6.2.11

Readings: VisCom (2/7)

How the Smithsonian collects artifacts
In this story by Steven Turner, a curator in the Division of Medicine and Science, he explains the journey he had made to obtain a collection of science artifacts. This reminded me of the research of finding all of my images. Even when just collecting artifacts, Turner learns something about history and the history of teaching science. I have already learned so much about the 60s hippie culture just by trying to find images. Collecting these images, my curiosity always took over  and I had to read what each photo was about or what was going on in the image. Turner also states that, " We are now carefully unpacking, cataloging, photographing, and storing them." Even though Turner has hundreds of scientific items he must categorize them and find a place for each, I am doing the same with each of my categories for the culture of hippie's. I categories such as bare feet, drugs, and long hair for example. I came upon many image but each of them have to have a place and be organized. 


Making the Invisible Visible 
    In these couple of pages about relating to the audience and having clear concept and goal, many things occurred to me. One is to know your audience. I definitely learned that first semester. Curtis explains that,"Our job as designers is to identify the theme, build a concept around it, and do everything in our power to support it... both before and during the design and production phases."  The process begins with a target. As a designer I am designing for someone else. Although my concepts are mine, they must relate to the people in which my media will be reaching. I would say that with our project right now our imagery collection is all about what we want our audience to know and the knowledge that we want them to gain by seeing these images. Questions come up like: What do I want people to understand or take away or learn about the hippie culture? And then I ask, do my spreads and imagery make that idea clear and concise? 
   He then talks about concept and building your concept around your theme. Hillman gives the example of when he designed for a company called 3Com and a new product called "3Com HomeConnect." Just like we came up with our values he did the same with his team in discovering the most important concepts to get across to the audience. Having this product and it's point which needed to be clear and come across in a fast direct way to the internet users. Hillman came up with the words freedom, visions, possibilities, and connections for this product. Coming up with these one word messages to give the audience a message, explain what the product is about, as well as spiking the interest of audience. By having a concept and goal from the beginning and sticking with a plan, his ideas relate and represent the client and their product. 

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