Spatial Update

Our conceptual focus is still on the metaphor of following your own path, illustrating the diversity of experiences on campus through the different colors that guide you to each building. 

Where last we left off, the guide-shapes were undefined in terms of shape and material. We had the sense that they would be somehow three dimensional and hollow… We've refined this idea, and decided that the guide-shapes should instead be constructed from 1/4 inch cold press steel, painted in bright colors, with a consistent width of 12 inches. These long sheets would be folded, bent, and wrapped around the environment and seemingly burrow into surfaces only to reappear further along the route, joining with other colors or splitting off to lead you to your destination, as established at well-labeled moments of crossroads. 

Our style guide retains Futura medium condensed for the KCAI logotype but eliminates the crooked "A" to streamline the text. Our main typeface for navigation and description is now Apex book, with Apex bold emphasis. 

Neutral information and space, such as street signs, perimeter, and parking, would contain similar shapes that are painted white so as not to confuse the color-coding of the campus buildings. 

The building identifiers themselves would take the appearance of the "end" of the guide-shape, sticking up out of the ground, with a label cut out.

Signage inside a building would be made from the same material and the same color as the guide-shapes outside, folded into smaller individual signs to denote directions, bathrooms, and rooms.

Week 2 [research/solutions]

Audience-

The people I want to reach out to are loosely, those in their 30-40s, college educated, and work full time jobs.

I would like to take them from a place of knowing at least a small sum about child advocacy and orphanages, to a place where they are knowledgeable and ready to act/advocate within their influence.

Objective-

What I want them to know and project is, what are the basic needs within an orphanage, how can someone get involved, how will their involvement be affecting the lives of individual children and the orphanage itself.

Subquestions-

In what places will people most effectively encounter the information/experience?

What do they need to learn to act?

In what way can they act that will keep them involved and engaged in the issue?

The context-

I want to move the experience out of the private eye and into the public arena.

Places that people often encounter or will encounter as well as spend money at.

If those that make up my audience are already in the position to spend money perhaps the transition between going from knowing to acting will be a smooth one. This could either be out of proximity to the experience or through integration into the retail purchase process.

Goals-

The system should inform, promote expansion, and show a difference being made.

Here is my tentatively solid schedule for the next 3 weeks.

Week3-

Have audience research as done as possible.

Have the scope of problem defined with what I want my audience to learn established.

Have solutions and potential artifacts defined.

Have context (platform,location)

Week4-

Begin wire-framing

Collecting visual landscape

Have first round wire-framing done

Week5-

Check wireframes against peers and research as well as contacts.

Refine wire-frames.

Begin skinning wires.

Week6-

Should have 1/2 to 3/4 of comps completed and ready for midterm.

Week7-

Refine

Week8-

Week9-

Refine

Be wrapping up and collecting assets for presentation.

Week10-13

Be done.

Presentation Phase.

Show ready by week 12 preferably.

Early Spatial Experience Concept

The kcai website says, "do things your way," and "you travel off the beaten path." for our concept, we tried to work with this idea of finding your way, as well as highlighting the diversity that kcai prizes. 

Firstly, here is a location plan of where we determined a need for wayfinding/boundary-setting, with several levels of hierarchy and purpose.

As for the visual concept itself, we're envisioning a system of colorful and angled shapes that guide visitors to their destinations while referencing the outline of the core graphic element. Each destination would have its own color designation, and these shapes would emerge from the ground or from architecture along the path to confirm that you're on the right track. An interesting visual complexity will emerge along main through-ways where, like downtown highways, several paths use the same route. In these places, there should be an interplay between the colors, so that it's easy to tell when your path either joins with or separates from others.

Moments of crossroads, such as entrances, should clearly elucidate each color and in what direction you should start walking to follow its path. We imagine these navigational guides to be harmonious with the traveling shapes, whether they take the form of the traveling shapes emerging, labeled, from the ground, or if they look more like a signpost with smaller color-coded elements to represent them.

Materials we've imagined so far for these elements include clear colored plexiglass, opaque colored plastic, or painted metal.

Plans for the Future.

After I graduate from the Graphic Design department and walk away with that diploma in May, I plan on transitioning smoothly into a job at a local motion graphics firm (or relatable field). At this point in my life I don't have aspirations to achieve any sort of creative director position so this is second in priority to simply broadening my repertoire and strengthening my portfolio. Once I achieve a position I would hope to stay steady there for at least five years before I would even consider moving on unless the opportunity was simply too good to pass up. I believe this looks better on a resume to not have jumped from job to job. As far as getting a job that fits these specifications, there are certain things that I believe I'll have to do both now and come May. In the mean time it would be prudent to begin contacting agencies now and keeping relationships with those that I already have. This may include but is not limited to, going to as many invited company outings as possible, shotgunning my portfolio/resume/graduation date, taking part in two sided informational interviews with companies I'm interested in. It might also be a good idea to inquire as to what other agencies I might be fit for in these interviews. This could show two possible things, one that I'm being proactive, and two, that I'm proactively looking into potential competing agencies. In April I'll likely become more agressive, (if not graciously aloof) when making moves towards certain agencies. I'd almost compare my strategy of finding work to that of buying a car. You want to be respectful and yet firm, all the while making them want to give you a good deal and be ready to pay cash on the spot. Flipping through the stack of bills never hurts either. In this case the deal is a job, and the stack of bills is a willingness to excel in their company as well as a portfolio to respectfully flaunt. It never hurts however for everyone to know who all of the other dealers are.

Week One [research&solutions]

Social gaming plays at our basic desire to exist and interact in groups on top of the level of fulfillment we enjoy when supplied with small yet steady rewards. But what if this level of virtual and social interaction could take small, steady, virtual rewards and turn them into large real world differences?

When dealing with the issue of orphans in regards to advocacy, apathy, and funding, the realm of social interactive gaming hits on all of them. This is not to say that gaming is the solution, but the level of interaction, and in some cases addiction, can act as a  gateway to bigger and better things. But games come and go, while the interaction and desire for reward, virtual or otherwise, remains. So the problem is making a lateral and then upward move out of the gaming realm, which is often limited in both platform and social span. This could mean taking the interaction and moving it across multiple platforms and/or moving it further into the public sector.

-Possible solutions-

-Automatic charitable account withdrawal

-business participation (charity matching)

-public social interaction and rewards/goals

-no consequences

-observable real world rewards

-cross platform engagement

-Concept-

A well designed interactive/educational/goal&achievement based/socially connected simulator. The control of the experience would be based on a range of individual to public inputs.

-Where the solution should meet the needs-

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. – James 1:27

"IF WE'RE JUST LOOKING AT ZYNGA, IT HAS A MARKET CAPITAL OF ALMOST $4 BILLION." -Tracey Lien (what untapped potential!)

-provision for education (secondary/university)

$15,000 for University (one needed)

$7,000 for pharmaceutical school (one needed)

$6,000 for University (one needed)

$1,500 for technical training school (one needed)

$500 for Secondary School (20 needed)

$ 19 feeds on orphan for one month

$ 108 provides education for one child for 2 months

$ 228 feeds an orphan for a year

$ 360 sponsors one orphan for one year

$ 652 provides education for one child for a year

$ 1,080 sponsors 3 orphans for a year

$ 2,520 sponsors 7 orphans for a year

$ 5,216 provides education for 8 children annually

Women and children care facility

Wells

Education

Special gifts

Orphanages

-Proposals-

-personal “build a virtual orphanage/sponsor an orphanage irl”

-faced with real issues and obstacles (influx, fundraising, need of facilities,  medical care, education, etc.)

-personal desktop, mobile

-public “adopt a virtual orphanage/sponsor an orphanage irl”

-faced with real issues and obstacles (influx, fundraising, need of facilities,  medical care, education, etc.)

-working together as a community of social media consumers and businesses to  maintain and upgrade their orphanage.

-overall control of interaction dependent on individual and team decisions within  the community.

-personal desktop, mobile, large format touchscreen (public arena)

“what draws people to social games is their ability to take something complex and present it in a simpler, easier to understand way.” -Bill Jackson -Creative Director/Zynga Dallas

-Audience-

Primary- Women, 30-40, 50-74K, College Educated, Full Time Job, single or married with children

Secondary- Men, Same statistics as above

“Once you know how all the pieces work you can play forever. That's really to me the holy grail and it's what you should be going after. -Bill Jackson

Process Template

Here are some template pages as well as a cover and initial question page for the documentation of my Degree Project process.

Starting off my degree project by restating the question that I will be moving forward with and exploring.

“How can design for a socially interactive, screen based, educational, achievement driven user experience, help support or supplement advocacy for orphans?”

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My audience for this experience will be social media frequenters, digital natives, and the digital adept. The goal will be to reveal the issue to the audience and unlock their own opinions as they unlock or progress through the experience.

Some sub questions regarding the issue:

"How do you keep users engaged and excited about playing the game?" 

"How can adoption play into the game?" 

"How can the experience be expanded to include help orphans in potentially any area globally?" 

"How do you design a game style thats appropriate for adults and teenagers?" 

"How can designing for an interactive interface make or break the conveyance of a game experience?" "How will people discover this game?" 

"How can this experience combat apathy towards this issue?"

Understanding my audience will play a very large part in combatting apathy, which is a very central issue to this question/problem.