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