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The Duluth News Tribune reports today that the recent winter storm snatched part of the Lake Walk.

Working in your groups today, respond in the following ways while giving feedback to the writer of the proposals:

  1. What are your general reactions to the proposal? What do you like? What about enhancements?
  2. What do you think the client's concerns would be?
  3. Think about the proposal in terms of the four kinds of discourse we've talked about (four potential kinds of problems/solutions that are possible). What is the dominant discourse of the project? Make suggestions to improve the focus and purpose of the document's plan.
  4. How is the proposed document integrated or connected with other media and documents the client is using now? Could the flow among the media/documents be enhanced?

Today, you'll create a Contact Places/Information Spaces Map for your client's operation, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Are any of these places/spaces being underused? How could a new document help?
  • Could the interaction of your client and his/her audiences in one of these places/spaces be enhanced by a new document?
  • Could these places/spaces be integrated, connected or coordinated better with a document?
  • Could information or content flow better if your document put it in a different form?

For our exercise in class today, we'll use Penn State's World Campus Web site.

Color printing is available in the following labs on campus: the Library Lobby, SB 17, MON 239.

Here are the compiled results of the writings you did on Monday about your concerns, problems and needs doing the Lake Walk University project.

See the instructions for reporting on the usability test for your Lake Walk University brochure. The report will be due on Monday, November 19 with your brochure.

The Lake Walk University project (#3) will be due Monday, November 19. Please see the revised class schedule. You will turn in only one color copy of this project since we will not be workshopping the final products in class.

Since our Lake Walk University brochures are essentially a marketing concept for UMD, we need a catchy "tag line" to appear under the big banner "Lake Walk University" on the rack. This tag line will sum what our brochures do and why people should pick a few up.

Take a look at TLS Marketing's explanation of tag lines, and compose a tag line for our distribution rack. Sorry--the line, "A Great University by a Great Lake" is already taken.

Try to collect some model, or sample, brochures whenever you see them. What do you find effective or ineffective about? Take a look, for example, at the layout for this brochure from the university.

I'm asking you to plan next week to conduct a "usability test" on a draft of your Lake Walk University brochure. This simply means going out on the Lake Walk and letting someone who's unfamiliar with the project (but who is a good "test case") to take your document and use it, thinking aloud as he or she goes. You should follow along, listening and taking notes. Please read and print out this page of directions for doing usability testing from the University of Colorado.

I will ask you to report on your usability test. More on the form of that report next week.

Please consult the workshop schedule for the Repurposing projects to see which sites to prepare for discussion on Monday the 22nd, Wednesday the 24th, and Monday the 29th.

Caterers' Web sites: what do people want to see? Hearty Boys, Corky's Catering, Apple a Day Catering.

Web pages are effective places to tell stories, and to allow clients and customers to share testimonials. When I was at San Jose State, a graduate intern put together some stories of successful students in online classes for our Web site.

Follow the steps for turning in a Web-based project to submit your Repurposing project by Thursday, October 18 at midnight. Late projects will be assessed a 5-point-a-day penalty.

You can download WS-FTP from the Web for free if you'd like it at home. For Mac users, download Fetch instead. UMD's ITSS provides step-by-step directions for posting your pages using FTP.

The next project will be "Repurposing." You will need to post this site to the Web by Thursday, October 18 at midnight.

Ralph Waldo Emerson's philsophy of Trascendentalism suggests the basis for the Romantic, intuition-driven approach to design that Shriver discusses in Chapter 3:

"To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men,--that is genius." -- from "Self Reliance"

Pine and Gilmore's book The Experience Economy describes the need for aesthetic awareness and creativity in practical design as the economy becomes increasingly "mediated."

Can an informative document be value neutral? How about another city site? Can the weather be value neutral?

As part of discussing the ad for the California College of Arts and Crafts Graduate Information Night, we used these Web sites to see that typographic styles aren't static in their cultural references, but that they're as contemporary and fluid as slang on the street. It's a good idea to go out and listen!

California College of Arts and Crafts
Arts and Crafts Society (Typefaces 1)
Dard Hunter (Arts and Crafts Typefaces 2)

The next project will be "Repurposing," rather than the "Repurposing Project" as previously announced. This change was made necessary by the problems ITSS has experienced getting PageMaker to work in the labs.

In the workshop starting on Monday, October 1, we will take one piece at a time, and go around the room to hear a variety of your reactions and suggestions to it. Rest assured that you will be called upon several times in each workshop to share your comments. To prepare for this discussion, see the comments on critiquing.

Sample Web page (leaves)

Your "Revision of Ad" assignments, including both the project itself and the self commentary, will be due on Monday, September 24 in class. Please see the guidelines for turning in these projects.

Thanks to all of you who sent your "name-plate design" exercises. They helped me get to know you better, and, I hope, suggest some of the creative work we'll be seeing throughout the semester.

Bauhaus style
Bauhaus (USCS)
Bauhaus (Kraus)