Week 7 - Origination

Reading Quiz - John Maeda, Laws of Simplicity: Law 6 – Context

What does the word ENTROPY mean and why is this relevant?

Entropy is a measure of the degree of randomness or chaos

“In simple terms, the measure of the level of disorder in a closed but changing system, a system in which energy can only be transferred in one direction from an ordered state to a disordered state. Higher the entropy, higher the disorder and lower the availability of the system's energy to do useful work. Although the concept of entropy originated in thermodynamics (as the 2nd law) and statistical mechanics, it has found applications myriad of subjects such as communications, economics, information science and technology, linguistics, music. In day-to-day life it manifests in the state of chaos in a household or office when effort is not made to keep things in order.” (Reference: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/entropy.html)

Meada states ‘Science holds that entropy in the universe is always increasing.’ Meada uses the example of a child finding and empty page in an illustrated book and filling in the emptiness.

The empty space invites chaos, similar to a countertop at home collecting change, mail, keys, and so forth. The more space filled the more chaotic and disorganized.

If you are attuned to everything around you, does it help you deal with what is in front of you and why or why not?

Sometimes, if you are attuned on all that is around you, you may lose focus of what is in front of you.  Sometimes you need to stop focusing on what is in front of you and look at the big picture and pay attention to other issues.

How is this different from FOCUS?

Focus is concentrating on one particular aspect – you might miss other important aspects.

You need to pay attention to other design areas to make the whole end product successful

Being “comfortably lost” is a balance between what 2 feelings?

You need a balance of simplicity (being found) and complexity (being lost). 

Describe a recent scenario when you found yourself to be “comfortably lost”. Did you enjoy the sensation?

Recently whilst using Illustrator, with which I am fairly comfortable in using some tools (mainly the pen), I have just been teaching myself how to use the brush tool a bit more. Previously I tended to stay away from this tool as I didn’t know how to use it, but after learning about it (tutorial), quite enjoyed using it and with more practice will be able to use it more effectively with my designs.

If you couldn’t hold back the urge to write on the “don’t write on this page” page – what would you write?

‘Why not.’ Or perhaps summary notes to simplify this chapter!

Lateral Thinking Discussion

Edward de Bono’s “6 Thinking Hats”

White – Data, Red – Intuition, Black – Critical, risk assessment, Yellow – positive – strengths, Green – creative, Blue- Practical.

Which HAT best represents your group?

I think we effectively used elements of each group

Why?  - see the following 6 labeled (6 hats) paragraphs on our groups progress.

Describe an Exhibition Group meeting where you may adopt the BLACK hat

In our group project, our initial story was of a teddy bear and his adventures when going to the shop. One of the weaknesses of this project was that teddy bears stories have been done so often, so we decided to give the story a Darwin flavor and showing the fun Teddy can have in Darwin on his holiday.

In your blog write 6 labeled paragraphs on your group’s progress to date, using each of the 6 hats as a perspective.

White Hat:  (Information available and needed, facts, data)
We had to think of a design piece to produce and exhibit at the end of the semester. We looked at what skills we both had that we could use to produce an exhibition piece. We both are doing the hand illustration class and I have a bit of experience in publication layout (indesign).  As Queenie is better at hand drawing than me, we decided that she would do most of the hand illustrations, although I would have a go at drawing some of the images also.  I will then scan the images into Illustrator and manipulate to improve colour and layout into a children’s story book. 

Red Hat: (Intuition, hunches, feelings, emotions)
We have both contributed ideas for the story and discussed how best we can work together to achieve the result.

Black Hat: (caution, difficulties, risks, weaknesses)
Our initial story was of a teddy bear and his adventures when going to the shop. One of the weaknesses of this project was that teddy bears stories have been done so often, so we decided to give the story a Darwin flavor and showing the fun Teddy can have in Darwin on his holiday.

Yellow Hat: (benefits, value, positive aspects)
Having changed the story line made the project much more valuable in that the story shows some of the things for children and families to do in Darwin on holidays. It can be of interest to local families with young children on school holidays or visiting families with young children.

Green Hat: (create ideas, alternatives, possibilities)
We have now drafted a story, which now enables us to create the illustrations for the book.

Blue Hat: (managing the thinking, focus, summary)
We decided that it will be a real struggle to meet the deadline with the product so we decided that rather than illustrating each page by hand in great detail, we would just illustrate the major characters and components using outline and then scanning and enhancing on the computer. Hopefully this will be the quickest way.