I have chosen to do Kpop as my general media niche. In this industry there are a lot of key players, artists and companies that all work together to deliver a finished product. I want to explore how the companies and other entities affect how kpop is presented to us.
In my network, I am including several kpop companies, including the ones dubbed as the ‘Big 3′. These are the entertainment companies called JYP, YG and SM Entertainment. All of the company names are abbreviations of the founders’ names, being Jin Young Park, Yang Hyun-suk and Lee Soo Man respectively. As these companies are essentially big conglomerates, they also handle advertising, distribution, production and have their own record label. They each have a board of directors as well as a CEO. Remember Psy with his hit ‘Gangnam Style’? He was under YG Entertainment when it was released. He has since left YG and gone on to fund his own company. Another big company that I will be including is Big Hit Entertainment, home to the biggest kpop idol group, BTS.
The Big 3 also has its own impressive roster of idol groups that I will include in the network, such as Twice from JYP, Blackpink from YG and Red Velvet from SM (all girl groups). These groups are a primary focus because they are all currently active and promoting, though I will refer to other groups such as YG’s Big Bang and SM’s Exo, both boy groups, as their popularity was unmatched during their time. Another fact of the industry is that boy groups are more profitable than girl groups, because the key demographic for idol groups is usually teen girls.
Blackpink
Twice
Red Velvet
BTS
Left to right- Blackpink (Photo by Roger Kisby/Getty Images for YouTube), Twice (Photo by JYP) , Red Velvet and BTS (2019 Steve Granitz) at the bottom
There is a process to promoting the music these idol groups put out. An idol group’s ‘comeback’ is usually announced on social media, and when they release their album, they choose one song as the ‘title track’, which is promoted everywhere. They promote this song primarily by posting the music video on YouTube and social media. They also go on music shows. Music shows are usually on cable tv and feature a line-up of idol groups that are actively promoting.
BTS promoting their song ‘ON’ on a music show
These music shows are also run by companies, the most prominent being Mnet M Countdown. There are other music shows, on the other days of the week, like KBS, Inkigayo etc. There are 7 in total. Idols usually promote for 3-4 weeks on most music shows. The music show companies make their money by letting people come and watch them on their stage, though in this social media age, it is fast becoming an archaic way to promote.
All of the music show performances are uploaded to Youtube and other social medias for people to watch. All idol groups also have their own various social media channels for posting videos and variety content. None of the content is controlled by the members, usually all of it is uploaded by the company. Idols may have individual accounts that they can use.
I have three media interests that I want to touch on in week 1, and hopefully narrow my search as the weeks go on. Some of these I have a passing but inquisitive interest in, such as a show I am watching (Avatar: The Last Airbender), or things I l do, like doing art as a hobby, so I am interested in the subculture of fan artists. There is one I have a deeper interest in, because I have been following it for so long, which is kpop.
To explore my first point, Avatar: The Last Airbender. I watched the series as a kid in primary school, and then watched it as a young teen, so I know major plot beats already. I am currently rewatching the series in its entirety after the internet exploded about it again after it was available for streaming on American Netflix. I am interested in exploring how this show has held on to popularity and status after finishing in 2008. What made the series so loveable, and how did this show still garner so much attention? I still see people making memes and discussion posts on twitter about the character arcs and world of ATLA (There is no war in Ba Sing Se anyone?)
‘There is no war in Ba Sing Se’ meme
This segues into my second point nicely, which is about fanart. There are many shows airing, and some of these can even gain additional fans if there are fan artists that draw them. Fan artists are usually big fans of a shows characters or designs if them draw them and share that with their followers. That leads to a bunch of fan artists getting together to create a community to create zines, fan books or merch. A good example of fanart that reaches people in this piece by @devinellekurtz about Avatar, and has been some of her most liked posts.
There are also multiple artists that only post fanart, because they love a specific series or movie so much. I want to know why they enjoy being fanartists so much, and if they like the community they’re surrounded by?
My third and final niche is kpop. I have been into kpop since 2017, when BTS dropped their title track ‘DNA’. Ever since then I have been fascinated by kpop, such as they lingo they use, like ‘Comeback’, ‘Music Show Win’, ‘Perfect All Kill’ and ‘Daesang’. I was also fascinated at how kpop is basically a cultural export for foreigners to come to South Korea. I am amazed at how fast kpop has grown in the past 3 years, and how the fanbase has grown. I am also interested in the cultural differences and hardships of kpop. Many people on the internet like to tout about the ‘dark side of kpop’ with slave contracts, fainting etc. and while some of them might have truths embedded, I always wonder why the American entertainment industry is seen as so ‘different’.
Everyone talks about how kpop is awful, but neglect to mention the cultural situation they are in that separates them from America, such as being in South Korea, and has a totally different and in some ways, more oppressive culture than America.
My experience with BCM212 has been encouraging and positive. From taking interesting surveys from my peers to reading about new perceptions from their completed works, it was a journey.
From starting this subject, one thing that stood out to me the most was morality and ethics in research. I began to see how easy it could be to toe over the line in the name of ‘research’ like a crazed scientist. The rules and a 6 months ethics approval system that was in place at some universities was surprising, but understandable. The topic of key to avoiding harm was a good look at systems in place, such as HREC and MEAA, and how they protect us on the integrity of research and how an interviewer must not pose a risk of harm. The legal jargon used in questionnaires and surveys made more sense and I became less wary of them. I was also fascinated at the system of academia, while also being a bit horrified. The concept of agile research could easily be abused and the need to pump out surveys without real thought behind the answers.
Talking about the difference between an opinion piece and an academic article really drove home how an academic article wasn’t accessible to the public with its jargon. The opinion piece on a public website managed to condense and explain it better with much less words. I asked myself (and the tutor asked us), what is the point then, if a long-winded academic article isn’t fully understood by the public? Is academia only benefiting the system of academia and not the larger population? As a subject, I liked how BCM212 expored both positive and negative points about research and asked people to consider all of the facts.
I found focus groups to be a fascinating topic, and even though I didn’t conduct one myself, as I felt online was awkward. I was watching several Louis Theroux documentaries at the time, and I liked how he approached people. After watching them I noticed that he can slowly tease answers out of his participants without them realising by asking specific questions. It made me respect interviewers and group interviewers emotional intelligence. There was even a video that I shared, showing how Theroux does it so well.
This video about Louis Theroux made me interested in interviews
It was an interesting experience overall, and seeing what other students were asking with their surveys helped me a lot and made me engage with the content.
The topic that I have come up with relating to the ‘University Experience’ is the Commute. Hundreds of Uni students travel near and far to attend University and get an education. My goal is to evaluate how this affects students’ routines, stress levels and time management while at uni. This can be all forms of transport; train, car, bus etc.
Some questions I would delve into are:
-How long is your commute?
-Is commuting better than living on campus?
-How do you organise assignments, work or family commitments around commuting?
-Do you feel connected to your uni peers?
I have personal experience with this, as I commute to uni via train for all of my subjects. It takes on average around an hour and 10 minutes. For a round trip, that’s over 2 hours. For myself personally, it is hard getting up for early classes, but on the commute I either draw or listen to music to relax.
Asking students about their commute is achievable on campus/ twitter as there are people bound to have different experiences with commuting, and as the semester has started, there are people that have to reflect on starting up their schedules again. For this particular semester, I can enquire on how the lack of a commute has changed their feelings about commuting.
I polled other students on Twitter about their mode of transport to uni, and how long their trip was.
From the results of the poll, it seems most people live close to uni and mostly commute by car. However from the 66 people that responded to my first poll, around 15 people have to endure a commute longer than an hour, which is tough. What surprised me was that most people used a car, I thought more students would be inclined to use public transport but almost 50% of the 35 people use a car. It would be interesting to study how much extra time the car people use up for traffic and trying to find parking on campus.
I found some resources to back up my point that this topic is worth exploring.
Commuter Students
Students commute because they have different responsibilities, such as family, job commitments or housing status. First year students that commute can also have a hard time ‘fitting in’ to campus life, as they are not around their peers 24/7 and don’t enjoy extra-curricular benefits due to other responsibilities. As a result of the lack of socialisation on campus leads to less development as a whole. Commuters often find stress in scheduled classes, as they need larger blocks of classes at certain times, to free them up for other responsibilities they need to attend to. Commuter students also have lower retention rates that people living on campus, owing to the fact that there is less interaction with social and academic systems on campus. They therefore have less connection and drop out easier. This study was done in the US, but is relevant to Australian universities as well.
Happiness and Satisfaction with Commute
People satisfied with their work commute has a big effect on their outlook, making it positive. Some factors including having a short commute, biking or walking. These provide a small but necessary buffer from private life. However, commutes are still mostly stressful for people, owing to the travel time involved. Long commutes and congested traffic, cause stress in the workplace. But for longer commutes either social interaction or entertainment can counteract the negative feelings of a commute. It’s important to note that this study took in Sweden and may not be reflective of Australian commuting habits.
Stress Doesn’t Pay- Commuting Paradox
It discusses the effects commuting has on the person, in which the article describes how it can generate out of pocket costs (For train, tolls, parking etc.) and can put a divide between family, as there is less time to see them. Commuting is also a salient and boring activity that is needed to go to uni. Financial insecurity of commuting can also be a big risk, especially for studying uni students with just a part time job. Commuting also has other stressors, such as crowds, noises, traffic congestion and so forth.
How the commute is changing who we are
This article thinks about the commute as an experience that we live though, silently shaping us as we go through it. We have so many experiences with other people in a commute and how we react that it changes us. The commute is full of activities, though constrained by the transportation. If people are repeatedly exposed to negative situations on a commute, that can change a persons desires on commuting. Likewise, if they have a strong social commute group, they might like the act of commuting more.
The issues on commuting have definitely been talked about before, but I feel confident enough about gathering resources and having my own perspective on events. Commuting is also not specifically related to uni, as many people also commute to work. These areas have lots of overlap between them, as no travelling strictly relates to uni or work, and I can use these related resources for psychological impacts.
Olsson et al, (2012) ‘Happiness and Satisfaction with Work Commute’ Social Indicators Research, 111 (255-263) DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-012-0003-2, Accessed 29/03/20
Stress doesn’t pay- Commuter paradox-
Stutzer A. & Frey B. (2004) ‘Stress that doesn’t pay: The commuting paradox’ IZA 1278 Accessed 29/03/20
The topic that I have come up with relating to the ‘University Experience’ is the Commute. Hundreds of Uni students travel near and far to attend University and get an education. My goal is to evaluate how this affects students’ routines, stress levels and time management while at uni. This can be all forms of transport; train, car, bus etc. Some questions I would ask are- Is commuting better than living on campus? How do you organise assignments, work or family commitments around commuting?
I have personal experience with this, as I commute to uni via train for all of my subjects. From Engadine Station to North Wollongong Station, it takes on average around an hour and 10 minutes. That’s not counting the train line switches that can be a 20-minute wait (Thanks Waterfall Station…). For me that means a 2 hour and 20-minute round trip at least. I have experienced stress with the commute relating to uni, such as not getting the tutorial I wanted, and having a class that finished on campus at 6:30pm, leading me to only be home at 8pm after being at uni all day.
The commute can have disadvantages, such as not being able to access the internet and do research for a subject. It can also be hard studying on the train since there are people around. If I have an 8:30 tutorial I will have to be up at 6am and out of the house at 6:30 just to make the train. My reasons to like the commute are that I get time to draw or catch up on lectures I downloaded, or just relax before I get into class. In this academic resource, entitled “Stress that doesn’t pay” they found that people with longer commuting time report systematically lower subjective well-being. Another resource on commuter students states that first-years have trouble fitting in to the campus community, and commuter students miss the chance to connect with others in the way that campus students do.
The issues on commuting have definitely been talked about before, but I feel confident enough about gathering resources and having my own perspective on events. Commuting is also not specifically related to uni, as many people also commute to work. These areas have lots of overlap between them, and I can use these related resources for psychological impacts.
My rationale states that it will “encourage children to be invested in mythical animals and encourage creativity“. At the moment, it is lacking in creativity as it is on a solid grid formation and is a simple point and click to get to your destination. There’s no exciting interactivity or spectacle for kids to ‘latch’ on to. I would need to create more interesting pages for kids.
Do I need to improve some points of my rationale?
However, I also note in the rationale that “I want to make people feel grounded and organised- much like a museum.“. This also ties in with the grid formation, and the museum is organised well enough for people of all ages to scroll through. I can easily access different sections of the website because of its simplicity.
Issues of usability and structure/ concept
My issue of is now is to have the site simple enough to use
but also attract kids that may be using it to want to go to the museum. The
concepts can clash together, but they can be made to work by only making
certain pages have eye-catching features, like a screen-wide image of one of
the exhibits to introduce it, instead of just text and details.
What did I underdevelop?
I underdeveloped the actual site structure, and the theme of the site itself seems messy, so it needs refinement in terms of layout and adding/altering colours in it. I didn’t put much thought into the headings for the website, and some terms might seem different from what is expected of those pages. I also wasn’t very good at coming up with variations of layouts for both the mobile and website design, and I needed to create more sketches to flesh out the idea better.
My website layout
What did I do well?
For my Major Project, I was very happy about the concept, and I had a clear idea of how the physical location looked in my mind. In the design process, I was happy that I used a grid structure for my website, as it fits the theme of museums, as every museum I had referenced has had simple navigation and accessibility to find when that person needs. Unlike other types of websites promising to sell a grand experience or event, museums are relatively structured and organised more factually.
The logo has been one of my favourites that I have created. I created two logos- A full version showcasing heraldry, and a simple version for websites, and they complement each other well, and are distinctive.
Simple Logo
‘Heraldry’ Logo
What I didn’t do well
My tutor wasn’t impressed by the way that I drew the wireframe, which is the borders around the website and images to give it a drawn and drafted look. The templates and frames were all made in Autodesk Sketchbook, when it was recommended to be made in Illustrator or another Adobe program.
The templates in Autodesk Sketchbook
It is also a hassle to go back and forth between programs to resize or redo something if it goes wrong. It’s also hard to place when resizing the page, as everything underneath it, like text and colour effects, have to be moved according to the size of the wire frame.
For the major project, we were assigned the word “Unleashed” to interpret and use for our major project. On the first week we were put into groups, and my members were Ashley Broadhead and Denise Reina. We discussed ideas, such as a drinking game and how it ‘unleashes’ you and relives you of inhibitions. We also discussed a theme of animals in cages, since “unleashed” reminded us of a dog on a leash. But it was only when Denise shared her experience with a bad group project that she was in, back in the Netherlands, and the ‘anxiety’ it caused her, our idea clicked.
We wanted to provide people with the intent
to ‘Unleash’ their fears, and it was decided that we were doing a diary format
with three ways of encouragement for each day- Quotes, Goals and Reflections. I
would find 52 quotes (For each week of the year) from famous people for “Quotes”,
Reina would do goals and Ash did reflections. It was fun to find quotes that
were inspiring and fit the theme of the diary that we wanted to create.
“Leaders and their words–inspirational quotes–affect us on a primal level.”
says Scott Sobel. Words can be passed down through generations because they
appeal to our aspirational nature and can be a force to overcome something that
we want to do. Quotes are a powerful incentive to try harder and improve at an
objective.
Gathering Quotes
I gathered quotes from various websites and well-known
people and franchises, like Mohammed Ali and Harry Potter. Once it was all done
after a week break, we came together and realized that it was going to be a big
effort to piece every single Quote, Goal and Reflection together on the same
diary page, and make enough room for the days of the week on top of that. We
chatted about the format over messenger and brought up the idea that it might
work better as a calendar, to incorporate the visual aspect of CAOS202- Word
and Image.
Deciding on Calendar
The calendar idea stuck in our minds since it
was the easiest and best solution to our problems, as putting down 52 quotes
for every week, and trying to find a pairing with Goals and Reflection was just
going to be time-consuming. So, we decided to reduce the number of quotes,
goals and reflections we would have. We would instead have 12 of each, for each
month of the year. So, we had the word part down, but we still needed 12
illustrations for the calendar covers. So, we divided our workload, I would
focus on getting the 12 illustrations done as soon as possible, while Ash and
Denise would focus on the typeset and layout of the entire piece.
Typography and Design
The typography and design were done by Denise
and Ash, and they made the typography in a specific way so that it feels
homemade and personal. The intent was to have a personal feel to the design of
them, rather than feeling ‘mass-produced’ and that anyone could buy them. The
typography is the same, the ‘handwritten’ typeface makes it feel less
mechanical than a regular serif or sans-serif font. The words were also
coloured in different colours to empathize different months, as well as the
month itself being in a large font
The Quote was put at the very top, so the
reader would look at it first and be inspired, and then their eyes would go to
the illustration and hopefully be motivated by the illustration. Then it would
go to the goal, which was placed underneath the illustration, and provided a
benchmark for the month. The final one was a monthly reflection, which was
underneath all of the dates for the month and had a prompt for you to reflect
on. There were lines underneath to write your reflection, as a way of releasing
anxiety and thoughts. An article in
the Harvard Business review by Jennifer Porter says that ‘Reflection gives the
brain an opportunity to pause amidst the chaos and sort through observations
and experiences.’ She said that ‘this meaning becomes learning, which can them
inform future mindsets and actions.’. Reflections are crucial parts to
self-awareness and a healthy mentality, as without reflecting on our behaviours
or actions, we lose sight of our morals or what we personally want to achieve
out of life.
Illustrations
The placement of the quotes, goals and
reflection were carefully considered, such as posting encouraging or ‘turning a
new leaf’ statements would be better suited for January and February. A similar
trend appeared for November and December, as we focused on reflective
statements. We had a table on our google drive document and we sorted the
quotes, goals and reflection by month, and had a prompt for the drawing for
each month to reflect to the words said.
It was vague sometimes, but I tried my best to make the images calm and serene or to inspire some action from within. As a result, most of my illustrations turned out to be landscapes, and I tried to vary them as much as I could in terms of colour and tone. As suggested by Ash, I also kept all the drawings very consistent throughout, using lineart and simple shading.
Each drawing took me around 2-3 hours to complete and I kept them relatively simple as I had to do around 10 illustrations in a week, since we started our idea of a calendar late. Each illustration was fun to do and fit the themes of the project, which is inspiring confidence in people to help them. I focused more on the landscape being ‘beautiful’ or as a way of escapism to go to a different place. On ones with the gloves or donation I focused on a call to action instead.
By doing the calendar for all 12 months, the aim was to reduce anxiety and stress, and the hope that the three parts- Quote, Goal and Reflection would enable people to feel better at the end of the year and feel mentally healthy.
My Digital Artefact is Artworks that are posted on Instagram (@amelysart) and Twitter (@AmelysArt). Prior to starting this subject, I already had the Instagram account for three years as a recreational use of my time. My aim is to produce drawings that help people to feel inspired. Building a community of like-minded artists is also an important part of the process. I aim for one drawing a week at the least. My inspiration to start this Digital Artefact came from other artists on Instagram, and thinking “I want to be like them”. Based on the likes from my audience, I decided to start drawing mostly animals.
My audience Starterpack. Very quiet but lovely to talk to when they comment
When I started I was drawing whatever I wanted, but now I have more of focus on animals, and feel happier for it. Towards the end I was nearly posting one artwork a day for a week, due to Inktober and the Zines that I completed for Chae Magazine and PineZine.
At first, I thought that I should use likes to judge how well my DA is doing, but on the internet, that’s a flawed system. However, when I give gifts to other artists, or people comment “This is great!”, I realised that building friends online is more important. Likes can only give you so much satisfaction, and human interaction is more rewarding than a faceless tap. I realised this after I gave an art gift to @Xintoii on Instagram, and she responded by liking and responding. I was happy that I had made another person’s day with my artwork. The audience response was positive, and I got a bit more likes because she shared it on her story.
Xintoii thanking me underneath my post
Her thanking and sharing on her story
Another important learning moment was about monetization. This first came up in the second week of term, where @TheUnicornDispatch and me got into a discussion about monetization and the baseline followers you could have before you could sell items. I argued that you needed 5,000 or more followers (on Instagram) while UnicornDispatch argued even a couple hundred can be enough to sell items. Even so, for artists in particular, it’s hard to sell merchandise and monetization has scared me, and thinking that I’m ‘not good enough’ as an artist because I don’t have enough followers to monetize my work, which isn’t true.
My conversation with @UnicornDispatch
Getting eyes on your work can include luck from the ‘algorithm’. There hasn’t really been a solution to this, and I’ve seen artists wait until they have a large following before opening commissions, which is the safest path. I’ve noticed that artists grow on platforms when their art is on a professional level, or they tap into a meme subculture to base their works off. An example is @nakanodrawing on Twitter. She creates a drawing variation of a meme and turns it into animals or other humorous topics.
Based of the man quickly blinking meme
Based off an old panda meme
Based off kombucha girl
Out of all the weekly readings, I found MVP (Minimum Viable Product) to be the most useful, as not every drawing has to be completely polished for people to enjoy it, and people enjoy sketches too. From these issues, I learned that I enjoy giving drawings to other people and am happy when they respond to my gift. I also learned that sometimes there is nothing you can do about monetization, and I have to try to gain more followers before attempting to monetize and cover costs.
My DA has been going smoothly and I have been posting regularly. One change that I made was to change my Instagram account to a business/creator account. Although I probably should have been doing this from the beginning, I completely forgot about this feature and I installed it on the 14 of October, just after my Prototyping was due. Since then, it has been interesting to view metrics and what kind of people watch me, with definitive answers and stats.
The most interesting metrics are posted below-
This stat shows me the top locations and age range that I am followed in. It’s no surprise that Sydney and Wollongong are at the top of the list, but it was interesting to see San Diego and Singapore there. Sydney is still the most popular by far, so I think interacting with my peers at Uni and friends have done the bulk of the work.
As for age range, I’m not surprised that my most popular demographic is 18-24 yr. olds. Most young artists and followers are that age too, plus I also fit into that demographic as well. I do find it surprising that the 13-17 yr. old demographic is not higher. After that, the age ranges seem unsurprising to me, and its good to see it in a concrete form, rather than guessing about it.
This graph shows my growth over a week, which is only 3 followers, but better than nothing! It’s cool to see the growth and when people joined.
Apparently lots of people saw my account on Friday, which was when the second issue of the PineZine went live, and the creator tagged me in stories and as a result I got a bit of traffic from that. I also hope to get more traffic on the 24th due to the recently released “Artist Interview” with Chae Magazine, where my name was also posted in the story. It’s cool to see how far my reach and impresson is, but to me it just seems like a blur of numbers, so I don’t put too much stock into those.
For ease of access I also added some highlights so that people could view my artwork faster, as well as a place for all of my Inktober drawings to go.
Alright, now for even more stats to wrap up the “Making” portion of my DA-
I have posted a total of 28 drawings on Instagram since 29th of July, when the semester ‘officially’ started. Including the recently archived 7 posts of Inktober (That are now in my highlight) and others, the total adds up to 35 total posts over the entire semester. That also doesn’t include the ‘Meme of the Week’ Drawings that I did for #bcm114 on Twitter, which was 7 drawings in total as well as the two comics I created.
Spiderman Point Spiderman
Mudkip
Pikachu
Thinking Guy
Doge
Cat LAZERZ
It was a fun experience over the course of BCM114 to make content for both Instagram and Twitter. This subject helped me to analyse my social media accounts more, and focus on why I’m doing things, and not just randomly try to please everyone that likes art. You need to find a niche, and keep growing in that niche, if possible. My tutor, Peter Goderie, specifically, asked some very good questions that basically amount to ‘why are you doing this, why did you start in the first place, what keeps you going?’ All seem like simple questions on the surface, but are a lot deeper and tangled than they seem. Once in assignment feedback he asked why I feel the way I do about monetization and do I feel that I would like to make money by making art, but I feel like I’m not a “professional” artist? Which were some good questions that resonated with me.
They’re all questions that need to be explored now, or in the future, and are part of roadblocks on my journey to being more confident with my artwork on a digital platform. Here are some of my favourite artworks I’ve created over this semester!
Husky for Inktober
For Issue 1 of Pine Zine!
Cat Phoenix for Xintoii
Art for Chae Magazine
Landscape for Issue 2 of Pine Zine
Art for Chae Magazine
Mudkip
After the Prototyping stage, I realized that I was putting a bit too much on my plate in terms of content, and there are some aspects that I didn’t enjoy about my DA. The weekly meme post was one of them, and although it was cool at the start, it was just a way to fill my tweets, and copying a meme isn’t exactly creative so I dropped it. I also stopped trying to ‘please’ the Uni crowd, as it’s clear that they are not my intended audience (They tend to like mental health, relaxation, makeup, healthy food /coffee etc. more than artworks), but I still appreciate every person that liked and commented on them, so I just cross-posted from Instagram.
The Making stage was short, but I enjoyed creating each and every one of my artworks, as it sits there as a reminder of what I have accomplished.
It is now Week 11,
and I have physically started working on the project in Adobe XD, as well as
finalised designs for my logo and concepts.
First, here is my new and completed logo.
Completed ‘full’ logo design
This is the logo that is used on the landing page, and is a ‘full’ logo to represent things where detail is needed. It is a departure from the dragons that I was planning to do and use, but my teacher commented that the unicorn inspires magic and is a popular mythological character. It also may be softer on the eyes for families wanted to go to the museum.
I created a second, simpler logo, that functions as an icon on all the webpages and is a shorthand for the longer logo, as the two designs are intertwined.
Simpler logo used for navigation on the site, as it is easier to read
I decided to include both versions as it would give a sense of medieval heraldry to the complicated design, and the simpler one would reflect modern day tastes and be easier to read.
Onto the site architecture, I debated about drawing the site design by drawing it on my digital drawing program- Autodesk Sketchbook. This was a way to make it stand out from the others. At the start, it was hard figuring out how to export, import and figuring out size dimensions to use to transport it. I figured out that I had to export my sketchbook file by having a transparent background and putting it into a PNG – not a JPEG. I scaled my canvas in Sketchbook to be the same size as the Web setting in XD – 1920 x 1080 px, so didn’t have to scale them and could just import it into XD.
Example of how I imported the slides and how they fit in with the overall scheme
I also had fears about the layout and design of the piece, and when you’re doing illustrations for the website, it gets stressful trying to predict what I should change and if they fit together. I made some ‘template’ layers in Sketchbook, and that included the underline for the titles of the pages, and the square heading with the navigation. I also decided to do a grid format, for ease of navigation and drawing illustrations. This means that when I add more illustrations for the site, I can easily export it in.
Screenshot- Example of my workspace in Sketchbook and layers used on the right.
After watching other people’s presentations on their topics and how they executed their moodboard and site map, I have been re-invigorated to make better ones. I also saw that didn’t follow the “Rationale” Template properly, so I will be redoing that as well. I haven’t personally gotten any feedback for my project yet.
I have yet to test the system, and I still feel very unfamiliar with Adobe XD and transitions that you can do, so I will have to get more comfortable with those and then add it on when my site design is finished. I consider the Adobe XD functions useful, but the transitions and movements are not at the forefront of my mind. The user must first be familiar with the UI and not be put off by awkward or unnecessary transitions, so it is better to have a solid UX foundation. You should never miss the forest for the trees, or put the icing before the cake. With fancy transitions but bad overall site design, there is nothing to salvage. At the end of the day, my goal is to create a solid site that users will feel comfortable navigating around and find info easily.
Amely Koenig's Blog and Art 
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