Assignment 1: Conceptualizing Information -- The "Pre-Development" Phase

Proposal is due on September 10th. 5%

Sketches are due of September 22nd. 5%

Late assignments will not be accepted.

1. The pitch one-sheet (proposal)

Due September 10th.

The content of this one-sheet is the foundation of your screenshow and rich-media website, that is, each of these assignments is an incremental step toward the creation of your final assignment. The theme must be something you're passionate about either in your life work, your research, or your hobby. You can imagine there is a "dream client" driving the idea (someone who does not boss you around) or you can "free-spirit" an individual design portfolio.

The technical requirements are: 

Using MS Word or other word-processing program, create a one-sheet proposal, in hard copy format (ie printed out).

Headings are, in order from top to bottom of the page:

Title

Blurb (2 sentence maximum). This blurb will begin with the words "This web site will be about" OR "This integrated media series is about" or the like.

Demographic. Who is your audience?

Description (3 paragraphs maximum) Examples of information might include how you became interested in this topic, more about the topic itself, where you can source graphics (some original photography is advised), the rich media you are hoping to include, the color scheme you plan, the stylistic approach (humour etc), the user experience, links or further resources, possible collaborators or sonsultants,    and

Contact (your name and mtech email at a minimum)

No headers. No footers. Must be one-page. Must be printed out from the computer. Must be spell-checked and grammatically correct.

This One-Sheet Proposal must have no formatting.

This is so you can see how effective it is to de-bloat MS Word -- how satisfying it is to concentrate on the "content" rather than sweat the "form" for a change.

Must be 12 point Times or Helvetica, no bolding, no italics, no font size variation. Just let me know what your *ideas* are!

Here is a sample in pdf format. boozecruise_onesheet.pdf

2. Storyboard Mockups

Due September 22nd.

This is hand-sketched and you may use regular printer paper or any kind of paper that you feel is suitable. Use pencil rather than pen so that you can erase and scribble and erase and scribble some more.

Sketch out a 10-screen storyboard plan for the presentation and eventual web site you are proposing. This storyboard plan will be implemented in a linear slideshow format utilizing a presentation software like Powerpoint and will be uploaded to the slideshare.com website.

Three of the screens will contain a graphic and a block of text. One screen will contain a chart. One screen will be text only. Three screens will contain full-screen graphics. One screen will contain citations of where you sourced the images or text. One screen is up to you and I suggest a good idea might be to create an original piece of art in Photoshop if you want to try out painting and drawing in Photoshop. 

Alongside the sketches, you will briefly describe what the screen contains unless your drawing skills are such that your design intentions are clearly visually evident.

You need to assign some colours to your project. Indicate a colour palette somewhere on the storyboard and indicate briefly how the colours are used. You are also encouraged to colour the pages up -- have some fun!

Remember, a storyboard mockup is a rough plan. To paraphrase Bill Buxton, quoting Linus Pauling, "you have to generate lots of lousy ideas to get one great idea," so if you go through a number of iterations (versions) include them all in your assignment submission.