VCT - Websites

Lesson Aims:
- We started to talk broadly about web media and then pre web media. It’s hard to understand the characteristics of new media because it is current, easier to understand old media.

- “New media” - There is always a new media i.e pencil, biro (they was once a new media)

Thinking about the switch from old media to new media -Web 2.0 (Name suggests a evolution) i.e - Kill Bill 2

Web 1.0


Thinking about the term metaphors: Terms as a old world (i.e desktop) comes from the printed era.
- What happens when they no longer make sense to use in the digital world?



The photograph above show networks of . This is a electric grid - Modern City
At night what is hidden in the day becomes visible . Life is transformed by grids of lights. Technology transforms our lies. (Before lights we wouldn't go out at night really).



Lots of adverts in buildings. The Mercedes poster is large scale. The image is bout physically distance, depending on scale. The cross intersections on road resemble the web.
In the web this called HUB or NODE (Where traffic flows through or congregates).

The Internet is a mass of digital flows & conversations, myspace/facebook are hubs = meeting points

The Internet is a abstract idea - it's a idea
MAP IS A INVENTION NO A RECORD


QUESTION: How might a reals pace & unreal space come together in LA?
- Films / The Sims



Printing & Communication (New name) - Suggests we do other things other then printing
Shift - Moving away from something physical - Shift from hand production.
Visual Communication - Emphasis is on flow of information to hep us make sense of the world.

Designers like visual narratives
Graphic Designers tend to use metaphorical metaphors

There are print & analogue metaphors - Desktop / Folders / Files (user centered design- they are more natural for you to use).

> We most often attach ourselves to objects of the past



The above image suggests technology as extension of the brain. Connectivity
Future progress - Left > Right


New Technologies - Web 2.0 : The Social Web

Content is generated by users / Congregation of communication
i.e - TV News sometimes is user generated - debates

- The Web 2.0 is called user to user rather than one to many
We need new metaphors



This change affects the way we design, The Internet means network integrated or points between

Outlook / Safari / Explorer / Surfer - Shift from office metaphor - Suggest escape,

However we create the internet therefore the explorer metaphor is a lie!

The Web is spatial navigation, When you try to convey this in printed matter it doesn't work.




Question: If you have a metaphor what does it allow in thinking, but also what does it disable?

The digital flow controls us: i.e scanning a passport, the information is only relevant in a certain time or place



The Vital signs illustrates that the web is a open source, a world that is uncertain.

http://www.modernista.com/7/index.php



If information is unstable do you tame it? Or does your design allow it to be unstable?

Sources: Kevina City Wise- The Image of the City / Habermas Gaphic design Eye Mag 2005
On the Invention of the Public Sphere

Thank you to Monika Parrinder for the great talk!

To-Do

I think I need to start thinking & researching about the processes made to make maps
I need to remind myself of the brief when I attend a trip to the library!

Examples of Musuem Maps

The Wellcome Trust

Identity Exhibition

Interactive Maps

VCT - Maps & Ideologies

Questions
Maps make political changes, can I use map to do this?




Looking at Hegemony: Dominant Ideology
Object of struggle always changing, normalized because most common view
Our world map has distinctive shape & forms - Accepted view




William Harvey - Britannia - Builds ideas of Boadicea (Roman)
History of country read through figure of woman
The Great Exhibition 1851 - Ideologies, Monarchism, Relation to Germany (German Sea), History of ancient Greece - Athena Greek Helmet.

Book: Wonder Atlas 1954?
Idea os Hope after war





The map shrinks world - accessible places
Atlas greek - God who holds up the world
London in the middle - Mapping air mile difference
Transport & Interconnection- Rail/Sea - Global travel is important
Empires are still coloured - Showing dominance in world.

Future Magazine: Rex Harrison - America
Map used as a government tool
Japan & America at war - Maps tries to change possible view



R.E Harrison, Fortune - 1944


Soviet Union 1929
Map caused the famine in soviet union
Shows it has a influence on decisions made.



Loas: Communist area in black
Shows how maps are physically used



More engaging- idea of you making understandable

Andy Warhol 1986: Missile locations - Nuclear
Not correct info - American artist wouldn’t know where Russian Missiles are!
FICTION MAP - Idea of fear, Idea that missiles could be revealed. The language used is even the same- Secret lang,
Its about inaccuracy



Surrealist map 1929 - Political communist ideas & thinking / Russia getting rid of America
(Artist way of looking at world)



Fatilstrom 1972 - About the population in world - Shows what happens to people by making rivers smaller


GLOBALISATION (Changing world)

Neville Broody - Death of Typo 1986
Diff symbols in pic
Because the world is international - the alphabet is unnecessary.
We all look at the world through icon shapes instead of a alphabet that is not a global language
Icons may be more universal



Mac Icons - Navigation on a laptop



How do children look at the world? Through images
Jonny Phonics?
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/Reading_Wars.html

Idea of map being universal, no words. It about understanding diff visual languages

Conceptual maps - metal (mental) mapping etc... world mapping etc..concept map

VCT - Maps

The aim of the lecture is to observe the lecturers research method. Ian advised us to look at the
- Books glossaries for more references.
- Contents to gather an idea about what the book is about.
- Summaries written about books online.

Map Aims:
Explore ideas about the way the world we live in is represented in maps & how these ideas are represented visually, spatially, theoretically.
It will examine the representation of the world in the past & consider some of its potential futures.



Questions:
- What are maps?
- Maps use different language how might you categorize them? (i.e accurate / less accurate / political / particular focus / grids/ colours)
- Where and when would maps be used?
- What is info graphics?
- If you use icons in a map does it make it universal?

Lesson Notes:

Decision to do Grids - Making a map that has a specific focus - Deciding detail rather than objective view.


Focus - Lots of mapmaking started in the netherlands - Dutch wanted focus

Orientation - Hob Dyer: (Mckinoner - Look up. (See huge amount of sea other places look small, Australia is more centered)
Orientation takes a big part in how you read them



Accurate: Goode Homolosine: Digital 3D Map: Tried to be accurate of the relative land sizes.
Buckminster Fuller - Epcop center Disney World - Map made of Equilateral Triangles.



Normand Foster - “Lets not use grids instead...” Dymaxi on Projections. This map really flattens out the countries. North pole in in the middle. Its legible
Shifted way of looking at countries.
Most of it is above equator
Idea of air travel (Don’t file across, go over the north pole instead).


A NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT WORLD

Pertinger Table
Rome is the beginning & everything is mapped from there. Places radiate from.
Map was l:23m w:2.5 carved in stone.
Non proportional , No Scale - The scale is not a visual language
The idea is how far a place might be, given to you in numerals.




Jospeh Perkins: Claimed you only need 4 colours on a map to make it distinguishable?
How might info graphics relate?



United Nations 2002 - Example of how more information is needed to identify regions. the you are able to ask questions such as, why is the region poor? (Consider the maps context)
Distilling small bits of info from large amount - Info Graphics



“MAPS REVEAL BELIEFS” IAN HORTEN

Thank you to Ian Horten for the great sources and images to look at.

Definition of Map

- make a map of; show or establish the features of details of; "map the surface of Venus"
- map - explore or survey for the purpose of making a map; "We haven't even begun to map the many galaxies that we know exist"
- map - locate within a specific region of a chromosome in relation to known DNA or gene sequences; "map the genes"
- map - plan, delineate, or arrange in detail; "map one's future"
- map - depict as if on a map; "sorrow was mapped on the mother's face"
- map - a diagrammatic representation of the earth's surface (or part of it)
- map - to establish a mapping (of mathematical elements or sets)
- map - function: (mathematics) a mathematical relation such that each element of a given set (the domain of the function) is associated with an element of another set (the range of the function)

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=jMB&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=define%3Amaps&meta=&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

Starting Questions

How can you be innovative with this format?
Maps can be viewed in many different applications such as in books, printed matter, interactive, websites etc. A map is usually something you would take around with you


Who has done interesting work with the format before?
Not sure yet, but I find the history of country maps very interesting.
interesting artists:

http://www.timschwartz.org/geohistoriography/









http://www.infodesign.org.uk/events/mapping-international-crimes.php
http://www.infodesign.org.uk/


What processes and techniques can you explore and investigate?
I can explore the potential of how the map may be show, how interactive it could be. Drawings, screen printing, projections

How can you engage and excite the people who will be viewing this work?
Firstly research the type of people coming to the show and what they would like to see?
Make a less obvious map? - Like a game
Look into info graphics

Icon Maps

http://makingmaps.net/2009/02/17/mapping-with-isotype/



http://visualisationmagazine.com/blogvisualthinkmap/2009/10/100-of-the-best-data-visualisations-infographics.html

The Brief

The brief:
- Show the potential of the format
- Research the process used for making the format
- Explore the formats role changing, think about the future of the format
- Be creative & innovative - use a appropriate range of skills and process to show this
- Show how the format can be used, applied & manipulated in new ways
- Content must be about the format itself

Research:
- Historical facts
- Technical info
- Info about designers/ artist who have worked with format
- Secondary
- Primary - interviews, questionnaires, museums, galleries,

The Goals:
Highlight your creative thinking, research skills & practical ability

Audience:
Info must be interesting to the target audience & design industry

I like that the project client is myself, it gives me the opportunity to to undertake something that I want to do and learn about a format. The project should impress and be memorable.

Research Document
- 15-20 page research pdf or bound book
- A VCT essay that links to project
- Final exhibition design outcome