Matthew Ellis 21w765j First assignment; evaluation of past student's
projects.
I spent some time working with several of the linked web sites for
student projects. I looked at:
Freedom Baird, Mass Transit
Katie Jeffreys The Great Cheese Hunt
Ben Zotto One O'Clock at the Coloseum
Drew Samnick, A Tale of Two Frums
Stephane Miller Harvard Square Suite
Laini K. Byfield, Small Town USA
Philip Tan Doorboards
Nick Montfort, The Girl and the Wolf
Rania Khalaf Mouse
Rania Khalaf's Bubbles
Most interesting to me were Stephane Miller's "Harvard Square Suite",
Freedom Baird's "Mass Transit", Drew Samnick's "A Tale of Two Frums" and
Laini K. Byfield's "Small Town USA".
As a design student I cannot help but want to be engaged immediately by
a welcoming visual interface. Too often being bombarded by text without
visual ambience looses my attention, such as Nick Montfort's "The Girl
and the Wolf" or the use of bad graphic design that kills the story,
such as Rania Khalaf's "Bubbles".
The two that I favored the most were Stephane Miller's "Harvard Square
Suite" and Laini K. Byfield "Small Town USA".
"Small Town USA" was by far the most clever. The layout of the page
never changes despite the changing circumstances of the pathetic local
players in the town drama. I came to this small town literally as an
outsider. As I flipped the cards, the repetition of names and faces
helped me to form an idea of what was going on in Witchita. I chuckled
throughout. I did not feel burdened or lost in sea of pages that did not
possess a design continum.
I felt a similar feeling of comfort and accessability with Stephane
Miller's Harvard Square Suite. She purposefully used color as a design
element for each of the character's monolougues. As a storyteller, she
also successfully made use of individual's vernacular diction and accent
(including the dog's language). Because she maintained a continuity and
unique perspective for each of the speakers, I practically failed to
notice the aabsolute minimal use of graphic design elements (It also
helped that I am quite familiar with the arena in which her story
transpires-which fed my imagination).
Some of the day's loosers...
Philip Tan's "Doorboards" and Nick Montfort's "The Girl and the Wolf".
"The Girl and the Wolf" was simply too boring. I was immediately thrown
off by the headers describing the degree of sex and violence in each
rewriting of the story. I could only read two of the pages before I
decided that the plots would be not only predictable but radiate a
common late adolescent glorification of crass (slightly cynical)
sophmoric black humour, which I suppose as a generation x'er I have
already had my fill of. The design of the pages also worked against the
story. I could not immediately understand the relationship of the
tick-tack-toe board to the story.
Philip Tan's "Doorboards" was not so bad. It just lacked any meatiness
in its content. The premise could have been wonderful. (It reminded me
of a story in the 1970's children's book "Free To Be You and Me" in
which a boy and a girl argue over a period of time about friendship and
baseball - in photographs of classroom notes passed on torn sheets of
paper). There was no development of a story in Doorboards. The design of
the visual page worked well. It included relevant images of the boards,
a calendar, and buttons for each of the characters, but I kept wanting
more information. It appeared more to be a rather factual recording of
notes of event than any sort of tale, as if the photos were nothing more
than stills from a cu-c-me site. This led me to guess as to what
transpired between dates because the "dialouge" on the doorboards was
not at all conversational. I would have added more content on the
doorboards at a more frequent passage of time (day to day passage of
time)
I am mapping the "Tale of Two Frums" story, which I shall present on
Tuesday.
Matthew Ellis