David Steele Overholt is a second year masters candidate at New York University’s ITP. David was born and raised in Oklahoma City, OK and graduated with a BA in Graphic Design in 2003. He has worked as a graphic and interactive designer for many international companies, a guest speaker and adjunct professor, and is currently researching user and experience centered design.
Starting with a blank piece of butcher paper and a big box of crayons, how well could I draw a map of the world in 17 minutes?
Considering I am the creation of the US public school system, I am by no means great, but would think of myself above average at geography. I’ve been to 3 continents, lived in 6 US states, and attended 3 separate Universities. So I thought I would put myself to a quick test.
My intent was never to complete as much as I can, but to get a rough estimate. Here’s how it turned out:
I started out thinking I could give myself 17 minutes per continent and then maybe fill in some interesting points. 3 minutes in to the drawing I was done with North America and it was already a complete wreck. At that point I decided to throw caution to the wind and do the whole thing.
Troubles:
1. Crayons are permanent! (I ended up using this to my advantage for artistic style)
2. Size.
3. Southeast Asia - wtf?!?
4. Islands.
5. Pressure! Just forgot all of Central America? Whoops!
Again, I never intended this to be a detailed map (I can be too anal, I knew I could drive myself nuts), so it was actually lots of fun. I suggest you try it. Remember, use something permanent to draw with.
Add comment | August 2nd, 2008
When studying the Dadaists in undergrad, I remember being fascinated with the artists’ technique of going on walks to gain inspiration and materials for their work. Specifically, Kurt Schwitters’ Merz assemblage pieces (check the bottom of this post for more info). This seems fairly natural and obvious to me now - when I need to get inspiration and think about my projects it’s second nature to go driving, walk, get on the subway, or just take a shower to have time to think and mull-through some ideas, but at the time I was flabbergasted. Why would I want to just walk around for no reason?
The purpose of this project is to go on a randomly navigated journey which concludes in a collage/assemblage, and use the event as an alpha prototype for the creation of an iPhone application that would navigate these journeys for me.
Prototype:
Record myself saying forward, backward, left, right, take picture, and multiple 5 and 10 second empty tracks
Put these tracks into a playlist, upload to iPhone
Open iPod app on iPhone
Shuffle and repeat the playlist
Switch to Clock app and set a timer for 10 minutes
Switch to the camera app
Take a pic when commanded
Go back to my computer and make a collage - try various ways
Studying:
Timing
Number of pictures able to be taken within allotted time
Attraction of idea
Worth of making application
What happens when you can’t the desired path? (add a “re-route button”?)
What if the route is against your moral compass or would put you in harm? (into a house, over a fence, into the ocean)
What if i’m supposed to take a picture where i’m in danger? (middle of an intersection)
Additional Questions:
What if a call comes in?
Should it not be time based? (10 minutes or whenever you feel like stopping?)
From the hip/blind picture taking? (more Dadaist)
How is this the same/different now that it’s a methodical application?
Suggest what to take a picture of? (something round, dark, jagged, etc)
Use other proponents of the iPhone? (vibration for take a picture, a way to use the ear-bud button for camera, etc)
Test 1
Time: 10 minutes
Total pictures: 9
Discovered:
Need a way to pause if it’s an application (use ear bud button)
Consider battery life
Need to start off with a direction
“Forwards” doesn’t mean anything… taking it out
I basically ended up walking around in a circle: adding a lot more pausing for next test
iPod’s shuffle repeats the same shuffled list, I had to reshuffle periodically - will add more tracks for test 2 to offset this
When you come up against an obstacle you can always stop, or just wander on your own
Use the voice as a guide, it’s okay to take liberties
It’s fun and actually really funny!
Collage:
Great temptation to take individually “good” or “interesting” pictures, but better for collage to do flat spaces with some angles and perspective
Pictures of the sky help
Don’t have to use all the pictures
Take landscape view pics and only sometimes use profile
Should be able to crop at angles for collage
Collage needs to start out with a blank canvas
Need the ability to re-use pictures and not just one instance
Could be good to have a black and white setting for collage (pictures expose differently)
Test 2
Time: 10 minutes
Total pictures: 8
Canyons traversed: 1
Changes:
Added more empty time and duplicated tracks to playlist
Took more horizon/foreground pictures
Followed commands less strictly (forced upon me)
Discovered:
I had it easy the first test - this one landed me in a canyon… twice!
When you run in to an obstacle, a rule set could be to use your last given command to rectify
Wear shoes; you never know…
Go in to it with an open mind
If you run in to something interesting, you already have your camera out and ready to shoot
Collage:
If taking picture of horizon only, could create a timeline of the walk (possibly an automated feature)
Having a common element to revolve the design around (foliage and sky in this case) was very helpful
Test 3: Collage Only
Testing if it would work better to have a signifying mark to align pictures to which would make a common thread, so I tried to take pictures that had a line half way through the image and then stitched them together in a panorama-style collage.
Discovered:
Could be useful to fade in/out of images
Conclusion:
Creating an iPhone app that leads you on a random inspirational journey, and perhaps prompts you to take pictures along the way, is the most useful.
Adding the ability to create small scale collages on the iPhone would be a waste: the amount of detail needed, as well as the users of the application that would use this function, would require more in creating an assemblage.
An alternative should be considered in creating an automated summary of the photos taken - perhaps a video or slideshow. The most interesting outcome of the prototype was the journey itself, and having a record of the happening would be a bonus.
iPhone Mock-ups:
Additional Features:
Upload or e-mail finished collage to server for others to see
Geotag pics with current location
Play music in the background and fade out/in with directions
Dada, Merz, and Kurt Schwitters:
Dadaism on Wikipedia
Kurt Schwitters on Wikipedia
Example Merz pieces:
Add comment | August 1st, 2008
Today I’m launching a website that has been in the making for a while now - FlashPrototyping.com (see the launch e-mail).
As my project for today, I’m putting together a workshop here in San Diego, CA on using Flash as a prototyping tool. It’s being held from 4pm-7pm at Point Loma Nazarene University in the Ryan Library Mac Lab.
The workshop went well - we spent time talking about why to prototype your ideas, and why to test, common ways of prototyping, and then reasons to use Flash as a prototyping tool. After that we looked at the Flash environment for a while (all of the attendees had no prior Flash knowledge) and learned some of the basics such as tweening and frame switching. I think the first part went well, but next time I plan to focus more on creating solid examples for stepping in to Flash and how to customize it for learning with the purpose of prototyping.
Download: PDF Slideshow of Workshop
Add comment | July 31st, 2008
After living in beautiful San Diego, California for a period of time, you start to take ocean sunsets for granted. Because I’m only in town for another couple of weeks, I want to make sure I don’t do the same, but I also want to help my fellow San Diegan do the same. Today I’m creating a complete event package and traveling to Sunset Cliffs Natural Park to give out tickets to the sunset.
First on the agenda: Design, print, and cut-out tickets
I’m basing the design off of an image of a Beatles ticket from 1964 in Kansas City, MO. I think the mood and language used is perfect. “Rain or shine”, “For the enjoyment of…”, etc.
I also created other materials such as a poster and backstage passes.
After the printing and cutting was done I gathered up a dozen chairs and a table and headed down to Sunset Cliffs
Clouds covering the coast kept me worried all day, but by around 6pm I could tell we’d have a great sunset for the evening. 5 friends (Aaron, Danielle, Kaz, Sarah, and Scott) and 2 dogs (Diego and Fletcher) came to watch the show and help set up.
I had a few people take the tickets I was handing out, and most stood for just a minute to hear what I was saying (or Danielle) and then laughed and said they would try to be back in time (almost all were exercising).
There were a few people that I saw that were camped out a little ways away, so I walked over and gave them all tickets, talked for a bit, and thanked them for coming to the performance. At the end of the sunset they gave me a standing ovation.
About half way through today I realized I was working with a project not much unlike yesterday’s - can you tell my subconscious wants to soak up as much California as possible?
Everyone that we talked to was obviously cheered up by the idea and walked away laughing and talking.
A success, I’d say.
6 comments | July 30th, 2008
I made a trip to the local thrift store today for some inspiration and tools. I had in mind that I wanted to use a television (I considered taking out the tube and modding it into a bookshelf) and came upon this really cool, old TV (1984). Wanting to stick with my idea of re-engineering a television’s use both physically and mentally, I decided I would plant it in the middle of a rock garden nearby and turn it into a mini Zen garden.
Materials:
I cut the dowel rods and super glued them real quick to make the rake, dumped the sand out so it sits right on top of the glass, plugged in the TV to a nearby outlet, and hid the cord under the rocks below the TV. I really like how the light from the TV shows through, so I didn’t try to hide it. Admittedly it calmed me down after getting everything ready on the 5-in-5 website this morning.
2 comments | July 29th, 2008
type and hit 'enter'
Day