Project 1 : Round 2 : JPG

Yet another investigation...I used it for the symposium session.

This approach still shows the back story of the photos that include details of the community (comments, favorites, bios, etc.) however, this time I show a few images from a person's favorite's page. By doing this it shows the community as curators as well as photographers, allowing the idea of being published to extend past just photography, publishing their participation.

Symposium : Motivation Session

Exploring Motivation in Participatory Culture
This session addresses how designers can respond to motivation within four different participatory cultures centered around: an online Lomographic community, collective publishing, virtual and physical town commons, and substandard living conditions. These projects will serve as a springboard to generate dialogue about motivation within other collaborative environments.
--Marty Lane, Matt Muñoz, Alberto Rigau & Rebecca Tegtmeyer

MAIN QUESTIONS ASKED:

Need to get these from Marty

TALKING POINTS:
Introduction to JPG Community:
• JPG is for photographers who share their work online
and would like to see it in print.
• The community participates online and votes on photos to be
published in the next magazine issue that is published by JPG
• Participants are professional and amateur, various levels of experience
• Participants contribute content and critique online, creating content
for the magazine which is printed 6 times a year

My Perspective:
• The magazine felt like it did not represent the community online
• It focuses on photos as if it were a stock book, not interesting

My Approach to What if motivation was wanting to be published?:
• My approach shows the back story of the photos that include details
of the community (comments, favorites, bios, etc.)
• By showing the collections of photos from a person’s favorites page, I am allowing the idea of being published to extend past just photography, publishing their participation.
• Showing community as photographers and curators

These are my questions relating to JPG and motivation:
• Does the difference in design and content of the magazine influence
more people to participate
(comparing mine with the original)?


• What motivates the community of JPG to vote on other individuals photos?


• Would inclusion of the photos "back stories" increase the
motivation to participate?


• What causes individuals to not participate in this culture?
(like myself?) (what would others say?)

QUESTIONS:
• What motivates interaction within a particular object, community, event?

• Are there levels of motivation (as it relates to an individual, community)?

• What obstacles inhibit motivation? (time, tools, knowledge?)

• What charges motivation?

• Does motivation lead to participation in various activities,
if your participating in one, are you more likely to participate in several?
• How much time do we participate in something online? In a given day? How much time do we participate in something in RL? What correlations can we draw on motivation from this discussion?



Poster for Presentation

Project 3 : Learning through Investigating

For this project we had one week to investigate two terms from the book Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins.

The two terms I had were:
AFFINITIY SPACES-According to James Gee, a space where informal learning takes place, characterized by, among other things, the sharing of knowledge and expertise based on voluntary affiliations. I found this term interesting because it is a space you can move in and out of freely (no defined entry point), it's a space to engage participation, and it pushes participants closer to the works that inspire them. COLLABORATIVE AUTHORSHIP-Term coined in this book to refer to situations in which the central author of a franchise opens it to participation from other artists to shape it in ways consistent with its overall coherence but allowing new themes to emerge or new elements to be introduced. This term brought up questions of authorship and copyrights in my research (reading).

I chose to explore these terms through investigating how literary history can influence storytelling. The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland was the text (franchise) I used. The stories of Alice were of interest to me in this project because I found that after the Bible and Shakespeare it has been rewritten the most. This brings me to question collaborative authorship that is "un-authorized" bringing into question the legality of intellectual properties within media, and aspects of control. Alice also has a huge fan following that creates several affinity spaces online.

Investigation Details (see PDF):
-This first image study captures the original inspiration for Alice and the original illustrations. The next images show how Disney has appropriated Alice into one of their characters, then the next set of images show other representations of Alice.
-In my experience of researching the stories of Alice, I found that the original text has several expanded meanings offering studies in subtext around characters, themes, meaning. This interface is a solution (not what we were to create at this point). It invites the user to participate in writing while have access to all the context related to the story they are inspired by.
-This chart gets back to the investigating, it takes a look at mapping the major characters throughout the story.
-These last two investigations create a space to be built on as an affinity space.View these pages at %150 to get a feeling for the effect I was trying to create. When one approaches this site online, they are entering at no particular point. They are encouraged to move about the space, finding something new at every corner. These investigations layout the story in a linear and scanable format, a different approach to hypertext.
Project 3 : An Investigation

Project 1 : FINAL

It's done! Well at least for my presentation and final critique with my peers and faculty. For my final I chose to focus on one collection of 14 images I titled it "Observing Relationships". These images capture different relationships and emotions, intending to give the viewers different ways of looking at their own images and stories. I took all the content from online, the titles, descriptions, comments, who made it a favorite, etc. I then brought a system back into it, when viewing it horizontal you get the story copy (title, description, comments) then when you rotate it this type drops away to make the photo be the focus along with the additional information copy. I wanted to create a piece that involves the viewer and giving them something to look more than once.

Critiqued with Denise, class and faculty
FEEDBACK/COMMENTS that I took from the critique:
• This is a response to the online community that already exists, encourages people to participate online (Gretchen)
• Bring interpretative process to the foreground for example, in this, you selected print format with a sequence. look at pacing of book to see what the reading of image is ex: shelley evanson & and "deskilling" project could apply. this could be something that TEACHES people how to read images (Meredith)
• Blogosphere is a surface relationship—that is one of the issues that is tough to address; meaning and reading images deeper (Denise)
• Look into new typographic studies, last 20 year history, help inform your visual—now your intervention is very designerly; how does this figure into your journey from hands off to hands on throughout the process of this project (Denise)
• what is the relationship between new artifact and magazine? (Amber)
(bring recognition to photographers)
• Nice work. came along way from where you were (Kelly MK)
• Have to be able to position your piece within the system. It started there, with the conventions of magazine (Santiago)
• Interesting relationship between magazines and their web site (Amber)

SIDE NOTE: I am happy with my process in this first project, I feel I learned about my design values, where I have been the last 8 years and where I want to go. It's great to look back at my investigations here in this format and already have the thoughts of "what was I thinking" and know I wasn't thinking, I was a "producing machine" as I have conditioned myself to be.

NEXT STEPS (if there is a chance): How can it grow to have more diverse collections, add more transitions and sequence, work with type expressions.







Download this PDf to see all 14 spreads:
Project 1 : Final Presentation

Project 1 : Investigation 5

In these investigation I begin to work with expressing the stories further. First I looked at using type only to tell the stories of the individual photos (all content pulled from online). Then I layered in the photo and looked at how that changed the story and composition. Working with the orientation of the photos I found it added interest to the meaning. The vertical photos are intended to involve the viewer in rotating the piece, making the type drop away and give them a “new way of looking” at the photo and the story.

Critiqued with Denise, Matt & Robert
FEEDBACK/COMMENTS that I took from the critique:
• Interesting way to involve the viewer (rotating the piece)
• Now that I have gone this far, look at bringing
a practical system back into it.
• What is the motivation behind my design decisions?
• The design is taking away from the photos
• Why am I choosing the typefaces I am? Make it intentional.













Investigation 5

Project 1 : Investigation 4

After my last few round of critques, I came to the realization that I was tackling the whole community, the whole magazine, and not really focusing on the photos as separate from this community. I chose to step away from the format and community for awhile and investigate individual images. These investigations explore how to tell the stories behind the photographs and the photographers that took them.

Critiqued with Denise
FEEDBACK/COMMENTS that I took from the critique:
• What is the relationship between showing the image twice?
(I was hanging onto the idea that if I crop it, I still should show it as the photographer intended for it to be shown)
• Why is the copy treated like copy, not data?
• Very brochure/magazine-like.
• Everything is "just right", still creating consistency, working with white space, balance, clean lines, etc. Explore messing it up.
• How to bring forward the backstories even more.
• How do you make something not read as a headline?
• Think about what "designerly" means.
• The design is disallowing the behind the scenes to surface.







Investigation 4

Project 1 : Investigation 3

This photo investigation explores the idea that images of similar subjects can be an alternative way to viewing photos. The differences stand out in the similarities...this gives the community a different way of looking at images. This idea was then executed in a design investigation for the magazine. The new format suggests a different way a magazine can be interactive. The accordian folded cover shows the photographers on one side and their photos on the other, this would serve as the table of contents. The spreads would be organized with two sets of comparing photos (4 total) then the viewer could open up the spread to reveal the additional information behind the photos i.e. title, photographer, description, dates, etc.

Critiqued with class
FEEDBACK/COMMENTS that I took from the critique:
• Looks too much like a stock photo book.
• Hard to get the idea of comparing the images.
• Comparing images is interesting.
• Format may be too cumbersome,
but like the idea of adding interaction.
• Added surprise is interesting, what are other ways to add surprise.
• Working with greek text, why? Implies that I am not working
with the content or even thinking about it.
• Make it more interesting to look at.
• Why am I not working with and cropping the photos?
(I was trying to keep them true to how the photographers shot them)
• What are my design values?
• I am the designer, why not work with the photos more?





Investigation 3

Project 1 : Investigation 2

This investigation looks into changing the design, structure and content of the magazine. I restructured the content to involve more of the community and all levels of photographers. I also looked at adding more of the photographers personality and bio to the magazine, something that is not in the current publication. In this redesign, I also encourage critique and added an element to create conversation around the photos with the intent that they would go online to post comments.

Critiqued with Denise
FEEDBACK/COMMENTS that I took from the critique:
• Magazine format is too literal, it has everything that is expected to be seen in a magazine; cover, table of contents, size.
• Design is also too literal and cliche; i.e. showing multiple photos, using handlettering for the bio page
• Rethink the purpose of a magazine and how people interact with it, how do I tell the backstories of the photos in an interesting way?



Investigation 2

Project 1 : Investigation 1

These investigations evaluate the rules of composition. My intent was to create a tool for amateur photographers that helped them compose better photos. This would be an education on the simple rules of design compositions.

Critiqued in Class
FEEDBACK/COMMENTS that I took from the critique:
• This would be an interesting technical tool for online
or on the camera interface.
• Why do we need to educate people? Maybe they don't want to learn.
• How do I continue this?
• Question of rules, do you have to learn them before breaking them?
• Who says you have to follow the rules?
• Like the aspect of learning and facilitating critique in the JPG community, how can this work into a redesign of the magazine?




Investigation 1

Project 1 : Identify and Respond

1. Select a designer, studio, or specific project that/who is already incorporating in some measure, even if small, design "co-creation" principles into their practice/message.

2. Analyze the work and answer the following questions:
° How successful do you think the approach is at involving "the other" in design knowledge, production, output (outcome)? What are your terms for success?

° Where does the work sit on the expert/novice creation scale? Why?
° Is the work transferable to other content?
° Has the work pioneered new territory or is it building on cultivated ideas? What are those ideas?
° Is the work driven by rules of assertion (designer driving the bus) or emergence (social, democratic forces)?
° If the work favors the "novice" end of our spectrum, how does the design function to promote and/or inspire participation?
° To what extent does profit figure in the work's success?
° What aspects of cultural production is the work exploiting? Opting not to include? Overlooking?
° How is "the other" represented (ala Stuart Hall, etc.)?
° What else do you observe?

3. Design an artifact (heretofore named a touchpoint) that adds to, furthers, and/or improves the work. In this project you are demonstrating your values relative to the work...You might agree with or take issue with the work.

SELECTED PROJECT : JPG Magazine
JPG Magazine Research
Artifact Proposals