SUMMER PROJECT

For our summer project we had to create an alphabet that communicated something about you, something that portrays your personality, that shows your likes/dislikes, personality traits, your history, the people you know etc.  I decided to choose one thing that was important to me and base my entire alphabet on that one topic.  I went travelling in the summer and collected postcards, receipts, tickets, train tickets, photographs, cards and various other things that tracked the places I had been.  I decided this was the most recent and interesting thing I could use to make the alphabet, and through drawing, photo montages, lettre sets and writing I designed 26 10cm x10 cm letter formats.  Here are eight of the letters that I felt worked the best.

HOW TO..//CRIT FEEDBACK

During this group crit we had to explain our concept, show our ideas and talk about our research and presentation plans.  Within the discussion we had to ask them five questions to get suitable feedback to improve our idea.
We asked:
-Would you use this app?
Yes, if it worked well it would be easy to use.
-Do you think it looks easy and simple to use?
Yes
-What do you think of the use of audio and symbols instead of writing?
Much more efficient and quicker
-Do you think if you saw the app in the app store it would grab your attention?
Yes
-Would you pay for this app?
Yes, but no more than a couple of quid 


GENERAL FEEDBACK
Some of the things the other group commented on were:
Good brand name, simple colour scheme.  They also said that the logo was very detailed and possibly to intricate for seeing it in a small app symbol style.
And could you link the app to your facebook, blog, student email.

HOW TO..//CALENDAR DESIGN

These are the calendar  lay outs Emily came up with, this is what the app will look like on the phone:

HOW TO..//SCREEN SHOTS

These are screen shots from what the app would look like if you opened the application and viewed it in this format, a day by day plan of things going on, each symbol representing a different task or deadline that the student has to meet.

HOW TO..//iPHONE AND APPS

To display the idea of how the app would work we decided to get the outline of an iPhone and photo shop the app into the designated area to show visually exactly what it would look like:

HOW TO..LOGO

This is the design Greg came up with for the main logo, we decided to call the app uniCal:

Nathan came up with this application and logo design:

HOW TO..//INTERVIEW

For Stephs research she made a sample interview to give us a better insight into a students academic/social life and the combination of time spent on each aspect.


1.What is your everyday routine?
2.On average how much time do you spend on work at home?
3.What time do you start to relax on an average day, i.e, pre-drink,watch t.v, browse internet?
4.How many times in the day do you need to do things?e.g work,dinner,talk to tutor?
5. What time do you get up/go to sleep? and what time do you stay up till if you have work?

HOW TO..//GROUP WORK:

Things to consider when designing this app such as name of brand, designing the logo, designing pop up symbols and planning a presentation lay out were important things to take on board as its all to do with visual apperance and whether it is simple and effective enough to work but still looks visually appealing.

These are Nathans sketches of potential symbols for the different categories within the app.

These are the actual images we are going to use when presenting the app as a working solution to balancing social life with uni life, these were designed and created by Steph

HOW TO..//CONCEPT & IDEA:

As a group we were given a task to identify a certain problem and then resolve it.  The problem we chose was 'How to balance university life with social life?'  The things we had to take on board to resolve the brief are as followed:
-Who needs to know?
-What/why do they need to know?
-How will you tell them?
Obviously these are all important points to consider when trying to solve an issue, an audience must be addressed, an appropriate reason for the specific audience selected must be valid and the communication used to deliever our idea to the audience must be effective.


The group narrowed it down to four main ideas being:
-Designing a calender specifically made for students to use
-Alcohol vs Caffeine; taking detail in particular to branding, and concentrating specifically on typography to display the social aspect of university life vs the academic/working side of university life.
-An app used on a smart phone, which is designed to suit each individual student with reminders and alarms about deadlines, briefings, lectures etc.
-Voice recordings/reminders


In the end we chose to go with the app used on a smart phone, a suitable way to try and communicate with the targeted audience, as the younger generations rely more on technology, and with the advance on technology in recent years progressing, eventually most things will encoperate a similar level of digital technology.
The app would be designed in the form of a calender which students could easily access on their smart phones.  Different icons would appear on the screen with certain voice recorded reminders to help students stay on top of their work but also allowing them to have a social and healthy life style outside university.


As a group we investigated what research would need to be done in order to progress with making the app, the final areas that needed to be looked into are as follows:

- different calendar formats/layouts 

- existing phone icons/symbols

- current apps that link in with the same 'calendar' idea

- the college timetable

- interview housemates, proposing the idea and noting the response

- voice recordings

We then went onto think about various icon designs that would be relevant to our audience:

SOCIAL:

-drinking,seeing friends,going out,parties,coffees etc

COLLEGE:

-lecture, deadline, brief, 'fred mode', induction, study time, library

DOMESTIC:

-washing clothes, cleaning, paying bills etc.