hello siminar!. design for owners red dog one potentially hopeful finding in the otherwise...
TRANSCRIPT
HELLO SIMINAR!
DESIGN FOR OWNERS
RED DOG
One potentially hopeful finding in the otherwise discouraging study was the fact that larger numbers of Americans were going into business as freelancers or contractors. Dane Stangler says some of these one-person shops could become employers in the future.“Call them necessity entrepreneurs if you will, but some of those people—how many we can’t predict—could drive future job growth,” he says.
- xconomy.com
Communication Design: (also called visual design)
This is a catch-all term for the inter-disciplinary practice of design, information architecture, advertising and marketing, and business. The fields that may be represented in communication design practice are, but not limited to: information architecture, editing, copywriting, advertising, animation, web design, graphic design, identity design, illustration, market research, professional writing, video game technology and specifically web-based games, et cetera. I will focus less on marketing and advertising today.
Illustrator:An illustrator is a graphic artist who creates
visual work that either enhances text, replaces text, and otherwise benefits a design or presentation with their work. An illustrator is not a graphic designer, and they do not necessarily ever overlap with skills. An illustrator can have strengths in many areas such as concept art (and even that branches out), advertising, print illustration over web-based illustration, scientific or cartoons. For Sims, we would be focusing on a digital illustrator only.
Writer:There are particular needs for a sim
community in that most of the events that occur for a user to experience are written. These can then be turned into a verbal experience for disabled users, or some games do utilize voice and the spoken word. For this, a writer would command the mood and integrity of the language used on the site. Sometimes a translator is needed if the website becomes large enough and must (or chooses to) encompass other languages. Most sim games are still very textual and require multiple writers to write final descriptions of objects to conceptual documents for the visual team to use and for the participants to experience.
Graphic Design is not information architecture, though often they are shared duties or at least close partners. Graphic design usually has far less to do with the programming and psychology of how a user interacts with a system of commands and map of a website, and more to do with the visual appearance of a website and how that attracts and commands an audience. Graphic designers are not coders and should not be assumed to be coders. Web-specific graphic designers understand how a website may read to a certain audience and often how to best visually display the content of a website, as well as understand the identity and branding of a company. They understand typography and text as a visual element.
Information Architecture: It is the process of building systems such as web development, user interfaces, programs for websites and games, in that it bridges not only how a user would interact with the media they are presented with but the aesthetics of it. Consider it exactly like the role of a traditional building architect except that we are talking about library systems, software, websites, games, online communities, databases, the list does go on. Sometimes information architects are web designers.
Art Director: An art director's job is to tie all of these skills
together and generally unify the communication design for the company or project. They tie together, in our case, the programmer, graphic designer, illustrator, writer, and information architect to produce an exciting game for people to play. As per the owner's contract with them, they ultimately handle the creative vision of the project and make executive decisions on the entire creative process. Artists are paid to do a job, and the job is to usually follow the art director's vision so that all work is produced with the same level of understanding even if the artists never meet in an office or are from other disciplines.
OWNER
ART DIRECTOR
Illustrator Graphic designer Information
architect Writer
PRODUCER
Market Researcher Advertising Head Book
Keeper/payroll Investors
:(
Illustrators lack a style, color palette, and standard of qualityIllustrators are left to decide what is appropriate, but when they have not satisfied the client there is much debate about what the owner wanted in the first placeIllustrators have little say in negotiating the value and price of their work as they are understaffed and underrated as an integral part of the game's processGraphic design is extremely basic and often must go under alpha reviewing for small coding mistakesadvertising is very basic, not visual (except for ancient banner technology), and mostly word of mouthprogramming is often done by the owner, who is very minimally trained and using older coding techniquesItems may be misplaced, misused, not created, sometimes created twice, which all of these things hold up or frustrate further productionThere is no room for pushing technological/gaming envelopes when only the basic defacto goals are sought afterDeadlines are not often met because this team (if it even is a team) often lacks specific deadlines and goals, or is not treated seriously!
:)
DESIGN THINKING
“Design thinking is a different way of approaching the big challenges we face. It starts off with really trying to serve people's needs. It connects constraints with creativity, enabling us to look at old problems with new eyes and generate new possibilities. There are many things in our organizations and markets that we can't control, but your mindset and your approach to your challenges--those are up to you.”- Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO
1) Define the goal
2) Research the issues, obstacles, investors, end users, etc
3) Brainstorm and log it, charrette and do not shoot down early concepts
4) Prototype and test drafts of the best ideas, seek feedback, try to remain neutral
5) Review objectives and consider what ideas are the most successful
6) Implement and begin delivering first wave to the client and gather feedback from the participants
TEAM BUILDING
1) Have an art director and producer
They just want to help!
OWNER
ART DIRECTOR
Illustrator Graphic designer Information
architect Writer
PRODUCER
Market Researcher Advertising Head Book
Keeper/payroll Investors
PAY THEM REAL MONEY
At a fair price!
2) But how do I find them?
The internet!
NO NO's Other sim games (find the designers through another owner) Deviantart (unless you are reaaaally picky) Not hire and provide competitive payments Not having a contract Not researching the legal issues of royalties for artwork or design work, etc
!!YES YES!! Go to portfolio sites that are more reputable for designers (see my bibliography) Find designers outside of the sim circle – we know it is limited! Know what you are looking for before you go get itYoung college students, hint hint
3) Bare bones team
Ready to see it again?
OWNER
ART DIRECTOR
Illustrator Graphic designer Information
architect Writer
PRODUCER
Market Researcher Advertising Head Book
Keeper/payroll Investors
COMMUNICATION
IS KEY
Make sure that your team here has gone through and helped you conceptualize and plan tasks for the future, with deadlines.
Really, communicate with them. Have an organized forum and uploading location where all the designers can share ideas and share project work together.
Don't assume they know what you want. You have to tell them.
Thankfully if you have an art director you won't have to worry about designers meeting standards because that is their job. Yay!
Follow design thinking strategies and you will always have the team asking questions, thinking forward, and feeling confident they are part of the plan.
GROW
CLOSING
“But I think perhaps it's time to leave behind trying to be less bad and start trying to be 100 percent good. Rather than stewarding the planet into oblivion why not awake to our kinship with all life and leave behind a footprint we can delight in? Why not make the human influence on the planet restorative, vital and good? Why not follow the laws of nature so that we can generate fecundity and good growth? As an architect I have to follow the law of gravity. It's not just a good idea, it's the law. Understanding the laws of nature is fundamental to design.”
William McDonough, Architect
