DP // WEEK 12

I have finished my printed pieces and they are at the print center! Hoping their paper works, but I am thinking I will have to go find my own. I am really just getting a test print done. I need a paper weight that is thin enough to fold, but can be printed on both sides and won't be see-through. 

I am clipping together my video and just need to put it into the after effects to edit the color. The video is purely for the online aspect to give more depth to the project. I am typing up and figuring out the web presence as well as how I want this to be displayed at the senior show.  I want to have 3 of the fold outs printed out to show that this would come in multiples. Also, how I want to display a concise explanation of the project for viewers, so they know what they are looking at. 

I am also meeting with some teachers this weekend to show them the finished fold-outs to get some quotes from them about the pieces. One of them is a teacher I talked to in the beginning of this process so I am interested to hear what she has to say. Hopefully get some good quotes for my portfolio site. 

FRONT || BACK

CLOSE UPS

DP // WEEK 11

This week I feel like I have made a lot of progress, even though at times I feel like this printed layout is taking a long time for me to get right. The farther along I get the more I am really starting to appreciate the content and information I am designing. The historical information, but also just doing the persona and telling these stories. 
For me it just proves that I think I went down the correct route for my degree project. I still really like dealing with personal information. I have been showing my friend Tanja (my friend I went to Belgrade with) my progress each week and it's an accomplishment for me to see how excited she gets. I remember at our Senior Presentations I said, "I like knowing I have made someone happy or excited through my design," and I'm happy that I am still doing that. 
I have a "thing" for nostalgia and old imagery and I have been incorporating that into my layout. I realized that it was missing something. The design needed more depth to help the story. Old images of childhood photos or photos of someone being in the army make a person more real. 
The typography and legibility have been the challenge for this week and making my foldout easier to digest– giving it breathing room. Of course, I am designer and that's what we do, but I have so many elements that I want to include and making them all work together the best way possible. Iterate, iterate, iterate. I have come to love that word. I have made significant changes, but necessary changes. 
For the web element I am just focussing on wrapping it up to make it cohesive with the printed materials. I am fixing the type and doing some last minuete content revisions. 
I have been struggling with the video aspect and how it will work into my project/story. Last week I posted a storyboard of how I anticipated the video would play out. Well, changes are being made. Time is obviously short, but I would still really like to put a video aspect together. I think it will really help tell my story of how I arrived to where I am today with this project. I think that it will give some context for the project especially when viewed online. I have these interviews and I would like to have to show that I actually was there and there is a background to what I am designing and who I am designing about. 
By Thursday I am going to head over to the print center to do some test prints and find the correct paper. I would really like to get them ink jet printed. I want this to feel like an artifact or something that is new and fresh, but the texture of the paper is really important to me because people will be holding it and unfolding it. When something is lazer printed and is folded the print usually gets scratched off… and the craft of the piece suffers. 

Jelena Damjanovic

Dragan Petrovic 

DP // WEEK 10

Hello Week 10 or good bye really.

This past week I have been pushing the form even more on my printed foldout. I have also began story boarding for my video aspect. Thinking of a interesting way of explaining this and not just making it a educational video about education. This is a good moment for me to go back to older blog posts and revisit my question and remind myself of my goal while completing this. I want the video to give a good view of serbia through my eyes, and for the viewer to hopefully understand that this was inspired by my time in another country.  Also,  I find it important to have this sense of cultural understanding and to start it early on. In the school classrooms and at home to remind and teach students the importance of travel and research of other cultures/countries. 

For the foldout I want to work on making it even more personal in regards to Jelena. Trying to channel all things Serbian and UX to gain empathy from the viewer. Now that I have a good idea and structure for my first booklet I hope to be able to change the imagery and type for the other personas. 

Not unless something else dawns on me for a better name I am using "my story." It is generic, but I want this to be a system that could be applied to different cultures/countries/cities. Moja Priča is my story in Serbian so each country would have that title, but in the native language. 

(front of foldout) 

I started implementing more pattern and using shape from traditional Serbian patterns to inform my shape (form). 

DP // WEEK 9

This past week I have been focusing on my printed piece. This is the main component of my project I don't feel that I have spent enough time on it unfortunately. I have been putting a lot of attention towards my web component which I feel is completely necessary, but I should have more diligent on working on the printed fold out. 

With all of that being said, I must keep trucking along. I can't go back and change anything, but I can push forward at a better pace. I am really excited about the printed piece so far. I know that it will just get more refined in the next week and hopefully completed!  

I have also taking note on how to best represent this project as a final product. I think having a short video component would be nice and a clear way to represent this system and how it was inspired. The video will exist online and really be for presentation purposes.  Having a printed piece I have been bouncing around with ideas and how to help viewers understand the concept. A large part of the project was and is inspired by trip to Serbia. I plan to take viewers on my journey and the steps I took and my thought process to get the point where I am today.  The interviews, educational aspect, final product and why the artifacts are necessary. For the senior show I was initially thinking a poster to pull people to the project and help explain it. I know that space is limited, so it will probably turn into statement sitting on the table to help explain the system.

The entire page opened up

                           The back when completely folded up                             The front when completely folded up

A close up on back panel

A close up of inside panels

This is a first stages of representing Jelena's values.

I have been playing around with pattern making. The patterns in traditional Serbia clothing have a lot of pattern. 

The patterns seem to stretch visually in a horizontal manner. I wanted to modernize their traditional patterns. 

I was fortunate enough to have receive these postcards from Jelena before I left. She loves art and made me all these little illustrations. I have scanned in her handwriting to go along with the printed piece. I think this ads a great deal of personal touch to help tell this story even more. I really want to incorporate artifacts and playing around with how to represent them in a printed piece.  

DP // WEEK 7

Inspiration for this week.  

Opanci/Opanak are known as a national symbol of Serbia, and part of Serbian National costume of Serbia. 

I wanted to post these shoes because during this process of wire framing, research, and coming up with content I have started to forget where all this is coming from. All of my content is about Serbia, but I am forgetting the things that inspired me to all of this in the first place. I was re-inspired this week after realizing this. 

//

I reworked my wire frames for the online aspect. I was making things more complicated, as usual, and decided to really simplify the frame work for this site. After I reworked my site map things started to surface as being frivolous. It wasn't necessary to have many of the tabs/headers/imagery that I had. I striped away a lot of those things to make a more officient clear site. 

I do however need to keep reminding myself of the goal. That probably sounds odd in that we all have goals and those goals are to have an amazing project and final artifact. When I say goal  however, I mean the goal for the audience. What do I want these freshmen in high school to understand or feel after visiting the site?

I still need to work a lot on content I've realized. Not gathering this information, but putting what where and how it's being displayed. Get really specific and have moments of teaching. 

Degree Project: Web Artifact Wireframes

-some sketches-

DP // WEEK 6

DP // Web Wireframes by

The wire frames above are for my web scenario. They are still pretty loose as far as design goes, but this part of my project is not my number one focus. However, I still want to show some of my ideas for potential web developments and features. 

ABOVE

I have began to work on the visuals for my design. I have a lot of content that needs a place to go! I think it will help me to start piecing together parts of the design. I think it will help inform how I will plan to create some of my info-graphic moments. I want to use imagery with a layering aspect. This being for a young age group they need a lot of visual stimulation to hold their attention. I do believe it can still hold a form of sophistication/seriousness. I kept coming back to this layering affect I think because I am telling stories, and these stories have layers and history that build and build. I think it gives depth to the content as well.  I am still trying to work out titles and I feel like I am getting closer as I keep moving forward. I want the name to be general in a sense that this could be used for any country/city. 

Titles ideas so far: 

-Through the Eyes

-Through the Eyes of… (then have the country being focussed on) 

-??? (haven't gotten too far on this yet...)