Week 2 - draft proposal

Today in class, we did a simple proposal for one of our assignment, by making a local magazine ROTTW into a digital magazine. Our goal is to remake a section of the magazine and introduce a new idea or concept that the magazine does not have.

What my group decided to remake, was the soundpage section, which on the page, teaches readers on how to play a particular song of a band. It has it's lyrics and guitar chords of the song. What it is lacking is visual design of the page, and something readers can interact with. Many people may want to learn the song but aren't able to because they don't know how some chords are played. Therefore, our group proposed to have a video tutorial that teacher the readers not only the guitar part of the song, but also the bass guitar and the drum. With this, readers are able to choose their preferable  instrument.

Next is to introduce a new idea or concept for the magazine. Our group proposed to have a behind  the scenes on how the album or song was produce, or if there is a music video of the song, then a behind the scenes of it. Maybe a short interview of the producer about how the song come about and how the song is produce. The magazine consists of most album or song reviews so our group and Mr.Razif agreed that this would be a good idea to get the readers to read a section of this magazine.

More updates to come.

Week 1, Exercise 2

Question : How to get attention of readers to read a particular section?

Idea 1 : Include an interview of a popular singer or band that is popular and is liked by many. This is a good idea to get reader's attention as they can get an exclusive interview of their favorite artist or band in depth. It can get the readers to continue reading on as they would want to know and understand many details of their idol like, how they grew up, how and where they get their inspirations from, how and what make them come together as a band.

Idea 2 : A section on how to play a particular instrument like the guitar. This section can include chords of a song that teaches the reader on how to play the song, it also can include a short video on how to strum certain chords on the guitar. A sound recognition is a good idea, like a sound detector, when a certain chord is played, the detector can tell that whether the chord is played correctly or not.

Idea 3 : A title that catches the attention of the reader, or in a digital form example, 'click title to read more'. An example of a title, 'Stand a chance to win a free album'. By clicking into the title, there is a small survey or competition on winning a free album of a band, it contains question like how much the readers knows the band, why do they deserve winning. Also throwing in a chance to meet the band face to face, could get the reader to participate with enthusiasm. 

Week 1, Exercise 1

Thanks to a course multimedia I have came to learn that some things, you don't get to learn from books. One has to explore the different kinds of ways to express something, whether it is an advertisement, information, a short video or film. Through many assignments and task given in college and university, I was given a chance on how to express my creativity by executing these task. From the very start of pursuing my diploma, I was a student that was very fresh to multimedia, my creativity level was very limited, my first assignment was to design a poster that combines the different races in Malaysia, I did not knew what I was really doing then, my design was distorted, the colors I used for the design was horrible. As time goes by, I learned that research and observing other design are very important as they give inspiration and ideas. 

As for creative style, my older design and works are very dull and the colors are usually darker colors. Font wise, I used to use very fancy design fonts and I find them very cool, but only to realize that they aren't good designs. As I learn and observe other people's design through my diploma, I have learn that designing is very subjective, some people may or may not agree that a design is good and excellent , but we can agree that some designs can be really bad, as in REALLY BAD. Example of one really bad design, figure 1.1, is a poster I did during my early semester in my diploma course.

Figure 1.1

After a couple of semesters, I learn to design better, using simple yet unique fonts. Limit the amount of colors used, neat and tidy content.  Figure 1.2 is a web design for an assignment. 

Figure 1.2

My motive while designing or executing a certain task, I want the viewers to understand what I am trying to portray. I want the content to be understandable yet not too straight forward at the same time. I try to approach more on ways how can I design my content in way that can interact with the user so that it has more impact and the user can always remember what are the content. 

I through multimedia I got many opportunity to express my creativity, whether it is designing an advertisement for poster, a short video, or creating an application for a smart phone. I got to be exposed to many kinds of ways on how to execute a certain task. Coding especially, whether for a website, mobile app or game design, I have learned that those fancy stuff you see on the television or internet do not just pop out like that, it has to go through many stages of planning, research, developing and finally coming out with the final output. Through game design, I learned to explore different ways on how my game design would be played and designed.