Is it the matter? Originality in Web Design

As a multimedia designer, we have consider many things and plan everything before the final piece launched to the public. I recently have done with my website project so it’s still fresh in my head. I’m share a bit of making of a website. Before step into visualizing the website, I have to set my goal first, like the purpose of making this website and my target users, because every design has its own purpose and every design needs audience to appreciate. Therefore in my case I build for photography lovers (nearly like a sharing sites) and I used skeuomorphic design to bring out the feel of the specific subject I chose (website: http://madrabbit-art.com/). I never made a site like this before so I did some research for the content, element, layout structure, design which I should consider put in my website, like Flickr. I don’t think I can make a good photography site without any mistake should happen like wrong content and layout for photography users, without some online research. If people say that my work looks familiar with some sites, I can guarantee them, it’s obviously taken from others. Nevertheless, I didn’t copy it pixel by pixel, I just took some element from different places and ‘mash up’ into something new and make it into my own piece. I remember my lecturer said to us, always create new things from old element.

Originality? Seems never happen to me.

Ezequiel Bruni is a Canadian web designer. He said that originality doesn’t really a matter, at least in web design. There’s still many outstanding web design out there and there’s still pioneer or innovator there to lead us. Nevertheless, we still doing the same boring layout structure and design.
He has experiences of web design and he states out some points that make us as web designer to think about it.

1.    Clients don’t care. They might say they value originality, but they don’t. They want their website to be effective in achieving its intended goal. Whether they’re selling a product, advertising a service, or attempting to influence opinions, that is all they want. They don’t care if other people’s websites looks similar to theirs.

2.    Users don’t care. Users probably care even less about design originality than clients. They just want to do what they came for, no more, and no less.

3.    We shouldn’t care too much, because we’re not artists. Design is not art. It’s science. We design websites to sell things. The results of our work, that of selling things, must be demonstrable and repeatable, just like the result of any other experiment.

Innovation, improvement, and originality are good things in our profession, of course, provided they make us more effective. Being different for the mere sake of not being the same is how we ended up with entire subcultures of teens who all dress the same in an attempt to be different.

What matters, if not originality?

I am not saying that we should never experiment or we have to be an “industry leader” before we try new things. I’m saying that we should not obsess over originality in the field of design. Sometimes people who aren’t satisfied until they’ve tried something new and novel, to the detriment of their actual paying work.
Originality is in the details, anyway. It has to be. As long as we’re constrained to two-dimensional screens, we’ll be rather limited in what we can reasonably design. We use imagery and content we (or our clients) create. We seek novelty and original thought, not in the pixels on the screen, but in the people those pixels connect us to.

Source:

Medium, (2014). Does Originality Even Matter in Design?. [online] Available at: https://medium.com/@ezequielbruni/does-originality-even-matter-in-design-728be406b15 [Accessed 27 Dec. 2014].

     

Steal, Make Sense

I’m an Interactive Media Design student, lately I finished a UNESCO World Heritage website. Website: http://madrabbit-art.com/

The idea of my website is ‘stole’ from some retro art style of website. Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon gives me an idea of being a great artist (or a designer) is ‘stealing’ from others idea and transform and combine it into self work. “Inspiration” in a term is a very broad way to describe it, hence, I can say that I inspire by a design instead of saying I copy from a design. A good designer will copy from other design but a great designer will ‘steal’ it what he/she wants. He also said that there is no such thing of completely original as we live in a remix culture, example like the idea of collage art.

                                                  The home page of my website

                              These are the references I took for my website design

 Collage art itself is not an original things, it also took element from different places and placement played by the artist. What’s really makes it original is something new to the public, but after the repetition of the work, it loses its originality.

Our lecturer told us to find references from other designs, do mood board and cites all the sources we used, before step into designing stage. As a professional designer, we can’t skip these progresses of making a website. We learn techniques and mistakes by doing research then we can do a better design. 

Source:

YouTube, (2014). Steal Like An Artist: Austin Kleon at TEDxKC. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oww7oB9rjgw [Accessed 27 Dec. 2014].    

Definition of Originality

Originality is the aspect of created or invented works by as being new or novel, and is not received from others nor one copied from or based upon the work of others. It is a work created with a unique style and substance.

David Hare stated that original in an artist’s work is never noticed by the public in the book “The myth of originality in contemporary art”. In its raw state the original either passes unnoticed or is considered to be a mistake. In the arts it is noticed and approved, precisely at that moment when it is on its way to becoming unoriginal. A work remains permanently original if the artist refrains from too much repetition. 

Baroque art and modern art are very different in a sense of originality. Originality seems did not exist in Baroque era, but in the contrary, repetition and imitation in art was popular by that period because Baroque art has implanted an idea of “perfection of human body”. Professor Maria H. Loh, from University College London, said that the idea that pre-existed in the mind of the baroque artist consisted in the choosing, taking, gathering and synthesis of parts that would produce a beautiful body. The image of the Hero served as a masculine in Baroque would be responsible for consolidating Renaissance theories of eclectic imitation into a new definition of the epic hero who possessed the best virtues drawn from all previous heroes. 

Modern art like Futurism by Marinetti, more appreciated the originality and innovation in art. Marinetti's manifesto glorified the new technology of the automobile and the beauty of its speed, power, and movement. Exalting violence and conflict, he called for the sweeping repudiation of traditional values and the destruction of cultural institutions such as museums and libraries. The manifesto's rhetoric was passionately bombastic; its aggressive tone was purposely intended to inspire public anger and arouse controversy. Marinetti's manifesto inspired a group of young painters in Milan to apply Futurist ideas to the visual arts. Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo, Giacomo Balla, and Gino Severini published several manifestos on painting in 1910. Like Marinetti, they glorified originality and expressed their disdain for inherited artistic traditions.

Bibliography

Golding, J. (1969). A New Study of Futurism. The Burlington Magazine. p.386.

Hare, D. (1964). The Myth of Originality in Contemporary Art. Art Journal. 24(2), p.139.

Maria H. Loh  (2010). ‘New and Improved: Repetition as Originality in Italian Baroque Practice and Theory.’Ucl.ac.uk. pp.485. [online] Available at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/art-history/about_us/academic_staff/dr_maria_loh/loh [Accessed 26 December 2014].

 Rocheleau, J. (2014). Case Study: Futurism & New Age Digital Artwork. [online] Hongkiat.com. Available at: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/new-age-digital-artwork/ [Accessed 26 Dec. 2014].

      

Generation Z

I read an intersting article which talk about there's many cases of millennials taking chance to be creative to start an enterprise online. They called this Generation Z. Generation Z is one name used for the cohort of people born after the Millennial Generation (normally after year 1995), where various of technology devices on their hands and also the trend of online entrepreneurship. For example, Nick D'Aloisio is best known as the creator of Summly, which is a summarization, artificial intelligence technology developed with SRI International, at just 15 years of age. Summly was sold to Yahoo for a reported $30 million US dollars making him one of the youngest self-made millionaires ever. For another example, Beth Reekles 17-year-old Welsh high school student who posted her first novel, The Kissing Booth, online where it got more than 19 million views and now Random House announced a three-book deal in the U.S., starting with The Kissing Booth. 

Nick D'Aloisio

Beth Reekles

 

Generation Z is familiar with computer technology, plus the increase of the popularity of social networking sites, they even can have their own blog and website, before they graduate they are more willing to participate in entrepreneurial online. Intern Sushi recruitment company survey showed that 75 percent of Generation Z hopes to turn their hobby into a full-time job; 17 2/3 years old teenager determined to change the world, therefore social networking sites has becomes their first choice.

It said that Generation Z born in Economic Recession era,  they will be much affected by growing up in economically difficult times due to the 1970’s (Generation Y) grow in recessions are often less confident, “settle” in lower paid jobs, and are more fearful about financial difficulties.

 

Bibliography

hinapress.com.my, (2014). Z世代科網界致富 18歲寫app賺近億 | 中國報. [online] Available at: http://www.chinapress.com.my/node/551459 [Accessed 30 Nov. 2014].

Stuff, (2014). Teen's multi-million dollar payday. [online] Available at: http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/8474218/Teens-multi-million-dollar-Yahoo-payday [Accessed 30 Nov. 2014].

The Wire, (2013). Meet the 17-Year-Old Who's Already Got a Three-Book Deal with Random House. [online] Available at: http://www.thewire.com/entertainment/2013/04/beth-reekles-kissing-booth/64016/ [Accessed 30 Nov. 2014]. 

USATODAY.COM, (2014). After Gen X, Millennials, what should next generation be?. [online] Available at: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/advertising/story/2012-05-03/naming-the-next-generation/54737518/1 [Accessed 30 Nov. 2014].

Yahoo Small Business Advisor, (2014). World's Youngest VC-Funded Entrepreneur?. [online] Available at: https://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/world-s-youngest-vc-funded-entrepreneur-.html [Accessed 30 Nov. 2014].

Internet- Songwriters killer?

I like Taylor Swift's songs although I'm not her biggest fan therefore most of the time I listen to her music online. Nevertheless I read an article about she has been pull her latest album "1989" from Spotify (a commercial music streaming service providing digital rights management) and claimed that she's not contribute her life's work to an experiment that didn't fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists, and creators of this music. She dosen't agree with perpetuating the perception that music has no value and should be free. She said that art comes from hardwork and should be paid. This term made me think of the climbs of the piracy nowadays due to the Internet. Another celebrity, WILL.I.AM said that VEVO and YouTube were unfairly forcing artists to accept certain branding associations, while carefully removing the artist from the profit stream, as far as technology killing the music industry. Yes, Vevo paid for the content but YouTube is open source to public (they can download the video with no boundaries) which mean the videos are free and the artist too. These situation made me concern the problem about our profits will lesser than our hardwork by spreading or putting our work on Internet. Is it Internet really that bad? 

From my opinion, there always has pros and cons, Internet gives no boundaries for piracy and unfair profit to the artist but it also gives a huge expossure for the their albums to the outside world. I found an article which can argues about this statement. Ron Miller said that the Internet is the best distribution channel ever created and it is up to musicians and record companies to figure out how to exploit it. 

 The inforgraphic above shown 21% of the artist's revenue was comes from digitally selling. Internet has provides plattform for the artist to exposure their art work to the outside. 

 It wasn’t any longer about getting paid for every album or record. It was about getting the word out about the artist music and using channels like YouTube to whet the appetites of their fans. Some unpopular artist have to use the system and get their constituencies excited about their music, so they show up at concerts and buy merchandise and give them different ways of making money.

 The Internet changed everything. Set Taylor Swift as example, in fact, when she removed her music from Spotify, she knew that it would 'spark' a conversation and get people talking about the new album. She’s taking advantage of social media and the Internet while trashing that same channel as exploitative.

       

Flappy bird, Pewdiepie & Internet

Lately I watched a video called 'Game Theory: Flappy Bird, PewDiePie, and Pasta Sauce'. It's about a trend of the games has being brought by the network star (specifically on YouTube). Flappy Bird did not launch to popularity. It was released on May 23rd, 2013 and hung around the low 1,000s of download rankings for its first week before dropping off the charts. It received some moderate but inconsequential boosts around the holidays before beginning a dramatic climb in early January. As of January 17th, 2014—eight months after its release and four months after its last update—Flappy Bird was nestled in at #1. Pewdiepie, a popular YouTube gamer has set this trend. It's explained about the theory of "Diffussion of Innovations", on how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures. At this case, it is more like Internet culture. There are 5 stages of this theory: Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority and Laggards. Set Pewdiepie as example, he is the Early Adopter who brought the 'heat' of Flappy Bird by his video "FLAPPY BIRD- DON'T PLAY THIS GAME" (start from 4:05)

 

As the video "Game Theory: Flappy Bird, PewDiePie, and Pasta Sauce" mentioned about the Early Majority of other YouTube gamers also follow the trend and keep the 'heat' of Flappy Bird. It's like a viral. Other people will play the game which influence by their friends who watch the videos. Later that it will influence friends by friends and no longer mention the names of the YouTube gamers. These 2 stages called Late Majority and Laggards. As this rate we can see how Internet influenced the trend of a game as Flappy Bird didn't become popular at the first place.