A week of reflection (no lecture)

As we had no lecture this week I decided to work on my information flow chart. I have come to the realisation that my choice of site (The Commonwealth Bank) might have been a tad ambitious due to it’s immensity (even though I have chosen 1 smaller and particular path), but I am not fazed. Instead it seems that my work is ultimately benefiting from such an expansive stockpile of information. Ill wait and see what one of my lecturers’ thinks anyway. I have completed a fair amount of the flow chart, but feel that there is still a lot more to be explored.

I have also settled on a design for my work that incorporates the sites colour. The Commonwealth Bank has 3 main colours, white, black and yellow, as shown below. There is some grey but it's actually not present in the logo.



As the Commonwealth Bank site in design and functionality is very slick , I felt it was fitting that the iconography used within the information flow chart matched this aesthetic. The usage of glass buttons and shapes to me looks very clean and is quite striking to look at.

API, Mashup

Week 4 was primarily concerned with API's, and the way that they are "Mashed Up" to form hybrid API's or add content to a user's personal website. API's (Application Programming Interface) allows a user of a particular website to directly interact with the code structure of a website, and manipulate it as they wish. Flickr allows such adjustments to be made, and give's the user an opportunity to better there own creative project by adding applications that otherwise would not have been possible to create by ones self. API's are great at making a somewhat mediocre website's more content rich and more visually stimulating. Another benefit of using such a process, is that all the bandwidth used within that application is the responsibility of the API"s provider e.g. Flickr, Google Maps, ect. In some cases however, this can be a dangerous path to tread , because you are then reliant on the API's provider to stay online in order for users tapping into your website to view the content. This might not be such an issue though if your website is using an API from a Google or Yahoo service, because their business' are pretty solid.

Mashups are basically the process that was discussed earlier, by were a whole bunch of content from different sources is compiled to create potentially more comprehensive piece of data ( in some cases). In truth the entire process can be a bit less productive. Either way a Mashup is a good idea for a website that needs more content , when there is no more room for production.

HTML and CSS

HTML (coding) , and CSS
In the lecture and tutorial this week, HTML and the code involved in creating it were at the top of the agenda. The lecture primarily covered the aspects of how a person is to structure a website. To structure all of the elements on the screen, tags are used to tell the web browser what information it is interpreting, and a CSS page that is linked to the html page works in relation to that content. CSS is not essential in the process, but is a common tool to use when designing a website that requires added and controlled structure.

RSS Reader

I also forgot to mention that I have successfully signed up to a RSS reader, Goggle Reader. It seems to be one of the better options I encountered and it integrates cleanly with my Google Account, and my Blogger service.

I have signed up to a few blogs

CSS Remix
Web Design From Scratch
Typographica
N Design Studio Blog and Design

Blogs

The idea of a blog is quite intriguing, but at the same time how much of yourself do you wish to share with the world. There is no doubt that this is the ultimate medium for publishing and advertising your craft, although a line needs to be drawn as to what is too much information. The fact that people are informing the world about what they had for breakfast is fine, but does this ultimately cheapen and trivialise what a blog is? Blogs are designed to be an expression of self and individualism and are used to satisfy the need to connect with ones peers. With the invention of MySpace and Facebook it has become a more commercial and widely dispersed medium, and this is a good thing, but is this fuelling the demise of traditional blogging. Do people forget why they started blogging in the first place, until the posts people are creating serve no purpose but to fill up cyberspace. It is understandable that people join the major blogging services because of their need to connect with individuals close to them and to maybe meet new people, but the Internet is becoming increasingly harder to navigate through because of all the crap that you have sift through.

Not a very positive entry, but at the same time the advantages of blogging cannot be denied, when attempting to portray self. personal expression is allowed to take a mind of its own when working with these tools.

The content that was discussed in the tutorials and the lectures was extremely helpful in explaining what are the real uses and advantages of a blog.

Kinetic Typography

Kinetic Typography is a style of motion graphics that displays content generally associated with imagery by only utilising audio and text. Although the example provided uses some imagery, it is still a great demonstration of the concept.
I believe that it was accomplished using apples' motion (correct me if I'm wrong). So if your interested just follow the link.

Kinetic Typography (Pulp Fiction)

Welcome To Bloggerama

Welcome to my Networked Media Production Blog. I am a second year Media Arts and Production Student, that has come from the Canberra Institute of Technology to further my education, at the University of Canberra. Illustrated graphics really appeal to me and i like to adapt this fascination to motion graphics, web sites, print, animation and film.

I look forward to adding many more posts over the term.