Information Architecture: Rendering the Collection

So in an attempt to catch up for the last class missed, I've began rendering my collection in various ways. Ideally, I would like the website to be influenced by this rendering style as well.

My layout was the larger image layout from the last deliverable. There was a better variety of formats I could use, and it didn't contain any imagery itself like the other two did. In this way it can function as a template, rather than a style. I did alter it a bit however, as well as the sitemap.

The sitemap is still rather basic. I need put some thought into what would be available on a collection website. At the moment, I'm at a loss, other than what's shown.

My first rendering method uses a vector icon-esk style, super simplifying the cameras, other than a few main features. Color can be easily applied to these, and they add a nice modern flair to an otherwise antique collection.

The Macro View

The Micro View

In the Macro view of this layout, I made use of a scrolling verticle section housing each of the cameras in the collection. They are colored in this one to better separate them, and to add some contrast to the website, which is admittedly plain at the moment. I have a lot of work ahead of me. In this version, when you hover over a camera on the left side, 4 images of the camera show on the right, highlighting defining features of the camera.

In the Micro View, after clicking a camera on the left, we are taken to that cameras own page. Here we see an infographic on the right (or would if there was one there), and get some detailed information on the camera itself. The initial image would be the icon of the camera, but the arrows to the sides of it will flip through real photos of the camera for additional visual characteristics.

For the second rendering method, I sketched the cameras, then placed them over straight on photographs of the camera. The layout of this meathod uses a few hand drawn elements to tie in with the sketchy qualities of the rendering.

The Micro View

The Macro View

I like the idea of drawing, and it has an interesting mix of old and rough, and modern and clean. Adding the photographs behind them also add a bit of shading to an otherwise black and white plain sketch. The Macro uses the same functions as the last method, but with only 2 images that are slightly larger. The Micro page has a series of photographs underneath the main camera sketch, so they can view the camera without the white filter over it.

For the final rendering method, I chose photography. For this layout, I chose to keep the hope page clean of any pop up images on the right, so as to keep the background image in view. The transparent backgrounds help to keep things relatively legible, and ads a bit of depth to a flat webpage.

The Micro View

The Macro View

This method came out as my favorite, and seemed to have more drama than the other layouts. In particular, I enjoy that the background can show large shots of small details on these cameras. While I haven't employed the idea in this method yet, i would also like the image in each macro page for each camera to contain shots of the camera you are on. This way, the image would relate more to the content of the page.

Information Architecture: Starting the Info-graphics

So last class period, we began by organizing out collections on a series of index cards. The placement of these index cards in relation to each other revealed different cataloguing methods and helped us sort information of each item into categories for our website info-graphics.

Here are a few of the cameras in my collection. I will be receiving more shortly and will post those photos of the expanded collection at a later date.

Here are my initial sketches and brain storming lists.

For my main 3 cataloguing methods I am going to sort the cameras by their:

1. Camera Type
2. Monetary Value
3. Condition

My info-graphics so far include:

1. Number of steps to take a photograph
2. Camera Viewfinders
3. Monetary Value: Ebay Vs. Amazon
4. Film Formats
5. Bellows Camera Parts
6. Image Size
7. Location of Manufacture
8. Size and Weight
9. Time of Manufacture

Visual Language: A Communications Primer Response

So, starting off the next project, we have started studying communication, and the process of broadcasting information. This video on laughingsquid.com is a 1953 instructional film for IBM, explaining this process and the noise that interfeers with this transmision.
http://laughingsquid.com/a-communications-primer-1953-by-ray-charles-eames/

In todays world  communication is sent in infinite ways, be it by computer, music, television, by mouth, by body language, by icons and symbols, or even the signals your brain intercepts and decodes when interacting with any of these communications. This video did a great job of bringing this complex process into a simple diagrammatic experience.

Using this diagram, explains the information transfer process in a nutshell.

1. The Sender has information
2. The Sender encodes the information
3. The Sender transmits or sends the information
4. Various noise, be it audio, visual, physical, mental interfere and alter the information
5. The Receiver gets the information
6. The Information is decoded
7. The Receiver then attempts to understand the information

However, it leaves out a major aspect of the broadcasting process. The feedback.  In a game of telephone, it's crucial that the beginning sender gets feedback, or return information from their receiver. This allows for mutual understanding unless the noise is so great that the feedback is also distorted. With feedback, a person can attempt to fix the noise, or the connection, and can correct any mistakes made in the encoding process that may have become noise itself. 

The simplicity of this diagram also leaves out many aspects of our decoding and encoding process. All aspects of our lives such as politics, culture, social constructs, etc. effect how we send and receive information. In the film the narrator mentions if you speak chinese to him and he can't speak or understand chinese, then he can't understand the message. Well beyond that, there is a further level of understanding. Through the process of understanding the chinese, there is a barrier or translation that must be overcome. A word in one language might have other meanings or contextual information that comes with it that the receiver misses out on. If you watch a Japanese move that has English subtitles or has been swapped with English dialogue, there is information lost in that transition of Japanese culture and linguistics to the English dialect. This can be said of any communication of differing culture or mode of communication that hasn't reached a worldwide agreement of meaning.