For the final presentation tomorrow, boards have to be prepared to the specification of the RSA brief. In the case of the postage stamp brief this means four A3 boards and supporting documentation explaining the ‘big idea’. Two of the boards must show the stamps at actual size and enlarged size, the other two must detail the thought process and the progression of the concept. Here are the results of the RSA brief. There may be some final ‘tweaking’ before they are actually submitted to the competition but for all intents and purposes this is final. The supporting document can be downloaded here.
Something I cooked up following a tutorial from abduzeedo.com
Download the 1920 x 1200 file here.
The permanent thermic ink is not suitable for the needs of the concept as they are unable to be activated by body temperature and are limited to grey or pink.
A different approach was needed to allow the stamp to perform it’s function without compromising the concept and restarting from scratch. The direction was to look outside of the stamp and include functionality that lends it’s self to a more interaction based realisation.
As a result the concept now includes more than just a stamp design, it includes a whole new way of customization, discussion and sharing with the added information about the topics relating to climate change and renewable energies delivered though a mobile social network.
The functionality of this is derived from the use of QR tags and mobile capture / internet devices.
This is a QR tag. It is a 2D structure similar to that of a standard bar code. The difference is that it can be captured using a mobile device’s camera and a reader interprets the image and decodes the information, which can be anything from a line of text to — the more common use — a bookmark for a mobile internet site.
The tag example shown here is a link to the new Rave Interactive social network.
The principle is that a user activates the heat, captures the QR tag and is transported to a mobile social networking site. The page they start on depends on which stamp they have captured, but they can navigate the whole site from their mobile device. The starting page contains contextual information about climate change, energy conservation and renewable energies as well as a task to take an image relating to the stamp captured.
This is then uploaded via 3G, MMS or email from the device and shared with the community. The images can be rated and the highest rated image over a recurring specified period of time is made into a stamp using the Royal Mail customization feature on their website. These can then be purchased and the submitter of the image receives them for free.
This encourages socialisation around an important topic allowing for exploration of the way to change the current status-quo. It encourages the capturing of images, be they inspirational or horrific, which further illustrate the positive points of renewable energies and the negative points of continued dependence on fossil fuels.
In a strange way this is also a method of stamp collecting, aimed directly at the younger generation who see stamp collecting as a book full of plastic and boring stamps. This provides a gateway for the younger generation to step into the world of stamp collecting. Bringing it into the digital era. It may even inspire them to take another look at the world of stamps to see what other cool things there are, allowing a stepping stone to the traditional method of collecting.
New interaction between computer and instruments, for use with audio processing or synthesis.
http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/11/07/mcmillen.string.interfaces/
New mix preparing for possibly DJing on my birthday.
Download the mix directly here, listen online here and subscribe to my podcast in iTunes here.
Tracklisting
Sound Access – I Like A Mario (Ft. DJ Maximo)
Eddy Wata – I Love My People [DJ Starleev Remix]
Spencer & Hill – Most Wanted
Oliveros Bunito – Pornstar
Sash – Stay [Fonzerelli Re-Work]
DJ Antoine – If You Work [DJ ZAM Remix]
Sunrider – Take A Look Around [PH Electro Remix Edit] (Ft. Dolle)
After re-reading various pieces of information provided by Augustus Martin, the previous designs are null and void. If thermic ink were to be used then it would appear and not disappear, unlike the designs shown that have the opaque layer disappear when heat is applied. This means two things, firstly the colours of the stamps are irrelevant as they will be screen printed with a layer of thermic ink overlayed and secondly the colour of change will be to a grey, black or pink.
After having some one-to-one feedback it was suggested that the problem may be overcome by looking more towards technology. Research has been conducted looked at QR tags and RFID as well as different reactive materials and so far the results seem not to aid the design. it was suggested that I ‘go back to the drawing board’ but the fear is that this will result in a half finished concept with little research.
More research will be conducted into permenant heat reactive colour changing inks / materials and hopefully the resolution can be found in time. If only there had been guidance as to which briefs were more suited to interaction designers, however I feel that the lines between the disciplines that ocupy a similar area are beomcing more blurred. I could be wrong of course.
The final presentation boards were coming along just fine today, matching the criteria to the RSA brief that needed to be fulfilled. That was until a small and yet glaringly obvious flaw in the most recent design came to light.
As the user is now supposed to have ‘tools’ to complete the task of cusomizing their stamp, the sudden realisation that “they could just use a biro” came to mind.
The final presentation board showing the stamps currently has the text on the stamp’s natural state and nothin underneath the colour layer. So when it goes transparent it shows a white mark, still problematic with the yellow but the look seems to be ok.
Robert Andre recommended contacting a printing company he has used as they deal in thermochromics. He brought in a tester pack to experiment with and so an email was sent. The reply was very helpful but exposed a few problems with the underlying principle of the design.
The biggest problem is that it is not as simple to use permanent thermochromic inks with the design, the process of printing is just as simple but requires a higher temperature to activate. So simply touching the stamp with your finger won’t activate the transparency. Helpfully the printing company (Augustus Martin) attached a few documents detailing certain aspects of the printing technology and certain constraints that are in place. Such as colours limited by the technology, activation temperatures and pricing. Permanent thermochromic printing is called thermic printing.
The solution to the activation temperature is to provide a tool with the stamps, a few small stencils and some stamps that can be put in the microwave then attached to a heat resistant handle to enable imprinting of words on the material. A pointed implement will be included to enable more detailed customization in line with using your finger to create a design. These are still in the early design stage.
The stamps have changed to match the colours of the thermic ink process and new identifications have been defined for each. Allowing a small white strip to the right of the stamp means the pastel colours are able to show the Queen’s head and the price more effectively. There is stil debate about including the words on the stamp in it’s natural state.
Two months ago I pre-ordered Gears of War 2 from Play.com knowing full well that I wanted that game on release day and knew how many other people would too. The pre-order came a day late so there was really very little point because I could have just gone down to the shops and picked one up for the same price and had it on release day. So I am very unhappy with Play.com
Firstly I bought the limited edition because it gives you some extras not included in the standard game pack such as a code for a golden lancer (the standard machine gun) and the ‘flashback map pack’ which is 6 multiplayer maps from the original Gears of War.
Enough ranting, lets talk Locust killing!
Single player campaign is great and still has the ability to completed co-operatively. Graphics are improved as you would expect and the game plays very much the same as the original with much more visceral scenery and enemies. The battle sequences are larger by several orders of magnitude and the frame-rate is unaffected. I have yet to encounter an element of the game that the console struggles to handle.
Unfortunately the multiplayer aspect that made Gears one so entertaining has been ‘improved’ and while some of the features seem like a good idea on paper, in reality they are horrible. The most annoying of all is the TrueSkill matchmaking which analyses your skills based on certain criteria such as XP points, games played, achievements obtained etc. etc. but it takes such a long time to find anyone that starting a game is no longer a quick and easy affair.
To put this into perspective, while waiting for it to find players (just to be in my own team I might add) I had time to search the internet to try and find out why it was taking so long, join a forum, write a post, comment on another post, take pictures of the screen for this blog entry, write the magority of this blog entry and cook my self two bacon sandwiches for lunch. I think that takes too long. Even now I am waiting to join another game and using the time to write the rest of this post. I imagine there will be more than a few people who agree. It is very much like waiting for a game in Halo 3’s mutiplayer only worse.
The game is good. It is a fine successor to the original but I can’t help feeling “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” with regard to the multiplayer.
If you would like to play me my gamertag is ‘Dark Individual’.
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