In addition to this, I also was tasked with creating three mood boards which showed what I thought about something. To do this however, I looked at various websites could help me create the mood boards as well as then included incorporating them more in to my planning.
The site that I settled on was milanote which is a free site where you can design moodboards.
I found this site extremely useful using it and have found it easy to use and I plan on continuing to use the application. Milanote compared to othersites also gives it a more professional look as well compared to other sites that I have used in the past.
Week 1 - Neurodivergent:
For the first week of the module I was tasked with working in a group to create awareness about neurodivergence and come up with an idea for a space within Leeds.
In my group we came up with the idea of perspective within the rose bowl building using the canteen floor as the canvas which would then have information about the topic.
The inspiration for the perspective was from music videos of Ok go where they used perspectives in there videos to create art.
In this photo it shows us generating ideas for the project where we explored who our target audience would be as well as public space, how we would create it and concept as well.
We decided on our target audience to be students this is because of the location that chose being the Rose bowl canteen where lots of different students from many different backgrounds would go to get something to eat and socialise with others. This made it an ideal location as well as target audinece for the project.
Why did we use perspective? The reason why we chose persepctive is to fit to the theme neurodivergency and the idea that people who are neurodivergent see things in a different perspective as oppose to someone who isn't neurodivergent. This would allow us to inspire people who are not nurodivergent to see things differently.
There is limitaions with this though as given that it would be in the rose bowl where there is many different students from different backgrounds we would have to accomidate for those people who don't speak english as there first language (Students studying from abroad).
Another limitation would be how we put the perspective into the location this is because from one perspective people may see it however at the same time other people may not see it in the same view.
Week 2 - Innovations:
For this part of the module I was looking at emerging technologies as well as reflecting on a project that I had done in the past and incorporating emerging technology into it and discussing how to improve it.
The past project that I decided to use to incorporate emerging technology with was the mobile app.
The reason for this was because I felt I could use augmented reality (AR) to improve the app and make it more easily accessible for users. However, there is major limitations with augmented reality this is because it is brand new and there is still issues with the technology.
For example whilst using the adobe software Adobe Aero I encountered frame rate drops as well as the application sometimes crashing on me whilst I used it. To overcome these problems I had to save the project every time I did some work on it to prevent the loss of work.
Whilst the application is good and fun to use at the current moment in time it is not for me only because the technology is still not ready and the issues I have stated above do not help it. However, I feel if the technology was to become more popular and get better support with technology I feel I would come back to it and give it another try.
In addition to this I also discussed the benefits of using (AR) for the mobile app. Another innovation that I identified and wanted to try was Raspberry pi I was given the tools for Raspberry pi and started to experiment with it.
This video is part of a task where we had to create an Augmented reality for a location in Leeds
After showing an interest in Raspberry pi I wanted to go further with it this is because of the many possibilities with the technology examples of this are simple sensors and a simple light blinking every few seconds. To more complex constructions like a web crawler or even a robot.
However, there is limitations with the technology this is because the more complex the task is that I want it to do the harder it will be to program it as well as more resourceses needed to make it work.
Week 3 - Workflow:
During the third week I had to critically examine my workflow and 'identify' any areas that I could improve and how I could also incorporate different technologies and methods to make my work flow more efficient.
I was able to identify issues with my work flow and started to discuss the use of AI to help me generate ideas for the project.
Whilst other people use chat gpt for ai I decided to use Google Gemini. This is because of its ease of access for me as well as availability allowing me simply open up the ai on any of my devices.
The issue that Identified was a big one for me because I would be given a brief and told to start creating something and would find myself struggling to come up with ideas however, i have found with the help of Ai I am able to get ideas to help me with creating a good well design end prouct for the brief that I am given.
In addition to this, I am now starting to incorporate AI more into my projects in regards to generating ideas allowing me to focus more on the project its self and not get stuck with coming up with ideas that may not be up to the standard of the brief.
Week 4 - Production:
This the focus was on production with the idea of making a design weather it was physical or drawn up. The idea I've gone for is an unskippable ad in the form of a box that would lock a box or door and the user would have to press the button and wait for it to unlock or 'skip the ad'.
Why did I choose this? I decided on this as a way to amplify the overlooked as ad's are everywhere now in society and we have just accepted it so the idea to create a physical unskippable ad could bring to light these issues.
I also incorported Raspberry pi into it as well using a new found technology I have decided to use this as part of the project I have been able to source a small screen as the display and now I need to know hoe to code it with what I want on the screen.
If your Arduino has only 8 digital pins but you want to control 24 LEDs, you can use shift registers like the 74HC595 or an LED driver IC. Here’s how you can accomplish this:
Using a 74HC595 Shift Register
The 74HC595 is a common shift register that allows you to control 8 outputs using only 3 Arduino pins. You can chain multiple 74HC595s together to control more LEDs.
This is a small piece of code that is part of a larger code. As this is how I would program the aurdino to make the unskippable ad lock work with the idea that it would run on 24 LED's that would effectivily slowly count down/ switch off ony then allowing the user to use the item that its locked to.
Furthmore, getting a better understanding of production I was task with creating a bunch of circles in varying states of randomness.
Understanding this process was fairly straight forward and understanding how different process can be applied to graphic design and the adobe softwares as well helped me to understand that sometimes including a code that can increase production for a large task is better than creating it manually slowing down the process.
Week 5 - Distribution:
This week I have furthered my understanding about distribution understanding how websites distribute information as well as getting a good understanding on how to distribute work for people to see.
The task that i was given was to choose 3 websites from the https:// brutalistwebsites.com/ and type up an overall review of the sites including what was good about the sites, overall impression of it or what was wrong with the webiste.
The brutalist website is filled with many strange websites some with themes to them whilst others don't even have a theme connected to them. Giving the site an overall strange feel to it as well as looking like it was made on the cheap to showcase some of the weird and wonderful websites that are on the internet.
HTML task:
I was given a task to change the styling of one of my blog posts for this site the changes I made to the site included changing the text colour to blue as well as increasing the size. In addition to this, I also included a border over the title as well
Cinema 4D:
Throughout the module I also got to learn about cinema 4D which is a powerful 3D application during this time I was shown the basics of cinema 4D as well as trying to build a working blood vessel using the application.
This is the end result using Cinema 4D
During my time with Cinema 4D I found it to be challenging having to understand different termonology and what the different actions did the the object on screen. I enjoyed using the application to create it but I feel that Cinema 4D isn't for me for two reasons.
Number one is the limitations of the application this is because it is a very powerful piece of software that requires a powerful pc to run the application which would reqiure me to invest in a very powerful pc.
The second reason is the complexity of the software this is because it requires a huge amount of time to learn the software and I was overwhelmed with it trying to understand how to create something.
This is a clip of Cinema 4D experimenting with boundries and gravity in the application.
To conclude my overall opinion of technology has changed as now see that there is different software out there that is more powerful than the standard software that I have been using. I will also be incorporating more upcoming technology into my way of learning like using AI more often to help me with briefs and projects.
