Interesting Website for Design "Kids' Marine Mammal Website"

This website is about voting for a playground in Chicago. Basically, children send their design to the city, showing on the website and let people vote for the 3 best which will be announced in this March. The winners will get rewards rewards and supportings for their school.

I really like the way they create the icon connected to each other in one big area. You can see the whole picture of it and each of them is clickable and is animation. Of course, there are sounds for each. I also like the way they show information that is not just like putting texts in a box or put in on plain background, in the original web style. When you click to the link, it shows that items on the current page are disappearing one by one and them placing items from the new page more and more.

Credit: http://www.yourplayground.org/#

Class Feedback and Lynda.com

Last week, in the class, I like that the teacher has some exercises that are related to our homework because it helps me to imagine what the homework will look like and what I should do. Kind of, I can get some practicing before know what the direction is. Besides, I like the way that there were some activities in class and it's not boring.

About Lynda.com, this week we are focusing on "Photoshop for the Web". It's pretty intense because now we're going to focus more on the program and tools and tricks that will help us to create a good website. I don't know for others but for me who has no background knowledge for Photoshop and other programs before, it's very helpful. Lots of tools that I've never known before are showing on the website. It makes me really think that when I finish learning each videos, I definitely get something from it. :)

Personas

Billy is a chubby boy, aged 8 years old. He is a big bully at school. He likes to pick on weak students to call for attention. His parent is divorced and now he lives with his alcoholic dad. He needs to be responsible for himself and needs to help some of his dad's work. Only one thing can help him relaxed is to play with secretly raised homeless cat that always comes to his backyard. Deep down, he loves animals. He dreams of being a veterinarian someday.

He lives in San Jose and he has heard a lot about San Francisco and its very famous place, Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 39. He's never been there before, even though it's not to far. So he went to the school library, surfs the Internet to find pictures of it. He founds pictures of cute sea lions and a link to lead him to "the Marine Mammal Center" website.

Dakota Fanning is a 15 years old kid who is an American actress. She lives in Los Angles. Her father was a minor league baseball player for St. Louis Cardinals and her mother was a professional tennis player. She is well-known for the films like Man on Fire, Wars of the World and Charlotte's Web. But now she is offered the role of Mary, in the upcoming film "Mary and Rona".

The story centers on Mary, a cute city girl who is heart broken by a boy he secretly likes, a boy whom she finds out that he is actually gay. She is so sad that her family needs to bring her on vacation to her grandma's house in Oakland, where she meets and becomes friends with Rona, a baby sea lion. So to perform well, Fanning needs to do some researches about this little cute friends, the sea lions through the website and some other sources.

Experience Map for "the Marine Mammal Center" ((Just For Kids))

This experience map shows circle items that will refer to links on the website. Different colors refer to different topics and different sizes refer to the difference of the topics' importance. They are placed a little bit in an alignment which means that they will appear in a little bit well-orgainized on the website. But as you can see, each topic is important by itself so it doesn't matter which one will come first. They audience always can play around as which one they wanna see first and then see the others, and then they may come back and forth to each one again and again. Even the next time they visit to the website, since the information is for kids, they can choose what ever topic they like back and forth. It's not in order.

Just For Kids!!

So..."Just for Kids" website for the Marine Mammal Center is basically for kids to learn about marine mammals and the center's work. It also tries to create funs for kids and encourage them to become volunteers, get their parents to become volunteers, and encourage donations.

In this site, there are 12 main links which each clicking botton has their individual sounds and animations:

- Videos of Northern Fur Seals

- Kids Newsletter

- Poster Contest Winners, showing drawing pictures and names of the winners.

- Kids Helping Seals, introducing kids who become volunteers at the center.

- Scrapbooks, showing pictures and medical histories of some rescued animals.

- Learning 4 R's: Rescue, Rehab, Research and Release, which are all learning through videos.

- Listening to Sounds of each kind of marine mammals.

- Visiting Patients, showing brief stories and pictures of some rescued animals and explaining works of the center.

- People behind the scenes: questions and answers of staff veterinarian, assistant director of education, marine biologists about their work and how they become what they are and the link for career resources.

- General Questions to veterinarian staffs.

- Fun Downloads and Games.

- Matching Marine Mammal Game for kids.

Link to the homepage: http://www.marinemammalcenter.org/juniormembership/index.html

"Google" Experience Map

This is my first idea of experience map when you use "Google" website. First when you get into the website, you need to take time to find what you really want. But more and more you surf it, you become more clear how to use the website and you can narrow it down easier. Finally, when you go to the website again, you can find what you want faster than ever!

"Just for Kids" Marine Mammal Center.

I finally know what my topic is. It is "Just for Kids" Marine Mammal Center. So basically the website contains lots of kid's stuff but not too much information for adults such as what, when, where, why, how, etc. Therefore, just to let you know what "the Marine Mammal Center" is about, I will mention briefly about it.

The Marine Mammal Center was founded in 1975 and is located near Rodeo Beach in Marin County, California. It is a private non-profit U.S. organization centered on rescue, rehabilitation, environmental research and education regarding marine mammals such as cetaceans and seals.

The center rehabilitates a strong fraction of the animals like California sea lions, Northern elephant seals, Pacific harbor seals, fur seals, dolphins and the endangered species Southern sea otters and releases them to the wild without medical research conducted using the rescued animals. Just valuable scientific data is collected through routine diagnostic and necropsy analyses to assess disease pathologies and relation to the marine environment.

Scientists at The Marine Mammal Center collaborate with their counterparts around the world in working on complex individual animal treatment cases, and also participate in joint research projects regarding interaction of ocean dwelling mammals with the marine environment.

Facilities include the Marine Mammal Center at Marin Headlands headquarters, Sausalito, Monterey Bay, Moss Landing, San Luis Obispo, Morro Bay, California, a veterinary hospital, records room, food preparation and storage rooms, rescue equipment storage area and The Marine Mammal Center Store · Sea Lion Information on the west side of the second level of PIER 39.



For more information: visit the Marine Mammal Center at http://www.tmmc.org/

Class Feedback

For Digital Design Studio class, I really have no idea what it's gonna be...

I don't know whether the teacher will teach us about CCS, Dreamweaver and Flash or just let us study from Lynda.com and then just only discuss and present in class...

Let's see this week how it's gonna be.


PS. He is still me favorite teacher no matter what. I just like his casually teaching style. ;))

Another interesting website :))

Hi guys,

This week I found a good one, very interesting...for me. ;) It's a website from Nissin cupnoodle, Japan. When you open the first page, it will be an animation, kind of video...but I cannot copy that so...you need to link to the website by yourself.

Here is the picture of the website:

Credit: http://on.cupnoodle.jp/

Interaction Design: Process and Inspiration from Lynda.com

Still, I like it because the website divides each part into short videos which make me easy to catch up. And it's not boring at all...the speaker presents it like telling stories, talking to friends and then he shows lots of picturesfor supporting.

This week, we suppost to study about Interaction Design: Process and Inspiration (credit: Lynda.com) and here is what I learned.



APPROACH:

- How to generate ideas ---> look at things around you, it's everywhere; in a kitchen, at a door, in a bathroom, or in a sketch book.
- Sketch ideas or storyboards for designing a website.
- "Put yourself in the audience's shoes"
- Did it for some reasons ---> not just show off skills in Flash.


DESIGNING FOR MY MUM:

- Think of the audience: for example, mum, and design it for them.
- See who is your audience.
- Create it visible ---> people doesn't have to have knowledge to get understanding it.
- What shouldn't do ---> too much showy flash skills ---> it's too noisy and annoying.
- "Be matured and experienced."


'NEED TO KNOW' DESIGN:

- The audience just want to know what's on the website, not need to know how (fast) you create it.
- Use aesthetic designs, not showy.
- "Make things relevant but make it looks different."


WELCOME TO PLEASANTVILLE:

- Exploring, playing, breaking things ---> don't afraid to make mistakes ---> try new things, be brave.
- Exercise your brain "MORE".
- Experiment to do something new.

(continued)

- Sounds ---> narrow graphics on the page.
- Insert code ---> try many different things and see the results.


TWISTING DATA:

- How to present the data.
- Java can create something: for example, graphics with sounds, much richer than Flash.
- Experimental work ---> playing around.


EVERYDAY ORDINARY INSPIRATION:

- Something that's normally looked: for example, at the bottom of the McDonald bag has some interesting graphics.


USABILITY VS. ENJOYABILITY:

- Do it not only functional, but also "enjoy" ---> interaction.
- Some people like and dislike the interaction. Some want just quickly finding information.


FUSING INTERFACES:

- Challenge doing new things
- Think about things in a different way.
- Make it different ---> make it unexpected.


THOUGHT SPACE:

- Taking an idea from brainstorming and do it further.


TOUCHY FEELING:

- Explore a physical making.
- Look for inspiration.



THE END :D

The Marine Mammal Website

Then I visited the marine mammal center's website. And here is its homepage...



The homepage is filled with many shades of blue colors which is the right color concept for anything related to sea and ocean. And for me, blue is my favorite color! :))

And I think the pictures shown on the homepage will gradually change...may be everyday or may be once a week, I'm not sure yet. ;)

On the left side, you can see the illustration of a sea lion rolling his body to be like a water drop shape... It's the lgo of the center. Also, it's an animation...it moves when you first open the homepage including some sounds of ocean's waves, which is kinda cool.

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However, I think this website contains too much information. You can see a bunch of links, probably over 100 links spreaded everywhere. I don't know for you, but for me, it makes me feel getting lost. I don't even know where to go, how I should start...

This is an example of links links links and links on the website (which is just only started).

It seems to have other links on almost every individual page. -__-" Some are contained so much that it's confusing, it's repeated...over and over...

Here is some page showing links that are very confusing.

As you can see, the links for related topics are on the left side. And then there are the same links plus some other links on the right side.....What?? Besides, if you look at the top of the page, you can see boxes of links, showing the same thing!!

From seeing all of this, even though I have no experience about how to create a website, I surely know that this's gonna take looooooooooooooong time to do it. TnT

Here are the link for the website (there are two which are exavtly the same, I don't know why. -__-") :

http://www.marinemammalcenter.org/

http://www.tmmc.org/

My Project

My topic to crate a website is "Re-opening the Marine Mammal Center", the project number 14. Fortunately, I was the first person to choose it so it is really what I like. I love animals and most of all, I love sea lion. :))

Here is my project page. You can see the sea lion cute face and you may feel that you wanna hug him and touch him so bad...just like me. :)

And next step... On the next day (of the class which will be on Wednesday), I gave a call to Jim, a person according to the point of contact. He didn't pick up so I left a message. However, he called me back on the next day (Thursday). We talked for a while and he said that now he already had someone to recreate the website, which was still in the process. He said he didn't want me to create a website but create graphics, posters or brochures instead. @_@"

So I said that I'm doing a school project for a web design class so in this case, I need to create a website and the website that I will create doesn't need to be use for real. And he said that he asked George for finding someone to create graphics, not a website, so...he thinks that it might be a mis-communication. So he said he's gonna write an email to ask George about this again. Also, he asked me to send all information I have about this class to himso I sent the class plan file (in word program) and the Design Projects file (in PDF) already.

Since I don't know now what to do, I think I will initially stick to the first plan which is finding information about the project. *_,*'

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Let's see what's going to happen next...

Interesting Website

I found a really good design website, I think. It gives you an idea about economic for living. There are animations, going on in every page. It's very intersting and very detailed. You can enjoy surfing while learning the economic things.

Here is the picture that we can see while loading the website, very unique. :))

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Here is the link for the website:

http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/landing_page

Music Postcard

This is one of my postcards about music festival from my Type Composition class. As some of you may knew, the teacher wants us to use only one typeface in one size and one weight to do it. You can add some simple geometric shape but no more than that. No images, pictures and others. Apparently, the teacher doesn't like it. But I do. lol. :)))

About Digital Design Studio

I wanna talk a little bit about this class today.
I feel like This class is kind of fun.
I enjoy checking new messages in the YAHOO group
like I've never done before.
The main reason is because I like the teacher.
He makes me feel so casual and
feel comfortable to study with. ;)
((No need to give me a higher grade for this. lol))

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About the Lynda.com, I took a look a little bit
for the "welcome" video in Interaction Design part
and feel more comfortable to learn things.
Because each video is not too long.
It's divided into several pieces for each part.
So I think I'm gonna be fine. :))

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Today I read the message from Mauro, saying that tomorrow
we're gonna have a guest, our client. Very excited. :::)))
In my opinion, I don't worry about choosing a brief at all.
Because it's kind of the teacher or a client assigns you to do something
and you cannot choose whether you like it or not, right?
So...no need to worry.

But...

Just have a little bit hope that
I'm gonna get a brief that is what I'm familiar with
and that is what I like...so that I can enjoy working on it. ;)

Paul Rand Video

This is a nicely done video, which includes Paul Rand Speech and his work. It's all about art and design, just in 4 minutes. I got this one from my Visual Literacy class and think it's useful. You may wanna check it out. :)


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Enjoyyyy :))

Here is the link for the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yOjts0tpco

My Work

This is the first picture I drew in Illustrator

and it was my first time to use the program.

It's called "Similar".

And this is my first poster. It's called "Gun Responsibility".

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That's it.

As you know, I'm very new in this field, Graphic Design,

so...don't expect too much. :))

I'm sure that you will see "my development in Graphic Design" in the future.

Cool Works!!!

Here are some of someone's works that I like.

If you wanna know where they're from, just click at the one you like.

The link to its original homepage will show up.

This is the picture that I'm curious about one thing.

Was it created by Photoshop or someone really knitted it?

What do you think?

This one I give a credit for the ides.
I couldn't stop laughing when I first saw it. :))

I think that this pic also came from a very cool idea.
I like the way that the picture can communicate for more than one meaning.
It is very creative!

Credits: fffound.com, fubiz.net