Visualizer

Capitalism without Images. Tim Clark Watch this Lecture on a...

Tue, 07 May 2013 08:56:00 -0400

Capitalism without Images. Tim Clark

Watch this Lecture on a super actual topic! Great speaker, great content. Enjoy! Giulia

Working with the mobile phone interface

Wed, 01 May 2013 09:51:00 -0400

Since the beginning of this year, MACD students have been collaborating with advertising students to create web apps for real events. This project builds on our earlier one with e-books of designing for mobile and screen media, with the added challenge of a physically smaller interface and the affordances of locative media- on the smartphone. Focusing on events such as London’s Zombie Walk, Easter Egg Hunt, NYE Fireworks, meant students had to combine temporal dimensions with spatial ones; the project brief asks them to seriously consider the significance of what Business Week calls the App Economy, but also critically investigate the notion of urban mobility and users’ augmented realities: expanded experiences of information and sociality from having constant internet access in their pockets.

The choice of web apps also means, as Steve Pinches argues, we can exploit the open source web standards such as HTML, CSS and Javascript instead of being en-slaved by proprietary software and hardware mobile environments. Applying Mark Amerika’s principle: “source material everywhere”, students experimented with and remixed bits of code for their web apps.

James Sunderland also spoke to us about usability and interaction research. He highlighted the constraints of designing within such tight parameters and gave us some nifty tips about usability testing; a fun one he mentioned is pretty low-tech - paper prototyping. The importance of testing, James insists, cannot be overstated and there are plenty of tools that help you create powerful and good-looking mock-ups. Adam Procter suggested to also try Give A Brief.

In our progress workshops yesterday, we saw some of the mock ups of the locative functionality of the apps that were built using Google Map Maker such as Group I’s NYE Fireworks app for university students: Uni Eve:

Group E played with the idea of a dedicated weather app for Glasto while Daniel Hobson’s group made a prototype of a family-friendly app for the annual Big Easter Egg Hunt in London. Dean Jiang’s group is creating a web app for a special charity kids event at the London Zoo. Tawny and Talud’s Group A have chosen to make one for the zombified pub crawlers at the annual Halloween event - London Zombie Walk.

A History of Like

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 08:33:20 -0400

A History of Like:

“So what is new about Facebook and the Like button? Oddly enough, it reveals too much. The great sin of Facebook is that it made “like” far too important and too obvious. Marketing is in part the practice of eliding the underlying complexity, messiness, and wastefulness of capitalist production with neat abstractions. Every ad, every customer service interaction, every display, and every package contributes to the commodity fetish, covering up the conditions of production with desire and fantasy. As such, Facebook may reveal too much of the underlying architecture of emotional capitalism. The Like button tears aside this veil to reveal the cloying, pathetic, Willy Lomanesque need of marketers to have their brands be well-liked. Keep liking, keep buying. Like us! Like us! Like us!”

Some thoughts on virality. [Jussi Parikka recommends this book...

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 05:53:00 -0500

Some thoughts on virality. [Jussi Parikka recommends this book for a more critical look at virality. Do check it out!]

cuii:

Researcher Jake Hofman demoing ViralSearch

According to Microsoft Research:  “Though the phrase “going viral” has permeated popular culture, the concept of virality itself is surprisingly elusive, with past work failing to define rigorously or even definitively show the existence of viral content. By examining nearly a billion information cascades on Twitter—involving the diffusion of news, videos, and photos—this project has developed a quantitative notion of virality for social media and, in turn, identified thousands of viral events. ViralSearch lets users interactively explore the diffusion structure of popular content. After selecting a story, users can view a time-lapse video of how the story spread from one user to the next, identify which users were particularly influential in the process, and examine the chain of tweets along any path in the diffusion cascade. The science and technology behind ViralSearch can help identify topical experts, detect trending topics, and provide virality metrics for a variety of content”

This latest nifty viral metric tool from Microsoft Research made me think about Arvidsson’s remark and to what degree does it still hold any water: “This absence of a measure points towards a power vacuum within the information economy”. In 2007, this might have been the case but since then media platforms have worked tirelessly to create tools to measure the movement of content on the social web. A lot has changed since then. Despite its scale, ViralSearch still looks like a crude aggregate to me and makes me wonder just how meaningful these measuring instruments and if actually, do they behave like speech acts? - instead of doing things with words, viral metrics ‘do things’ with measurement in the verdictive and exercitive sense that Austin talks about: to sanction judgement and behaviour of big media corporations. And this has nothing to do with whether there is any real correlation between measurements and what is being measured. Bit like marriage and love.

Pick Me Up 2013

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:56:00 -0500

It’s that time of the year again for Pick Me Up, back again at the grand Somerset House. I have been for the last couple of years and it always promises to be a real visual binge of interesting work in graphic arts including illustration, zines, artist books, photography, craft, and your favorite studio, press, mag or designer is probably there. Beware the lure of great looking prints, trinkets, cards, tote bags…you will indeed pick something up - prepare to part with some cash. You might even walk away with a one-off drawing if you’re lucky! Early bird festival tickets for the whole festival on sale now for 20% discount. Check out their Facebook page to preview some of the graphic artists and their work that will be at the festival.

For a bit of fun, here are some of the previous Pick Me Up posters, which one is your fav?

2010, Pick Me Up, via Big Active.

2011, Pick Me Up poster, by Anthony Burrill.

2012, Pick Me Up.

2013, Pick Me Up

Guest Post: Scarlett Chen

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 05:58:00 -0500

Last year’s graduate Scarlett Chen shares her thoughts and advice to current WSAadm students.

Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency, Beijing Office.

Hi folks, this is Scarlett. Hello from Ogilvy Beijing Office!

After completing my dissertation, I returned to China in September of 2012 and got an Ogilvy internship by chance in October. Since then, I worked as an Account Executive in Ogilvy & Mather Advertising, Beijing. When I finally officially graduated from WSA in December, I got a firm offer from Ogilvy - I feel really lucky. But I could have not gone this far without my supervisor- Cui, and my dear friends’ help.

So yes, when I was asked to talk about some advertising trends in China, I had been thinking for a while. From the advertising point of view, I do find that new media advertising is gradually surpassing tradition advertising in China. Weibo and WeChat are two most important elements in Chinese new media advertising field. This is what I found interesting so far. Since I am still a fresher in this field, I think I will take a deep study on WeChat after work.

Meanwhile, I have some experience to share with current WSAadm students.

1, Attitude is everything.

If you are lucky enough to get an offer from a company you admire, then show your attitude to your colleague, your boss and yourself. Your positive attitude can help you to get over the transition from student to adult. I guarantee that if you work harder in this age, you would have an easier life in the future. Stay in a low key and be professional.

2, Summarize and reflect what you have done everyday.

If you have free time in your working hours, try to summarize what you have done. Think about which mistakes you can avoid in the next time.

3, Work is work, nothing personal.

When you step in the society, you will face different ppl and have to learn how to deal with colleague relationships. Do not bring your personal emotions to your work. That is un-professional.

4, Treasure your classmates now!

Believe it or not, your classmates in WSA would be your support in the future. There are six classmates of mine in Beijing. We often hang out in the weekend. When I feel upset or doubt myself for working issues, they are the one who back me up and give me advice. If you are Cui’s student, you are super lucky. She is a great teacher. What she is teaching you right now, is super super super useful in the future. Trust me, like super super super useful.

This is what I have been thinking so far. Maybe it is very childish to you, but it truly is how I feel right now. Good luck with your dissertation! Wish you well!

Scarlett Chen Qinzi graduated from WSA with an MA in Advertising Design Management, Class of 2012.

Here is one of the BMW films: Madonna & Clive Owen in Guy...

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 11:44:00 -0500

Here is one of the BMW films: Madonna & Clive Owen in Guy Ritchie’s movie. Compare this to the Audi’s Transporter films. Giulia

TRANSPORTER 3 - Audi A8 vs. Mercedes E-class. Audi advert or...

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 11:36:00 -0500

TRANSPORTER 3 - Audi A8 vs. Mercedes E-class. Audi advert or action movie? Watch the whole movie and compare it to the BMW films. Giulia

Acclaimed graphic designer, Ken Garland, our guest for this week!

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 07:05:10 -0500

Acclaimed graphic designer and one of the original signatories of the famous First Things First 1963 manifesto, Ken Garland, is coming to WSA this Wednesday to speak to us about visual metaphors.

“Ken Garland completed his studies in graphic design at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London in the 1950s. He was art editor of ‘Design’ magazine from 1956-62, leaving to establish his own graphic design studio as Ken Garland and Associates with numerous clients including Galt Toys, Paramount Pictures and the Arts Council. Garland has contributed many articles to design periodicals in the UK, US, Mexico, Europe and Japan. His publications include ‘First things first: a manifesto’ (1964), “Graphics handbook’ (1966), ‘A word in your eye’ (1996) and ‘Metaphors: a portfolio of text and image’ (2001). In 2008, he and his wife Wanda established Pudkin Books, a small publishing house which has published 12 titles in the series ‘A close look at…’ Garland has lectured widely in the UK, US, Canada, Portugal, Norway, Denmark, Germany and Bangladesh and is currently Visiting Professor in Graphic Design at Brighton University. He has shown photographic work in one-man exhibitions including ‘Linescape, lithoscape, landscape’ (Reading 1987), ‘Metaphors: a portfolio of text and image’ (Brighton and Coventry 2002, Hull 2003, Glasgow and Portugal 2004), ‘The children of Bangladesh/The rickshas of Bangladesh’ (Coventry and Reading 2006) and ‘Looking closer’ (London 2012)”

Biography adapted from “ ‘Ken Garland: structure and substance’ (Unit Editions, London, 2012)

"You Are Here" - MA Interim Show 2013

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 05:11:29 -0500

You are here. Our postgraduates are here: at WSA but also at a crossroads. No longer undergraduates, not yet industry professionals. Half way through their MA, our community of designers, artists, marketers and managers have come a long way. Some have discovered their voice. Some are deciding which route to take to that unique design proposition.This exhibition is about how far they have come and the directions they will take. Join us at their crossroads.

MA Interim Exhibition
The Rotunda, Winchester School of Art
Part I: 11 - 15 March
Part II: 7 - 17 May
10.00 - 17.00

Private View: Monday 11 March, 16.00

New Art of Making Books - Get your tickets now!

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 04:53:13 -0500

“Today the book has been freed of its traditional container of bound printed pages and we now see an interesting dialogue between digital and print-based media. All processes and forms of production are entwined through digital and online mediations of content and interpretation. So what is a book in today’s culture and how have the Web and digital technologies transformed and expanded the book? The becoming digital of the book is not as straightforward as a linear change, but a complex intertwining of technological, aesthetic and cultural habits and tendencies. The book does not just become digital, but the digital becomes book-like with the growth of such platforms that remediate the book such as Kindle, and yet, the book is on some levels disappearing as a physical object.

The title of this event references Ulises Carrión’s provocative series of aphorisms on his definition of a book from the 70’s. But how have new technologies shaped a very different perspective for the book since this time? How have these changes crafted an alternative reading experience? This conference will explore the current transformation of the artist book and examine the connections that exist between the physical and the digital.

The main thematic areas covered are the printed and electronic books. Themes and research questions would include: the convergence of traditional craft skills with digital technologies in the making of books; how has the book transformed across space and time; how have artists used new forms of communication to create a different reading experience; and how do we archive and collect in the digital world? Disciplines discussed within this include: typography, printing processes, electronic publishing, text-image relationships, illustration and narrative, motion graphics, sequence and performance, design and navigation for screen, e-book interface design and visual ergonomics.”

Find out more about this event here.

All welcome! Seats limited. :D

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 09:15:00 -0500

All welcome! Seats limited. :D

YouTube Creator Playbook

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:27:10 -0500

daresocialhub:

YouTube’s Creator Playbook is a resource for brands, agencies and the savvy do it yourself content creators that provides ‘best practice, tips and strategies’ to help inform the content creation process and support efforts to build a larger audience on the platform.

Steering away from marketing rhetoric, the playbook delivers useful, straightforward advice along every step of the way.

Although probably one of the most useful documents to be released by YouTube, the Playbook is a monumental read. So, to save you having to trawl through all of it at once here are 10 nuggets from the playbook to get you thinking.

Grab attention in the first 15 seconds, this may determine if your audience stay with you for the duration

Give your audience something to talk about by incorporating call to actions within the creative or by using annotations. The more buzz you create the better it will be for your discoverability within YouTube.

Learn lessons from TV programming. By introducing scheduling for the release of your content and publish frequency you improve the chances of your audience making time to find and view your work.

Be aware and nimble, as creating content related to ride the wave of a current news story or trending activity could help you build your audience, reach and relevance.

Collaborate with your peers; this is an effective method of reaching new audiences.

Use data creatively. YouTube analytics allows you to understand the performance of your content, with this knowledge you can do more of what you’re doing or change course to meet your objectives.

Get your metadata right to enhance your visibility within YouTube search.

Help your audience navigate around your channel by using playlists. Playlists not only create order but they can help you create a narrative by placing a series of videos in a playlist to tell a story.

A compelling channel experience can be achieved by considering how to use a simple background or custom design. Whichever you choose to implement, ensure it works with your visual identity across your other channels on and offline.

Distribution is key; whilst people may find your content in YouTube, distribution of this video content through outreach, social distribution or placement within your owned channels will increase views of the video but also discoverability of your channel on YouTube.

Check out how Thom Yorke and gang are using the Internet to run AMOK

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:16:00 -0500

Since 2007, when In Rainbows broke every rule in music industry corporate machinery by self-releasing their work in a pay-what-you-want download, a lot has changed, including the explosion of social network users. Wise to this, Thom Yorke, in his latest musical incarnation collaboration “Atoms for Peace” released a full stream of their new album, AMOK, via an online visualizer this time. Find out what this is by visiting their website and clicking on “Run AMOK”:

http://amok.atomsforpeace.info/

p.s. our blog “Visualizer” will be visualized on their website! WHEE

How Magazine Advertising Works in Print or Digital platforms

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 16:27:00 -0500

Proof of Performance releases their global research and findings that “show how magazine media advertising works. In particular it can be used to promote the strengths of magazines and to reach agencies and advertisers with critical information about the value of advertising in magazine media. The digital edition is FREE to download”.

Check it out!

JP on Mobilities and Urban Mobile Culture

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 09:37:00 -0500

cuii:

We had Reader and Senior Fellow at the WSA Centre for Global Futures in Art Design & Media, Jussi Parikka, gave the first of two guest sessions this morning, “Mobilities and Urban Mobile Culture”, as part of this semester’s learning on mobile media and apps. The questions we are thinking of: what is mobility? What is mobile media? Here’s my quick recap and thoughts.

In true steampunk fashion, our resident media archeologist’s story of mobilities begins in a time long ago - the 19th century. Back then, both our experiences and imaginations of media use were quite conservative in terms of movement; in the sense that people thought of media as something designed for people who are sitting down or standing, at home, in the office, sat hours on a train, or in a phone booth. The characteristic of portability was certainly something Victorians were already thinking about when they invented the paperback book - printing text on sized down low quality paper - or the broadsheet newspaper since they were often ‘on the move’ (used to take FOUR hours to get from London to Brighton!). Like commuters today on their phones, Victorians could carve out tiny pockets of private worlds whilst being in (crowded) spaces with lots of strangers they don’t want to talk to. A banal detail perhaps but this mode of industrialized travel marked both the modern self and its relationship with technology. And now we can see them clearly: quaking sardines in trains with hurting feet - and in those clothes! - Victorians cling on to their Dickens, stiff upper lips and inner monologues; and what they remind us of is that mobility is definitely much more than the abstract motion of getting from point A to point B (again, another modern rationalized way of thinking about movement). Mobility and mobile media was experienced viscerally, as embodied movement.

Why 19th century? Seems a long time ago when you think about mobile technology. Elsewhere, Jussi demonstrates how by examining this era - marked by the birth of media culture, modernity and its technologies - we can show that the ‘new’ in new media is actually quite a prosaic term; mobility and urban mobile culture, for instance, has had a long duration than we think. I think he means to tell us that in investigating this past, one gains a perspective of mobility and mobile media from not only from mobile devices but also from social life.

Which brings us to one thing Victorians hadn’t envisaged in their use of mobile media: connectivity. Fast forward to the 1990s, the idea of mobility also attached itself to the idea of connectivity. And we know this with our mobile phones and pagers. Texts, beeps, emoticons on early small dot-matix green screens was how we communicated with each other whilst on the move. Now with our smartphones, i.e. 3G enabled internet access, mobility acquires another layer of experience. Our dull commutes are augmented by an even bigger range of possibilities. Connectivity is an affordance that “implodes our time and space” because of all these added information and range of microdata included in our movement. We use Google maps to navigate, we can tweet, email, take a picture, check the weather, Whatsapp our friends, Instagram, post FB updates and make snazzy six-second videos. Movement is now simultaneously happening both onscreen and off. We can now connect with friends, people we love who are far away or even in different timezones. Even when you are alone, you are never alone if you have your mobile phone. Urban mobility is living as if the world is one big screen if Google would have its way with us. But does this seamless fluid social connected movement mean that our mobility seems freer?

Jussi also argues that technology has a dark side to it. It doesn’t always work the way we imagine it to. We might not get a signal or connection all the time and in every place; immobility can also highlight how mobility works within certain restrictions and limits. Mobility in the city can be thought of as a question of power over the users, about managing movements within the city - an environment that dictates, governs and regulates how we move. Apps such as the Transport for London app might seem like a handy informational tool but it also helps the city regulate your movements within it. It allows for the “synchronisation of your movement in space” - hundreds of commuters need to make sure they catch the 9:05am Waterloo station, and complete the walk to the bus stop within 7 minutes and so on and so forth. We are creatures of habit. Certainly we already know that apps behave like databases, they collect data from each user but more than that, Jussi warns, apps “can measure, quantify and feed forward” information about us so much so that perhaps one day our movements can be predicted with reasonable accuracy.

The most interesting part of the lecture for me was this idea of vertical mobility. Echoing John Urry, a sociologist doing lots of research about mobilities, Jussi suggests we need not only think of mobility in the horizontal sense: why not think about mobility in the vertical sense? Vertical mobility not only as social mobility - upwards and downwards through socio-economic scales - but also geographically? We might question what is mobility in the air? or underground? Media use during flights, for safety reasons, is a pretty strict experience both in terms of content and the physical experience - what might mobility mean in that context?

HAUTE POP: The Rules Of Tumblr

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 14:50:17 -0500

HAUTE POP: The Rules Of Tumblr:

hautepop:

I replied to a question on Quora a few months ago - What are the *unofficial* rules of Tumblr (and what ought they to be)?
“Conventions, courtesies, credits, comments — what are the spoken and unspoken rules of the Tumblr community? Where is the community deficient and where does it excel?”

…

WSAadm on Weibo

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 12:25:34 -0500

It is easy forget there are social worlds outside of Facebook and Twitter. WSAadm has more followers/fans on the Chinese twitter - Weibo - than on Facebook: 119! :)

[but we do have 135 tumblr followers tho YAY!]

Dare Social Hub: Vine - Twitter's new toy

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:43:00 -0500

Dare Social Hub: Vine - Twitter's new toy:

daresocialhub:

Last week Twitter launched Vine, an iOS app (iPhone, iPad, iPod) that allows users to create short, looping, videos within a 6 second time frame and share them with their followers on both Twitter and Facebook.

Vine, owned by Twitter, is fully integrated within the platform interface…

Photo

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 07:17:50 -0500