti Social Man' by Aisha Madu, how everything is in black and white, lack of detail and simple drawing but it's so effective because the drawing doesn't distract the audience from the message behind the video and the writing on the screen.

I decided to create a zine to illustrate my story because I did it in 'Process and Production' and it was something I enjoyed doing but also, I think it's a great way to display a narrative because it's only a couple of pages so it's quick and easy to go through it, especially this one, I made it so little that it would be easy to carry around, easy to fit in anywhere and it would be easy to mass produce if needed.

The story behind it is when it comes to relationships, it feels like there are three people involved in the relationship, the couple and social media. We can use social media to see what other people are doing and that can affect how we feel because we can see things that we rather not which makes us feel bad, hence, the story, and the overuse of social media can affect our mentality, we start to fantasize things that aren't true or what could happen, that plays an effect on relationships.

Cybernetic self Experiment #3

This looks at the dangers online, I have already looked at the addiction side, I wanted to look at the other dangers that can occur with technology and online.

I want to help people who are probably less practical online and create awareness of the different dangers as they are unaware of it, not only that, the kid's age who start using technology is younger and younger so they are unaware of the dangers at first, these posters are basically a way to help the young audience to make them aware of the dangers and to help the parents understand aswell.

The message behind this design is beware who you talk to online which is actually a quote used on the poster, it's a message that's used alot which can get tiresome but it's a message that has to be repeated alot because it's a serious matter.

The design is an illustration that can be considered as 'immature', that's because the target audience is more for the younger generation, I don't want it to be serious and grown up, even though the message behind it is, I don't think the younger generation would take notice of it, if that design was like that.

The next step would be creating a male version of it so it doesn't just focus on one gender. Creating posters of different dangers of the internet would be ideal aswell.

Cybernetic self Experiment #2

This design is abut technology addiction, from my research, I looked at Paul Sheriff's series of posters where he combined serious addictions with technology and the effects it has on people of young age. My idea is similar but it's more for older people and people who are addicted or becoming addicted to technology, as a way of saying, you think you can stop at anytime and you think you are in control but in reality, you can't stop and you aren't in control. I feel like combining it with a serious addiction does emphasize that because both have the same mentality.

The idea behind this design is I'm using a poker hand to represent gambling addiction, I'm combining it with technology by including the different social medias and placing them on the cards with a quote at the bottom, I'm still undecided between the quotes I have in mind, it's between "You think you are playing the cards but they are playing you.", "You think you are calling the shots but you're not." and "The things you play, end up playing you.", the last one is inspired by the quote in the film, Fight Club, "The things you own, end up owning you." I believe it fits in well with the idea behind the design.

Cybernetic self Experiment #1

This was inspired by one of my ideas, how technology affects us, this one specifically looks at how it affects our mentality, the way we think.

The design idea behind this is basically when we are on the internet, we feel like we can become anyone and can achieve anything because of the power we posses online but when it comes to real life, that mentality kind of disappears because we don't have as much power as we do when we use technology.

This design is trying to convey that message of you can achieve anything you want in person to boost their confidence and motivate them because sometimes that's what they lack. I used career as an example to convey this message because I had teenagers in mind when I came up with this because of how much they use technology and how they are at that stage of their life where they have to choose a path which is very important to tell them that they can achieve anything and to boost their confidence.

To convey this message, I used a main character in a shape of a screw and underneath are different careers that they can get into and each is different so I'm not focused on one group of people, each person will have different personality which I have to keep in mind, some of more smarter than others and some are more creative than others.

The head is a screw and it can screw into the three careers with no problem because it's the idea of you can do anything you want and the idea of you can change your life if you're not happy in one career, you can screw into another one, it's that idea of power and being able to change and control your life in the same way as you can online. Don't let technology tell you what you can or can't do.

The whole poster is basically designs instead of text because from my research, I have learned that's more effective, people will absorb the design in more than text because it's easier.

Cybernetic self Research #3

This is another of my ideas, how some of us become so addicted to technology without knowing or how much we depend on technology, e.g. I challenge anyone to go a day without technology. We think we control technology but instead, they are controlling us.

To get an idea of how technology does affect us and what happens to us if we become addicted to it, I have gone on the internet to look at some articles relating to it, I have found one from The Telegraph, link below, it talks about how they did a study between people who are 'addicted' to technology and people who are addicted to drugs, what they found was that the withdrawal symptoms experienced by people without technology is similar to those felt by drug addicts. Four in five people had mental and physical distress, panic and confusion without a day of technology.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8436831/Student-addiction-to-technology-similar-to-drug-cravings-study-finds.html

The other piece of research I looked at is by Paul Sheriff, he created these types of posters to create awareness of what technology can do to someone of a young age and the effects of becoming addicted by combining it with serious addictions like gambling and drinking.

I think these posters work because by combining it with serious addictions, it emphasizes how harmful being addicted to technology is or can be, to top it off, he adds a little fact about the dangers of it aswell so people are more aware of what it does to you. I think it's very educational.

These posters have more imagery than text because I think the image itself tells the story and the text just helps it because we absorb images/designs better than text. I think these types of posters we absorb the information immediately because it takes us less than 30 seconds to analyze the whole poster since there's so little on it, that's good because our attention span has decreased because of technology so it makes these posters effective.

This is something I could do, create awareness of the dangers of technology by creating posters and combining it with different addictions but also, look at the different ways it effects us in a bad way, how technology changes us when we spend too much on it. Does it change our personality? Does it change the way we look?