Final Paper, Final Post

Well here it is the final paper, enjoy.

Daniel Killilea
New Media 102B
Funny Garbage


Funny Garbage is one of the most prestigious web design and interactive entertainment companies since it started in 1996. Even while the web was still growing Funny Garbage was working on demos for major online companies like America online and Compaq. They created the website for Cartoon Network, which was one of the most successful online networks. They were also well known for creating many games that are extremely popular. In the early 2000’s they started working on more established media projects, like the show “Crank Yankers”, where they produced most of the visual design. Today they are producing designs for huge companies like Disney and MTV.

At this point Funny Garbage is working on all different aspects of the interactive entertainment business. One of their biggest entities is web design, not only did they change how a website could look like and work they could be one of the companies that was responsible for the web revolution. The visual aspects of their designs are very fresh, clean, and always playful. One of the reasons they are desired by many big companies is their ability to grab the attention of not only the younger generation but almost everyone can appreciate their dignified look. They have also established some of the best multimedia platforms you could imagine, the “N” networks website, which they designed has a great community board where your avatar can hang out at the virtual high school with all of your friends.

Some of the geniuses behind Funny Garbage of some of the most honored members of the web design community. The co-founders of this company, John Carlin and Peter Girardi, have astonishing resumes and awards that it makes sense that their company is at the top of the chain. John Carlin curated “Masters of American Comics” which showed the art of comics and graphic novels in one of the first major museum exhibitions. It’s not hard to understand why a lot of their designs have an ancestry of comics. Peter Girardi was the youngest person ever to be awarded with the prominent Daimler-Chrysler award for design because of the advances he mad in interactive media.

I’m very impressed by Funny Garbage’s approach to design and how they’re able to translate so beautifully the importance of it in our world today. I think back to when we got our first computer in our home and how the Internet was such a weird concept. Even still web design was so generic that I’m not sure you could even call it any kind of art. What a great achievements Funny Garbage was able to make and are still making, after reviewing them I’m intrigued to see where web and multi media design are headed, I’m sure only up.

Works Cited:
funnygarbage.com
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/funny_garbage

You Put Em Up, I'll Knock Em Down

Finsihed....I hit some rough spots with the slicing but I've finished the website and everything works so I'm pumped. I'm not sure what I did but after countless slicing tries it finally worked and I almost pissed myslef. At this point the only thing I have to do is finish up the paper and we can call this game.

Save me Mari

Today I spent pretty much the entire class trying to figure this slicing ordeal and not only that I had Mari come over and see if she could solve the problem. It was nice to know that it wasn’t just me being an idiot not solving the problem, Mari spent about twenty minutes with me trying to figure it out and we had no luck. At this point I’m slightly buggin out because we only have one class left and if I can’t solve this then I don’t know what I’m gonna do, start prayin.

Things are looking up

I bear good news, I finally finished my banner ad with everything looking pretty good and I’ve also found a movie that I think will fit in well with the screenager crowd because it talks about the future of food and how it will affect us. The only issue I really have at this point is getting the slices to work, I gotta be honest with you, I’ve been leaving it on the back-burner because I’m done dealing with it but hopefully I’ll be able to figure this thing out by the end of the week. Peace and God bless.

Animation Creation

So I’ve just finished my animated gif, which is an apple being eaten, it’s very simple and I’m pleased with the turn out. I was originally going to have a green apple transform into a red apple but after working with it for a little bit I realized I was spending too much time on something that should be simple anyway. Plus with the semester getting closer to the end I feel like the simpler the better.

Leo Bonanni Paper

Smart Objects - Smart Spaces

The main point in Leo’s presentation was ubiquitous computing which is the future of the computer, or rather the deconstruction of the computer because computer will no longer be needed. On of the coolest things that I thought Leo talked about was how everything that we’ll use in the future will be “smart”. A couple examples that I thought were really awesome were the umbrella that’s handle glowed blue when its going to rain that day also the I/O brush that could take a picture of anything and then paint it onto a specified surface. He broke down computing into four categories tangible interface, ambient displays, augmented reality, and wearable computers.

Ambient displays refer to how computers will be all around us. Devices will have things that they are specifically designed to do; the umbrella and the brush mentioned earlier are good examples. There were also some other really cool things too; one being a music bottle which when opened would play a specific kind of music like jazz. Another really cool thing was the Microsoft surface, which is a coffee table that is a computer screen, and you were able to share music and pictures just by placing your camera or mp3 player on the surface. The screen shows your play lists right on the table and it’s amazing that my kids may be using this device.

Augmented reality is changing the outlook on what we perceive to be reality. An example that Leo mentioned was the human pacman, which was a guy who designed a program so, you could walk through life in a pacman game. He made a helmet backpack that held the software and he would walk around the city eating the dots and running away fro ghosts. There were also these things called electronic tags, which could be placed anywhere and with the use of a smart camera would display messages that were left behind.

Wearable technology is changing how we live our lives on the go, look at how cell phones have changed the way we communicate with each other. Now things are in motion that could get rid of cell phones altogether and replace them with earring or shirt button phones. Other technologies like the ipod Nike are changing the way we work out, even fashion shows are mixing technology and clothing to change the way we dress.

Overall I thought it was a really insightful and was amazed at where technology is headed and I’m excited to hopefully use some of these products.

Core77

Milan Preview 2008: Japan Design

After looking around the Core77 design blog I was amazed at all the innovative designs that were shown, but I really liked the post about the 2008 Japanese design. Its always fun to see things you use in everyday life that look completely crazy yet are still very practical like the NEOREST AH, designed by Yasushi Takahashi, which is an environmentally friendly toilet seat that uses less then half of the water supply a standard toilet does. Not only is it sleek in design it has cool little features like a heated seat and a warm-air drying system that washes and dries you bum. The top 15 industrial design companies in Japan came together to show off their knowledge about design, cultural awareness, and the use of high technology. Some really cool stuff to look forward to in the future.



Posted on March 31, 2008

Moving Ahead

So Even though I haven't solved thee slicing issue yet I've decided that I must move on with the next steps in the project. I hope that jumping ahead isn’t going to hurt me down the road but I’ve read the next parts and seem to be separate pieces that get glued to the final page. So I’ve started looking for videos that would go with my supermarket theme and also cooking up ideas for the animated gif. I’ll keep you posted.

Slicing Hates Me

So I've been having trouble exporting my slices out of Fireworks. It's weird because I'll do the slices, add the rollovers, then preview it in the browser and everything looks fine and works. However once I export the file it gets all jumbled and I’m having a real hard time figuring out the problem. My guess is that my slices need to be lined up in a specific order because of the way the separations happen, hopefully I’ll be able to figure this out.

Seth's Blog

"Do you have" vs. "Do you want"
Posted by: Seth

In this post Seth discusses how a Borders that cut their inventory by 10% and faced books out instead of showing the spines were able to increase profit. He talks about how this strategy is productive but under certain restraints. By decreasing the amount of books they run the risk of losing business but instead of facing the question “do you have?” they’re asking, “do you want?”

I think this approach to selling products is effective but needs to be monitored carefully, especially in stores. I think by facing books out is a more effective way of selling books because as a designer I appreciate the cover art. Also instead of organizing books in alphabetical order you can arrange them for the buyer.



The Needle in a Haystack Problem
Posted By Seth Godin

I really agree with what Seth’s saying in this post, even though we have access to a lot of answers thanks to search engines like google but what about a problem that is hard to type explain or more complicated then one line of text. How do you find the answer to a problem that’s exclusively yours like not receiving e-mails once in a while or sending e-mails you haven’t written? Seth also makes a good point by saying he may have more luck solving his problem because he has a blog but what about the people that don’t? Even though there is no real answer to this problem it is worth mentioning.

Posted on March 13, 2008

NassbaumOnDesign

The Many Ways Blogs, Twitter, YouTube FaceBook, MySpace And Other Social Media Will Change Your Business
Posted by: Bruce Nussbaum

I personally have never been a blogger until this class and even though I've heard of them it just wasn't my nitch. Although after reading this article I can see how blogs and other social networks are changing how we communicate. I do agree that we're in beginging of a creativity boom that allows us to access tons and tons of information through these mediums. I also agree the the digital world is changing a lot of aspects in our lives that never used these kinds of tools.

Now that we have access to all these kinds of entities it makes me wonder how we ever got along without them. I remeber when e-mail was growing and how I thought it very bizarre, but now the entire world uses e-mail on a daily basis. I think of my younger cousins, who are mostly under ten years old, and how they'll never know of life without smart phones or ever know what a dispoable camera is. Whats to become of all these growing technologies? Its almost frightening yet at teh same time very exciting.

Posted on February 23, 2008

New Logo

Power Point Presentation

Screenagers

Screenagers are technologically savvy young people. They are the first generation to grow up with television and computers at home, music downloads, instant messaging and cellular phones. Douglas Rushkoff first coined the term in his 1997 book Playing the Future.

Rushkoff argued that young people will have many advantages processing information and coping with change when they reach adulthood because they have used computers at home since early childhood. Their short attention span may be an advantage in coping with the huge mass of information that also bombards their elders.

The term has gained another, darker meaning, believed to have come from the song entitled Screenager by English rock band Muse. This definition refers to a teenager (usually but not exclusively female) who is said to be 'putting up a screen'. It describes a screenager as someone who is so phony and always surrounded, who has lost touch with their family and may or may not self-harm.

Screenagers may be considered a subtype of generation X and Y. A teenager that spent or currently spends a majority or considerable amount of time interacting with a screen would be considered a screenager.

Teenagers from the Silent Generation, Babyboomers and X or Y generation hooked on watching television or the latest films would not generally be considered screenagers because the term screenager implies willful interactiveness of the teen. Where non interactive screen observers used television as a replacement for empty lives, boredom or a way to fill time before doing what they really want to do; a screenager consciously preferred to interact with simulated worlds or with others via a simulated world or simply through a screen.

Generation X screenagers were the original gamers who spent most of their youth at the arcade or on their primitive home computers, Intellivision or Atari. Unlike the generation Y screenager the generation X screenagers did not interact with other humans through the screen until adulthood.

Generation Y teenagers are unique in that screen interactiveness more often than not was in response to another human. IM, chat rooms, e-mail and mobile phone use that for the most part replaces direct human contact is an indicator of the generation Y screenager.

Currently generation X and the contemporary generation Y screenagers interact for the most part in the same virtual space within the latest online games with little contention. Only in passing remarks due to obnoxious behavior in a forum or virtual world event can a rift be seen between the X and Y generations which is only in the form of stereotyping the offending avatar as being very young.

--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenager


Screenager

(1) From Douglas Rushkoff's 1997 book "Playing the Future," a screenager is a teenager who spends a lot of time at a computer screen. Screenager activities are sending e-mail and instant messages, downloading music and movies, gaming and Web surfing.

http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm.jhtml?term=screenager

Logo Idea's

Reference Websites

Here are some of the sites that my I think will help me rebuild Walbaums.com

Xbox.com

EW.com

AOL.com

My Website

The website I've decided to redesign is Waldbaums.com