2011/07/04

Today, we had Isao Takezawa, a graphic designer from San Francisco, as our guest. We had chances to have precious advise from him about our website design.

1. Introducing our project

Using our marketing tool that we have made few weeks ago, we introduced our project briefly to Mr. Takezawa, including our future corroborations with partners such as FABRICA, AXIS, JAGDA, Mr. Mizuguchi, and Digital Hollywood University.

We have also talked about "experience design" that is part of Mr. Mizuguchi's work he produces, which he produces computer games that require five senses of human.

- Experience Design:
…Total design, not focused in just one point, that cannot be cut in any time axis.

Graphic design/ industrial design/ product design, all these genres have to corporate in order to achieve experience design. (Computer game is a typical example of experience design)

Ex. When designing a convenience store, it is necessary to design all kinds of systems, from the process of customers coming in and going out of the store, to designing displays.

= Designing people's experiences.

- Checking our schedule of the fall semester

We will participate in JAGDA's project on October 1st.

We are planning to attend the seminar and present our project there.

We will activate one or two projects during summer break, chosen according to "Please put this project on action!" button we will set on our website.

- Checking things we will be doing today

・Get our case study checked

・Get our video checked

・Think about idea structure

・Get clear image for upcoming Pecha Kucha Night

・Decide on whether we should do our exhibition at AXIS (Tokyo) or Tohoku

- Mr. Isao TAKEZAWA　

He is a creator and he has studied architecture and graphic design in Rhode Island School of Design after studying English in Massachusetts High School.

He is now designing exhibitions of galleries in San Francisco and currently working on a project related to the earthquake and tsunami disaster.

"We have to keep on thinking why things are like what it is. We should not be too focused on what we have right now and what we are doing right now- because that confuses our vision about the total image."

Many talented craftworkers have died in the disaster in Tohoku and craft industry in Tohoku is now in a dangerous situation. How can we help that? Craftwork is mostly based on handwork and is expensive. Also, mass-production is impossible. There are many projects brought up to help traditional craftwork but the reality is not so easy.

Designers collaborating with craftworkers and developing craftwork industry:

Toshiyuki KITA

Takashi ASHITOMI

Masayuki KUROKAWA

2. Future work

-AXIS:　
…We will make an appeal to companies about our website. We will be making presentation slides for that. (Those slides can be used for Pecha Kucha Night too)
- Pecha Kucha Night:
…We will make an appeal to working people and young creators. We will prepare 20 slides for presentation. (20sec / 1slide)
- Morioka (JAGDA):
…We will make an appeal to designers in Tohoku. 60 to 90 minutes presentation mainly about idea page, case study page and video from our website. Our presentation will be made either before or after Katsui Mitsuo's talk, a famous Japanese designer.
-Tohoku:
…If we cannot participate in the AXIS exhibition, we will plan a workshop and an exhibition in Tohoku. The workshop will be related to the ideas collected from idea page in our website.

3. Deciding concept of our project

・Domain: Change the world using power of design

・Mission: Power of design helps ability to organize structure, and the world is actually an environment surrounding one person. We will have people responsible about their own lifestyle.

- Dividing web users into three categories: 　

1. Do they have awareness against the earthquake and tsunami disaster?

2. Do they have ability to construct (= ability to design and imagination)?

3. Do they have physical and mental power?

We categorized the users using these three keywords and made sure the role of case study page, idea page and video page included in our website.

Users will eventually fulfill all these three points by using our websites.

We will follow this concept in order to keep on staying at the main core of project and not get off the track.

2011/06/29

1. Check on the Web Dates

July 4th: Web & case Study Upload

July 11th: Web, case Study & idea upload

September: Starting point to increase the case studies and begin with the interviews

-Our, as a student, suggestions for the website…After July 11th, we will put the uploaded ideas into an action, which gained the most points for the ideas to be in real project. After the decision of project, we will make a fund raising from early stage at the Kick Start (URL：www.kickstarter.com/) and Camp Fire (URL:camp-fire.jp/). Once we get enough money, we will proceed with our project and repeat this same step by choosing possible projects that could be done within the fund raising money.

2. Preparation of the AXIS golden egg exhibition and the contents

-The things should be confirmed

・Panel, printing size and number of pages

・Equipment and exhibition packaging

・Appointment of monitor to display our website and safeness of security

・Check the schedule with VISCOM department office to check out necessary equipments

・The AXIS golden egg exhibition chooses five student's portfolio from each school to exhibit. At this point, each students will create their own portfolio for the exhibition.

・We will display our panel that includes coordination of their activities in addition to an overview of this class. (such as the proposed ideas from Fabrica)

・During the exhibition, 2 or 3 students are going to watch over in turns to explain our work.

・On June 30th, there is a designer meeting for post reconstruction of Japan. Meet the representative of AXIS and the class leader who is in charge of AXIS exhibition.

3. Brainstorming for Mr. Mizuguchi's project

Mr. Mizuguchi is planning to collect a video clip from all around the world to use it for the promotional video of post reconstruction of Japan. We brainstormed ideas to decide on the main concepts of video and also to get attention to make them participate. During the process, it became a major issue to locate Japan's position in the concept. Is this meant "for Japan", "with Japan" or "from Japan to the world"? Organize all above and send it to Mr. Mizuguchi.

4. On October 1st, seminar for JAGDA

Northeast District Tournament will be held in Morioka, where JAGDA will gather many designers working in Tohoku area to have a tournament. We, as a class, are planning to visit there and to introduce the case studies that we collected. The cost for transportation, hotel and time should be considered to fit it in to the schedule.

-Things should be done.

・Each make a schedule chart to share with everyone.

・Create the updated version of marketing tool that includes new partners whom we are working with from now on.

・Upload the case studies.

・Brush up the video. Based on the illustrated storyboard, incorporate the suggestions from class and take a video from the start.

・Complete the business card.

2011/6/20

1. FABRICA Team

- We will be meeting people at FABRICA via Skype

- We have heard some ideas that people at FABRICA came up with:

- 1
Taking portrait of families at the disaster-struck area. Making new memories for their new life. Designing their restart.

- 2
Tourism problems. In Hong Kong, they do not report what is happening in Japan any more, so people are avoiding their tours to Japan, thinking media is hiding bad news of Japan. We can change the image of Japan by designing new tours.

- 3　
Making evacuation center and temporary housing more like "home". In order to do this, we need to know numbers of evacuation centre and temporary housing, how many people are living there, and what problems they have. Also, total population of Tohoku, numbers of victims and unknowns, and numbers of people affected by the earthquake and tsunami disaster. We have to research these information for people at FABRICA.

- 4
What can we do for children? Can we solve the problem, which children evacuated from areas near the nuclear power station are discriminated at their new school, using design?

- 5

"Brain drainage" problem. There is an apprehension that young people and talented ones are leaving disaster-struck area. As a result, there will be only elderly people left, which will result in risk of the town being neglected and the town might not be able to reconstruct once again. To prevent this from happening, we should think of ways to level up high school students and college students, while keeping them stayed at their town.

There are about 5 colleges that teach design and engineering.

- 6
Designing fun ways to donate and fund-raise.

With these ideas accomplished, we will translate it to Japanese, present in upcoming AXIS exhibition, and think about possibilities of carrying it out on next semester.

2. Collaboration with Digital Hollywood University

They are excel in PVs, films and CGs. We might ask them to make clips for us, according to themes that we give. We also might ask for some help when making music video next semester.

Their school is located at Akihabara. There are no walls in the building, which allow students and people from outside the school to communicate freely.

* July 12nd is the due date for applying AXIS exhibition. The result will be shown on July 20th. We will be carrying-in on August 23rd, setup on 24th, and the exhibition will open on 25th.

* We will be presenting at Pecha Kucha on July 27th.

* We need people in charge of recording. Ex. Filiming at Pecha Kucha, recording our exhibitions, etc.

3. Structure of our website, categories, case studies, etc.

-We should decide on specific items for case studies. Even small details need to be discussed.

-Discuss in details about ideas:

- I will be your sponsor! (temporary title):

Target: Companies, local communities

Model: Index

- Let's make it with me! (temporary title):

Target: Creators

Model: Blog,recip

We will ask for the writer to put some keywords with their articles so it will be easy to search through the articles using tags. (Ex. YouTube) We will show the date of entry and the due date.

* Problems:

-Can this really work?

Will the users be putting on their photos for the "Let's make it with me!" part?

With the format we have right now, it is unclear and users cannot post their articles.

The format we have seems like project proposal, the users might not want to do this for free.

- We have to make a research about how clear the ideas of the creators are and how long they are willing to write.

- We see things in the eyes of viewers, but what we have to do is to see things in the eyes of users (writers).

- Concept has to be thought more objectively. We should try making a sample.

- We might need a system to make users happy that they posted, like they will be receiving many comments, etc.

-With Mr. Hurukata (Teaches programming at our univ.):

We will explain him what kind of system comes in where, what kind of functions come in where, where the buttons will be, etc. and make a prototype using Adobe Illustrator, also showing actual moves. We have to design and organize everything beforehand so that all we ask for him to do will be just some simple programming.

We made our first explanation to him today, but he told us that we still have a lot to go on and told us about the problems written above.

-With Jonathan and Mr. Isawa (Both graphic designers working in California):

We have done our first meeting via Skype video chat. After introducing ourselves, we also explained them our project, specifically the website part. However, we could not explain the idea part very well, it made us realize that it is not as organized as we thought it to be.

*About the video: we will be focusing on just one video and will be keep on revising.

2011/6/13

1. Check the cooperation and plan for class From the last week, ensure the plan for class.

- Summer School
…Check the number of students who is willing to go to the Summer School. Participate as a supporter for students from Tohoku. Stay for one month in Seoul,Korea. Prepare the presentation afterwards.

- Italy
…Check the progress of video production for our website in University of San Marino, Italy (St. Mario University)

- UNICEF
…Christmas Project Description for project participants to make Christmas ornaments. Also, there is a bus tour around December for students who is willing to visit Tohoku.

- Mizuguchi Tetsuya　
…Description to participate in a workshop held by Mizuguchi Tetsuya at Musabi Shinjuku Satellite during the next semester. Plan to create a promotional video for Eastern Japan. The class will participate as a supporter.

- Documentation of Tohoku
…SThe class will participate in JAGDA's project by Nagai Kazuhumi to communicate the current situation in disaster area. Receive the information of Tohoku area and make it useful for our website as a source. Based on the directions that he will give us, the project will start around July. by next year of March, three books per 100pages, will be published in three different series. We organize the information, things asked by designers in Tohoku, help them uploading their information, translate in English or Japanese, and actually visit Tohoku area for interviews, if possible. Furthermore, the students who have their families in that area, could possibly be the partners for project and ask them for the interview.

- Check the roles Discuss about what they have been doing in past month.

2. Research

Two pairs prepared a small presentation on Mizuguchi Tetsuya, FABRICA, JAGDA, Nagai Kazuhumi, and Mizuguchi Tetsuya.

- Mizuguchi Tetsuya

Born in 1965, Hokkaido, Japan. Creator and producer of Q Entertainment Inc. as a co-founder and president, chief creative officer. Part-time faculty of art department in Japan University and media design department in graduate school of Keio University and visiting faculty of Kanezawa Insititute of Technology. Share common concept of combining visual senses of music and video. Well known in aboard as a game creator. Also, work as a music producer and songwriter for music unit of "Genki Rockets". Created one of his main work "Space Channel 5" at Sega i 1990. It is the music game where it has the comical and pop setting with musical, singing, dialogue, dance, and comical elements. It was his first of fusion-oriented music and game which continues afterward. The character in the game "Urara" , used in the CM for the U.S. MTV "MTV award 2000" . Michael Jackson also appears as a character of "Space Michael".

"Rez" is the shooting game of music game with the setting of computer world. Spin the music with the music operation and the player feel pleasant as if they are playing the music. Awards: Honorary Mention of Prix Ars Electronica Interactive Arts category in Europe, 2002/ Grand Prix award for sound design and digital content sector in Japan METI entertainment/ special prize of Japan Media Arts Other representative works include "Sega Rally Championship", "Lumines" and "N3".

In 2006, selected as the "Digital 50" of the U.S. producer association (PGA). (one notable producer in the world digital system of 50) Begin the music unit of "Genki Rockets" as a producer and creates the hybrid of music and visual representation.

In 2010, held the live performance using as a #D light-emitting diode in collaboration with Sony. It was the first time of showing the live 3D music video of "make.believe". Other works include,

2002 J-phone (Softbank in present) interface design

2009 docomo prime series "N-07" sound design (design director as Kashiwa Sato)

URL：mizuguchi.biz/v2/html/

- FABRICA

International Creative Lab established by Luciano Benetton in 1994, Italy.

It supports the rich creativity of young artists from all around the world, in new ways of communication by collaborating the culture and industry. Eligibility is granted to creators under the age of 25, in worldwide. The scholarship students selected among the applicants, where they actively practice to learn for one year.

Composed by eight departments of Graphic Design/Photography/ New Media(Web)/ Design/ Music/

Film&Cinema/ Comic/ Design Managazine (COLORS)

For young creators of FABRICA, We asked to provide the innovative ideas based on the social needs highlighted by the earthquake. The ideas will be introduced on the web site.

URL：www.fabrica.it/

- JAGDA

Japanese graphic design association. Having a common language of visual expression, spread out Japanese design into the world but not limiting to social or professional areas.

The members include the chairman of Mistuo Katsui, the vice chairman, Kenya Hara, Shin Matsunaga and many other famous designers. The management committee include Kashiwa Sato and Kazuhumi Nagai.

Publications: Issue various publications on annual book of Japanese Graphic Design, Q&A, newsletter and many other.

URL：www.jagda.org/

- Kazuhumi Nagai
Born in 1961, Tokyo Japan. Graduated Tama Art University of design department in 1985. Worked as a art director, senior creative director at Hakuhodo. Established Hakuhodo Design Inc. in 2003 as a president. Activity include from strategy to advertising in total. Received Creator of the Year in 2004, and Tokyo ADC award in 2005. Through the activities of the project「disaster＋design」, expand the possibilities of design.
URL：www.h-plus-design.com/1st-earthquake/index.html

「TAP PROJECT」is to provide clean and safe water to the children around the world. Since the earthquake in Japan, changed its original destination of Madagascar, Africa to support the disaster area of eastern Japan.
URL：www.tapproject.jp/news/2011/earthquake/

3. Brush up from last assignment

-Video Team

Theme: "What would you do when the earthquake happens?"

Based on what they had from last class, they brush up the quality of video by focusing on story line. Assuming that the earthquake happened, captured Japanese people`s variety of reactions. The class suggested to change the angle of view on object, speed of each scenes and so on. Edit the video again based on the suggestions and complete it by Thursday.

- Group of two Web Teams

Theme: "What would you do when the earthquake happens?"

Based on what they had from last class, they brush up the quality of video by focusing on story line. Assuming that the earthquake happened, captured Japanese people`s variety of reactions. The class suggested to change the angle of view on object, speed of each scenes and so on. Edit the video again based on the suggestions and complete it by Thursday. Group of two Web Teams

4. Devision of Roles

Decide the members to contact AXIS, PechaKucha Night, FABRICA and ect. Also, decide the team members for overall direction (User interface), layout, graphic direction (Illustration, icon, logo, and color). Video team is continuously work on what they have been created from.

2011/6/6

1.Categorize
We presented categories for case studies that were given as homework last week.

They were briefly categorized into six:

life, medical treatment, children, community, finance, and nuclear damage.

Each of them are specifically categorized further:

・Life (energy, food, water, housing, relocation)

・medical treatment (old people, mental care, medicines)

・children (evacuation, education, mental care)

・community (communication, city planning, safety, culture, tradition)

・finance (funds, employment)

・ nuclear damage (explanation, examples of Chernobyl, prevention, visualization, medical treatment, energy)

We first came up with what needs do victims have, then came up with words that will be used to look up these needs, and then narrowed them down according to the numbers that will be found using those words, in order to decide on these categories above.

2. How our website should be
- User　

…creators

- What will they ask for?

…possibilities for new businesses, information of the disaster-struck area (what are the needs of the victims?), idea source

・These are not enough in order to differentiate from other websites. Therefore, we will set up an idea page so that creators can communicate each other through their comments.

- Main contents　

…case study page, idea page, disaster-struck area information page

- User accouts

…

we will be using Facebook or Twitter accounts

・Facebook is an ideal tool since it recommends users to show their real names; identifying users means eventually there will be restriction in users' actions

・Users do not need to sign up for a new account; that allow users to participate easily

3. Structure of our case study page
Our case study page aim to easily transmit design from oversea for japanese designers. Therefore, we will translate English case studies into Japanese, and will design a four-frame comic strip to illustrate summaries of each case studies. Case studies are categorized according to the categorizes written above, and information (cost, time period, numbers of people, location, etc.), a four-frame comic strip of each case study, related case studies, are displayed all in one. For those who want to know more detailed information, like credit, etc., we allow them to scroll down. We will make numbers of clicking as small as possible.

4. Structure of our idea page
Our idea page aim creators to easily find what they want and communicate. In this page, companies can look for new ideas and designers can ask for funds or new staff that are in short. We will divide our users into four: NPO, local municipal, companies, and designers, and make two pages:

- "How about this?" Page (for NPO, local municipal, companies)　

…show ideas that designers came up with. Users can comment which enable them to blush-up the ideas and exchange their opinions. This page allow NPO, local municipal and companies to find ideas when they want to organize a project.

- "Wanted!" Page (for designers)

…This page allow designers to know what NPO, local municipal and companies want to do in a specific situation, so designers can post their projects according to that information.

These two factors are categorized using same tags and icons. We ask for users to sign in using their existing Twitter or Facebook account. Then, we will ask for summary of the idea and description of the user. We will also ask for detailed information such as pictures, tags, location and cost, if there are any.

※Designers might personally contact the company only looking at information it provides. In order to prevent cases like these, we have to design a system that users will not ask too much for their profit.

5. "Information of victims" Page

We will participate in a project of a Japanese creators group called JAGDA (they are planning to create a book and a website about Japan earthquake, through July to March), and post information we gained in a blog form.

6. Structure of a top page

There will be news page, about page, contact page, sponsors page, link page (ex. INDEX) etc. on our top page.

Top page also is an entrance for contents 3-5 so we discussed how we can place them on top page in user-friendly way.

- Links to case studies page

…we introduce three to five case studies in order to notify the users what they are like. Icons show what categories those case studies are in, and also there will be a title, thumbnail picture and a brief description.

- Links to ideas page

…according to two factors of ideas page ("How about this?" Page and "Wanted!" Page), we lists thumbnails of the ideas in newly arrivals. In "Wanted!" page, other than showing what is needed using icons, we will put logos of the companies, in order to tell information easily.

7. Homework

- Movie team

…improve the clip from last week. Focus on stronger statement and stories.

- Web A&B team

…according to the web structure we decided this time, come up with visuals of case studies page and top page.