learning objectives

After reading this chapter you should be able to mention some basic rules of digital content creation, discuss what criteria your portfolio should meet, describe how you would approach the design of a logo, explain the notion of user-centered design, and characterize the issues that play a role in dveloping multimedia for theatre.

Whether your ambition is to become a professional designer or not, also for students of information science and computer science, a course in visual design is a must, I think.

In this chapter, we will treat various aspects of digital content creation. The first section discusses how to approach visual design and gives a number of basic design assignments, that can be used to get experience with visual design. Section 2 discusses the issue of workflow and tools, and investigates how design fits in with the process of developing multimedia applications. In the final section, I will elaborate on a theatre project I was involved in, for which I had to develop an augmented reality application.

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17

questions

9. digital content creation

• (*) What are the considerations in developing digital content?

concepts

• What guidelines can you give for the process of design?
• What is a portfolio? And, what criteria should it meet?
• What is to be understood by affordance? And, why is affordance important?

technology

• How would you characterize the following items: logo, sign, collage, story?
• Characterize the elements of game design.
• What factors play a role in emotional involvement?
• Explain how time constraints may be incorporated in the scene graph.

As a project, you may develop a dialog engine for non-linear interactive story telling or a collage generator, that produces artworks from a collection of images.

You may further explore the various presentation platforms, and assess the tradeoffs with respect to the support they offer for authoring.

For further reading, I suggest to study interaction design patterns. It is also worthwhile to get some books on modern art, to gain some knowledge about art and design.

1. street logos -- images from  [Manco (2004)].
2. photograph of oilpaint box.
3. Mark Veldhuijzen van Zanten -- the six roles in their agency.
4. Mark Veldhuijzen van Zanten -- to design for the salon, periodic lounge evenings in musea and art institutes.
5. Geert Mul -- interactive multimedia installation.
6. Geert Mul -- multimedia installation in dutch consulate in India.
7. website of Institute of Creative Technologies, showing scenes from Mission rehearsal Exercise (MRE).
8. street logos -- more images from  [Manco (2004)].
9. website for Visual Sensations, a yearly VJ contest in the Netherlands, developed by the agency of mark Veldhuijzen van Zanten.
10. Geert Mul -- Harbour Sound & Vision, 1999
11. screenshots from virtual atelier of Marinus Boezem.
12. left: don't spit, a chines poster against spitting during the SARS period, taken from dutch newspaper; right: filmteckarna,  [Wiedermann (2004)].
13. sketches -- from filmteckarna,  [Wiedermann (2004)].
14. sketches -- from filmteckarna,  [Wiedermann (2004)].
15. sketches -- from filmteckarna,  [Wiedermann (2004)].
16. game -- pizza boy, developed by Headland, see 9.3.
17. signs -- health and safety,  [ van Rooijen (2003)], p. 258, 259

Also for the MRE application, it is the context, in this case the stress and anxiety of a war situation, that determines the impact. The photorealistic graphic style of MRE, wellknown by the trainees from other games, is meant to strengthen the experience of immersion. Notice that the street logos assume an almost iconic character.

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[] readme course(s) preface I 1 2 II 3 4 III 5 6 7 IV 8 9 10 V 11 12 afterthought(s) appendix reference(s) example(s) resource(s) _

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(C) Æliens 04/09/2009

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