New Media Theory Exploration: Dont Click it!

Don´t Click it is the final artwork of Alex Frank for his diploma at the university Essen-Duisburg (2005)

In 1969 Douglas Englebert invented the mouse while researching the potential of human-computer interface.

When the internet was in its beginning stage the only way we could navigate the web was through a clickable hyperlinks.

Users have learned that when a word or a phrase is underlined they could click on it and they would be taken to the next page.

With the advance of HTML and XHTML designers could do away with ugly underlines and indicate a link by creating a roll over effect which would change the color of the word or phrase when the user rolled over it with their mouse indicating a hyperlink.

Interacting with the internet was very limited, you could click on a link and you would be brought to another webpage and that was it!

The way designers now integrate clicking, roll-overs and interactivity has dramatically expanded with the introduction of Flash and to click or not to click has become a question designers need to ask themselves when designing websites.

Alex Frank created an experiment where in his entire website there are no clickable links. All interactivity is based on “roll-over” gestures.

There is a certain familiarity about “clicking“ and when I first tried to navigate the website I felt a little awkward, trying to keep my index finger off of the mouse. Of course I did eventually accidentally click.

I really like this experimental website for different reasons. First, I am intrigued with human nature and the human´s capacity to adapt to a changing environment. Second, Alex gave me a lot to think about regarding website design: When and where is it appropriate to have clickable links versus roll- overs, what is the difference in the user´s experience with the website. Is there a “feeling“ attached to clicking or rolling over? Can I as a designer make use of these differences in user experiences and feelings?

For me being able to “click“ on something to make it work gives me a certain feeling of “control“, “it“ happens when I want “it“ to happen.

Navigating through Alex´s website gave me a feeling of being lost; every time I moved my mouse to a different location the webpage would “move“ in surprising ways. Not until I had fully navigated, memorized and researched the website did I start feeling comfortable in moving my mouse around the “active“ areas to the areas I was interested in.

Alex has added snippets of information of how his idea of a click-less website came into being, the history of computers and some interactive games to help with learning to go “click-less“

All in all, this website will make a person think about click ergonomics and the importance of how we navigate our way through the internet.

If you´d like to take a look for yourself go to http://www.dontclick.it

STUDIO EXPLORATION: Liquid Architecture

Australia has always fascinated me from a very young age and so I chose Liquid Architecture which is the premier sound arts festival held annually in this country. This unique festival promotes artists who are "practicing on the periphery of music and sound culture with emphasis on an experimental aesthetic and a critical approach to (media) cultures." Those attending will be enveloped in concerts, immersive sound presentations, audio-visual and recorded work and exhibitions and installations. These featured artists range from the most imaginative musicians, composers, sound designers and media artists who provide a veritable sense-specific feast for the ears. Liquid Architecture has been in existence for ten years and is responsible for providing evocative sound effects and tracks for many American movies.

The Liquid Architecture website is a pleasure to explore as it hosts multiple platforms for internationally renown sound and media artists who are pushing the boundaries of creating and implementing sound as well as developing media art in new and intriguing venues. One of this year's innovative artists is Alan Lamb who is involved in "exploring sound structures, neither musically designed nor of random occurrence. Such structures possess the properties of beauty, complexity and evocation of the emotional, the spiritual and the imaginary." Alan uses Aeolian sound usually generated by long wires (e.g. telegraph wires) which are manipulated using mechanical devices to change parameters of the system. His other works make use of mechanical sound-making devices (e.g. tuned bicycle wheels) as sound sources for stochastic, chaotic and nature based movements through mechanical linkages and also infinite Music Machines, designed to explore the more patterned and beautiful sounds derived from chaos.

As you read about Alan's work, there are podcast links on the right hand side of his page. This organization is called Overlap and is a platform for Experimental Media -- Releases, Events and Projects. Once I clicked on the Overlap link and viewed the homepage, there was an interesting article about a new release from Electricwest who has a new series of sound creations called Detach. In listening to the six selections, I found a very pleasing sound ambience in the first selection called "Still" which was at once soothing and mesmerizing. As I explored several other featured artists, it became clear that Liquid Architecture has a well developed site in its overall concept, layout and viewer experience. The execution of presenting new artists along with previously established artists with links to their sound creations and explorations was seamless and a visual and auditory pleasure.

In the menu bar there is a Media category that includes the links to Sounds, Images, Essays and Releases. The Sounds link will take you to an mp3 vault of various sound creations that are amusing and entertaining. One that was interesting to me is Pheremone Wings by Joel Stern who makes "sound art and noise, which he performs throughout Australia and the world. His work sets shambolic, improvised and accidental passages against painstaking compositions and arrangements, renderings of imaginary and real spaces." Joel is "the co-founder of OtherFilm
and Audiopollen, Brisbane based organizations dedicated to fostering unconstrained experimentation, risk-taking performance and cross-media exploration in artists of different generations." I loved his idea of mixing media and artists from several generations to create a new vision of art and media exploration.

Liquid Architecture has a focus and vision that is much more comprehensive and far ranging than I was initially aware of in my previous knowledge of their organization. I had observed their name in many movie credits and just assumed they were yet another of the many creative sound companies that proliferate in our world of entertainment. Their vision is "to popularize and publicize sound culture through greater aggregate audience size and a higher profile, and to make sound culture more accessible to the community, particularly to youth and student audiences.

Liquid Architecture popularizes sound culture, particularly with young/emerging content producers within Australia's active student culture, in order to build not only future audiences but future artists." This organization is very focused on promoting opportunities to network with national and international artists as an important means of generating future initiatives and cross cultural collaborations. A part of the vision is to ensure that the community is being exposed to some of the most exciting explorations in sound culture that also happen to intersect with the media and fine arts. The fact that this organization is driven to reach out to young people and student artists to expand their world is what makes them unique to me. The people in this organization understand the importance of keeping a continuity and progression of the Arts in our future generations. I also love that they are promoting all cultures as this is what the world of art is comprised of in its entirety.

This website is well designed in its overall minimal appearance and clear, easy navigation menus. The artist's bios are well-written and comprehensive with links to their current works. The combination of diverse artists, media and sound presentations create a visual and auditory world that is fascinating to explore and experience. The viewer comes away with a more thorough knowledge of the culture of sound both in our movies and art world.

"Liquid Architecture was born out of the Sound department in the School of Art at RMIT University, Melbourne Australia in collaboration with RMIT Union Arts. The festival is curated by practicing artists; Melbourne based co-founding national director Nat Bates, assisted by Bianca Durrant and Camilla Hannan, Brisbane based Lawrence English from ROOM40, in Sydney Jen Teo from Plum Industries and Shannon O'Neill from Alias Frequencies, in Central Victoria director Jacques Soddell from cajid media, in Cairns Nick Mills from On Edge and in Perth Tura New Music director Tos Mahoney."

Studio/Artist Exploration

For my second Blog, I decided to share http://siia-design.com/. This is a website for Anastasiia Palamarchuk a graphic designer located in Los Angeles. I really liked the simplicity of this website. The overall look is very clean and the usability is quite easy. As a designer, I can appreciate the use of white space. When you visit this site the page loads these transparent slides which correspond with the welcoming information, services, samples, prices & terms and contact. I think this is a clever and cool looking way to navigate through the website. Some of her work included on her site are magazine ads for local restaurants and brand awareness. She also shows packaging designs, illustrations and photography. Although I would have like to have seen a little bit more, I did get a good sense of her design. In this website it was also a good idea to give the user the option to control the sound. In my opinion this website is a good example of why sometimes less is more.

Keep Current

The site I found for this blog is CGW.com. It is a site that gives updated information on who's doing what in the world of computer graphics and animation, very informative and cutting edge. It reviews a broad range of topics and gives examples of the work that is being done by artisans around the world. Check it out.

Resource Exploration

Resource exploration:
By Betty Graff

The first learning resource I use is pretty much a cliché. But I love Lynda.com.
Although this class is moving much more quickly than the Lynda.com tutorials, I have been able to use a couple to get a different viewpoint at something we are learning.
But what I really like is the quick looks at a wide variety of things I can find when I need them. I jumped around in InDesign to produce a catalog type directory for a list of church members. When I forget something in Photoshop because I don’t use it a lot, I go back to Lynda.com. But my biggest smile was a recent addition of how to do envelopes and labels in Word. I had been stumbling through that task in about four versions of Word and now someone is explaining it. (Parts of Lynda.com are free.)

The second is more oriented toward html and css. But Smashing.com has proven to always have something interesting including some freebies. And recently I found out about kinetic photography. In which you toss (not really!) your camera around.

Third I find myself going again and again to colourlovers. com. Colourlovers is a creative community where people from around the world create and share colors, palettes and patterns, discuss the latest trends and explore colorful articles. If you are every lacking for a wild inspiration for a combination of colors you never thought it would work. This is for you.

Fourth is 43 folders, which although it isn’t about flash, it is a techie’s guide to caring about what you create and about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work. Try it out at 43folders.com.

Studio and Artist Exploration

For my second blog entry I am doing Studio and Artist Exploration. I chose to examine the design firm The Visionaire Group (thevisionairegroup.com). The Visionaire Group is interesting because it provides a wide range of media experiences. It designs promotional websites, flash advertisements, smart phone widgets and interactive flash-based games for both computers and phones.
TVG consists of two departments: design and advertising. TVG’s strength comes from the fact that these two departments fully support each other. The design team does not lose site of the advertising goals, and the advertising team is able to use artistically compelling design. In this way the design does not overshadow the practical (and financial) concerns of marketing. By utilizing well-designed banner ads and rich media, TVG creates compelling product and brand awareness.
As a marketing company, TVG aims to use innovative digital technology in order to promote products in the most entertaining way possible. Some parts of their promotional websites seem to lean towards viral marketing, as they seem to represent and promote an alternate reality. For example, part of the website for the new vampire movie Daybreakers (daybreakersmovie.com) immerses you in a world where humans are farmed for their blood. TVG uses social networking to endorse this idea. The website for the movie Repo Men (theunioncares.com) similarly presents and markets an alternate reality.
Although they design for several mediums, TVG’s design portfolio consists largely of film and television promotional websites. Some of their most prominent clients include Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures, CBS and NBC. The websites TVG creates link to multiple media outlets. By utilizing social networking and widgets, TVG creates word-of-mouth for their clients. Solid Flash design directly supports TVG's marketing techniques.

SlickMill Studio

This is my second post. I found this really cool site using effective flash animation. The studio is called SlickMill. When i entered the site i was expecting a lot seeing as they claim it to be a high impact flash website. The side menu was easy to use nothing really to difficult to figure out. Every time you click on something new from the menu tab, a quick animation kicks in and it makes it a little fun and it takes you to that page right after. I went in to go check out other sites they made and notice they have some really cool intro, it kinda gets me in tune with the site and wanna stick around to see what the rest of the site will do.



I went through a lot of sites and i chose this site because i think the animations and the whole site is very clean. Other sites i went too some of the work that i think was suppose to have animation did not work properly or it was very complicated to use. I think that is what sets this site from others.

I think what makes there work effective is that each site is pretty much organize. Most of there sites carry the same theme with the same menu tab on the left, and same features as there main site. SlickMill


Here is one of Slickmill sites. Buzz check
..Once again you kinda get the same feeling from the main site. The menu is easy to read and find. Easy to use, all though there isn't that many animation, i think the site has got all its need.

Another site from Slickmill is Eli Halpern.
The site is fun and interactive. Like the slickmill page it has quick animation and takes you to the page you want. The site is very small, but with the animation you can kinda see a resemblance with Slickmill studio site.

Studio and Artist Exploration

First time, it was kind of dificult for me to try to find a studio that created flash animation, graphic design, and other types of web designing. i did my best to try to find out about someone who creates designs for companys that we know. it was kind of interesting what i found out threw my search.
During my exploration i found out about this particular company that makes incredible designs for many companys like Ford, O'neil, Fox Sports and many other companys. The web site is
http://www.2advanced.com/index.php?lang=en#home

There is many things i liked about this site, the design its alittle complicated at first but as soon as you get to know how to navigate, its almost like playing a game. when you scroll threw the links the have most of the information pops up. the graphic design they used its really cool, it looks like a movie, because it has many interesting details. They have two major companys one is in California and the other one is in Japan.

The company has a lot of information about the work they do for other companys. In their portfolio you can search about the companys designs, and what they offer to their customers.

Billboard Website

Billboard website is a awesome website for all things music and the website is just as snazzy. You can see here just how fluid and clean it is with great ways to organize everything.

I really like how easy it is to find what you need and while it might not be out in the open to find right away, navigation to the page is not difficult at all. There is so much information that this website houses but organized in such a fashion that it is easy to get to. I like that it has tabs to link you to other places and the buttons are effective and not intrusive over the top. Its a great way to run a publication online. It manages to be visually pretty and intriguing without being over the top in your face about it.

Mission Accomplished, design that works

In order to have an effective design, whether it be for a home, automobile, gown, and/or product you have to first understand the need and desire of the consumer. As a charter member of the ASA (Addicted Surfers Association) I have chosen a site that is near and dear to me, www.magicseaweed.com When I get up in the morning I always review this site to determine the conditions of the swell, weather, tide, etc.. This site has the ability to give information for most every location around the world. I especially appreciate the link through the pull down menu to the Scripps bouys which give me a pretty accurate summary of what the conditions were , in most cases, an hour before I went on the site. Most other sites do not have this link all you get is what they think conditions will be, in most cases like the weatherman it is wrong. When you visit the site you will see 2 pull down menus, under these menus you will see a white rectangle, click on the button and choose the region you are interested in (California, South) 0n the rectangle to the right click the button and select the city (Carlsbad) you will then see the Latest Conditions and the Tide for the day. I review this information then I go back up to the second row of pull down menus and choose Charts, when the graph comes up I choose old style, when it comes up I go to the right of the page and choose Southern California near shore I will then get a chart that shows swell direction, size, shadows from the islands and other important information so that I can properly prepared for my morning in the water. As you can see from the process I employ in utilizing this site the creators know and address my needs and those other addicts that form there customer base. You will also see that they have links to great photos, surf news, a store, travel, education. This is also a great site if you don't surf but want to take the kids to the beach, you can plan the day around tide conditions etc. to make sure you have an enjoyable experience.