Calendar for 2009

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Print res, ink'n'paint + ao, in alphabetical order.

Got good feedback today - some details will change.

Award to wasting time goes to:

Panic procrastination - the best kind.

Colour!

1st post of December!

How to run experiments

Right. Experiment write-ups to follow (1st on October the 15th and 16th, then November the 12th and 13th, and December 9th and 11th).

Basic structure is as follows:

1. Design experiment.
2. Feedback from teacher(s).
3. Test experiment on initial respondents.
4. Creative / Critical feedback from Supervisors.
5. Experiment [Activity sessions] (Session 1).
6. Experiment [Activity sessions] (Session 2).
7. Conclusion.
8. Observation notes.
9. Compilation of findings.
10. Synthesize results.
11. Digest and reflect.
    
12. Create.

Here's a sneak peek at the creative results from Session 2:

This are the initial designs that have taken about a month of research to produce. Details to follow.

BroccoliMan

The Anti-Ice Cream Man

Bad Visual Pun of the Day

Lemon 'ead.

Not really encouraging veggies today. But the idea of a ice cream fatty / bad influence is appealing. The shape of the good influence needs work though.

No one likes fat kids

From AdsOfTheWorld.com:






Idealist.org says about Movere:

The Movere Institute of Community Actions is the first and only NGO and OSCIP (Civil Society Organization of Public Interest) in Brazil dedicated to working with poor overweight and obese children and adolescents. The Institute’s mission is to promote physical activities, nutrition education, psychological support, family integration and the conscience in each individual of the importance of a healthier lifestyle.

What they wrote

Georges-Henri Luquet -Le dessin enfantin (Children's Drawings), in 1927

• Internal model / schema
• Theory of realism
• Scribblings
• Fortuitous realism
• Failed realism
• Intellectual realism
• Visual realism  - not stages of development, but he considered them valid expressions of information

Mildred B Parten (not Parton) - Social Participation among Pre-school Children, in 1932

• Theory of Play - The 7 stages of play
  
• Unoccupied: Not in play
• Onlooker: Watching play
• Solitary independent:
• Parallel activity:
• Associative:
• Cooperative:

Jean Piaget - The Psychology of the Child (and many more), in 1962

Theory of cognitive development - already detailed here

Etc.

How things relate

If you can read that, and can give me an idea on how it kind of all fits together, I'd really appreciate it. I see it, but it's all hazy.

Paper

PShop.

Expanding my repertoire a little with this "project", we're going Wacom for most drawings / textures and Blender for modelling and animation.

Vector work will be done in Illustrator.

Here's a sample of colour palettes from some of the visual precedents I've been looking at, ranging between TV programmes and popular breakfast cereals. A lot of brightly hued primary colours, with some browns and black for contrast.

The last image is a possible palette - the traffic light / vegetable colour scheme on white / sky blue. That could work - will be updated after my first round of focus group research with my respondents (HEC application already in as of 11.09, finally - means I can be in business as early as 06.10)

Lazytown

I had a chance to speak to a class yesterday about the process of starting a research thesis, but instead of the information flowing one way, I learnt a few things that are relevant to what I'm doing.

"But also... what I found, from going around the world, was that kids who come from a small village, who have no money, no nothing, they can draw a moustache on themselves with a pen, and suddenly, they are Sportacus. They can put a hat on their head, and they are Sportacus. I wanted it to be so easy to imitate that any kid from Brazil or Mexico could do it." - Magnus Scheving aka Sportacus from The Indepedent

If there's a lesson I can learn from stuff that targets the under 6 demographic, is that imitation and emulation works.

"It’s all about action, and excitement," Scheving says, still pacing restlessly. "This is a show that makes kids want to get up and do something RIGHT NOW! Copy Sportacus! Get energy from eating sports candy! Do Stephanie’s dance! Sing!" from Times Online

Can I do this too? Can I do what Jamie Oliver does?

Someone kindly pointed me towards Carol Dweck (child psychologist and motivational expert) and her latest collaborative effort:

http://www.brainology.us/home.aspx

The Brainology Programme. Interesting motivational tool for middle schoolers.

Read list

What I'm reading now:

Kafai, Yasmin B. 1995. Minds in Play: Computer Game Design as a Context for Children's Learning. Hillsdale, N.J: L. Erlbaum Associates.

Piaget, Jean. 1969. The Psychology of the Child. London [England]: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Turkle, Sherry. 1995. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Ted Dutch

Some days you feel like just giving up, especially in the wake of such amazing work. Ted Dutch.

















And these ceramic pieces are so incredibly Wallace and Gromit it's .

The draft focus group process

Child-centric focus groups involving projective research techniques

Part 1 - See here.

Part 2 - I’d then like to follow up at a later date with a series of drawings of character design that I would’ve made to get critical formative feedback, as my design process involves the target audience’s feedback as an important feature. (3-4 weeks later)

Part 3 – I’d also like to come back with a series of 3D models, both digital and paper prototypes for more feedback. I’ll have a few extra paper prototypes I can leave behind. (2-3 weeks later)

Part 4 – Finally I’d like to show the animations and garner feedback regarding behaviour, reactions, and developing relationships. (6-8 weeks later)

Parts 2,3 and 4 to be expanded on after part 1.

Dealing with red tape at the moment, just a bit tedious... However:


check out Greenpeace's latest interactive effort. And the lovely ChupaChups pallette: