The Grail, Your Exercise and Media Forms

Everyone needs to be sure to start their own blog and use it to create a visual diary.  There need to be entries for each week of class.  You should include sketches, inspirations, images, clips and thoughts about these objects.  I need to get your blog addresses so that I can attach them to the course site and so that I can sign up as a follower of your blog.

The HOLY GRAIL of AUDIENCE is that products of communication design should reflect the people who use the product ... or ... if you know the profile of the audience then you should be able to choose the design they would use, read, watch or listen too.  It might not be life or a hideous face-melting death but a communication designer must develop the ability to "Choose Wisely" more times than not.

Your exercise for next week:

Go to your chosen MTR station (you do not have to go into the paid area of the station) and shoot pictures of all the advertisements within the space.  This can be posters, light boxes, ads stuck on pillars, ads on the floor, wherever and whatever.  You should also shoot pictures of the retail shops around the station.

Taking all of these images of advertisements and retail outlets determine if there is an audience which connects them together.  The more pieces you can connect the stronger the advertisers feel about the people who move through the station.  Many of the ads are for general audiences, hoping to hit interested people with the shear volume of traffic, but you will need to spend time thinking and talking as a team to find a thread that connects at least some of the ads and outlets.

When you find even the smallest thread then create an archetype character, a person who embodies the features of the audience advertisers are trying to reach in that train station.  Give his or her age range, first language (and if the person has a second language), hometown, home district, education level, income level, job situation, area of residence and then go beyond demographics and round out the person or character with values, attitudes and interests.  Create these audience attributes by looking back at the thread(s) in the business content of the station.

Come to class with your pictures and ideas.  Put them together in a PowerPoint or a Flash presentation.  You will give a short presentation of your ideas and by showing your images it will be possible for the other class members and the professor to offer their thoughts on the focus of the advertising within the station.

We will then complete the description of audience and move on to Psychological Theories behind Communication Design.

Some points on MEDIA FORMS:

1.  Each form is made up of a particular set of dimensions.

2. As you add a dimension you change the form and creative possibilities of the medium.

3. You start with space (3 dimensions) and get discrete media forms,

     you add the sequence dimension and you get textual media forms,

     you add the synergy dimension and you get integrated media forms,

     you add the time dimension and you get temporal media forms,

     you add the control dimension and you interactive media forms,

     you add the intelligence dimension and you get representational media forms,

     you add the distance dimension and you get connected media forms, and

     you add the presence dimension and you get un-mediated forms.

4. Each dimension builds on the foundation of the previous media form.  E.G., to fully exploit the possibilities of representational media forms requires an understanding of discrete, textual, integrated and textual media forms.  You may stop adding dimensions to your work and become expert at a particular media form but your success in adding dimensions depends on your mastery of the media forms that act as the foundation for the added dimension.  Design teams can be built around the idea of expertise in a particular media form and working through the various dimensions will at least provide the communication designer with the ability to work with people specializing in a variety of media forms.

5. The thing that changes with each media form is how the content is experienced.  Looking at poster does not provide the same experience as watching a moving, reading a book does not provide the same experience as playing a computer game, having a face-to-face conversation does not provide the same experience as posting to your wall on FaceBook...

We will talk more about this in the coming week...

Please post your questions.