Week 12 - Horsing around with Design

I saw on TV that there is a community of people who all are dedicated to 'My Little Pony'. Now you wouldn't catch me spending my time thinking about, or drawing, girly little ponies...  ahh... umm... well... :P

Watching SBS on TV, I saw a report about people who love 'My Little Pony'. Made me think about the game 'Angry Birds'. There were games long before Angry Birds that employed the exact same mechanic. The developers of Angry Birds just gave it cute graphics and released it on smartphones. Just goes to show, never under estimate the power of 'Cute' (and recognising a potential). Designing for the market. However, I'm sure that die hard fans of My Little Pony would say that I drew the above pony all wrong.


Evolving Design. The following is essentially a promotion for Diablo III on the Playstation 4. However,  during the video, they speak about various design elements. They talk about the differences of input between being controller based verses mouse based. Also, they mention the 'share' button on the controller, allowing you to share your play on the web. I just found it interesting looking at it from the point of view of evolving design, even if it is primarily marketing.

Believe Achieve Event. I went to a 'Believe Achieve' event last Thursday. It was partly an event to honour some students who have done well not just academically, but also who have contributed to the community. It was also an event where you had a chance to meet some potential employers. I talked to several of the people there who were from DataCom (http://www.datacom.com.au). It was interesting, as many things discussed did reinforce subject matter discussed in the Design lectures. For example, cases were given of the client not really knowing what they want, with the resultant need of having to tease it out of them before going to the designing process. In one case, a client had the right idea, but was ignoring what should have been an obvious area to develop, and was instead trying to apply solutions in an unfavourable area (Clients remained anonymous). Of course, being an older student, I had my own stories to tell too :) . I'll have to ensure I continue to go to such events.

Tutorial

This week, I didn't go to the tutorial, mainly because I was unsure that there was one. But there is definitely no tutorial next week. This semester is winding down. I'll continue to spend my time slowly tidying my blog/journal up, and adding detail where I think it's necessary. Yet I'll add a new post next week, even if it's just short like this one.