Transcript SCREENSHAREslides

HELLO SIMINAR!
DESIGN FOR
OWNERS
RED DOG
One potentially hopeful finding in the otherwise
discouraging study was the fact that larger numbers
of Americans were going into business as
freelancers or contractors. Dane Stangler says some
of these one-person shops could become employers
in the future.
“Call them necessity entrepreneurs if you will, but
some of those people—how many we can’t predict—
could drive future job growth,” he says.
- xconomy.com
Communication Design: (also called visual design)
This is a catch-all term for the inter-disciplinary
practice of design, information architecture, advertising
and marketing, and business. The fields that may be
represented in communication design practice are, but
not limited to: information architecture, editing,
copywriting, advertising, animation, web design, graphic
design, identity design, illustration, market research,
professional writing, video game technology and
specifically web-based games, et cetera. I will focus less
on marketing and advertising today.
Illustrator:
An illustrator is a graphic artist who creates visual
work that either enhances text, replaces text, and
otherwise benefits a design or presentation with their
work. An illustrator is not a graphic designer, and they do
not necessarily ever overlap with skills. An illustrator can
have strengths in many areas such as concept art (and
even that branches out), advertising, print illustration over
web-based illustration, scientific or cartoons. For Sims,
we would be focusing on a digital illustrator only.
Writer:
There are particular needs for a sim community in
that most of the events that occur for a user to
experience are written. These can then be turned into a
verbal experience for disabled users, or some games do
utilize voice and the spoken word. For this, a writer would
command the mood and integrity of the language used
on the site. Sometimes a translator is needed if the
website becomes large enough and must (or chooses to)
encompass other languages. Most sim games are still
very textual and require multiple writers to write final
descriptions of objects to conceptual documents for the
visual team to use and for the participants to experience.
Graphic Design is not information architecture, though often
they are shared duties or at least close partners. Graphic
design usually has far less to do with the programming and
psychology of how a user interacts with a system of
commands and map of a website, and more to do with the
visual appearance of a website and how that attracts and
commands an audience. Graphic designers are not coders
and should not be assumed to be coders. Web-specific
graphic designers understand how a website may read to a
certain audience and often how to best visually display the
content of a website, as well as understand the identity and
branding of a company. They understand typography and text
as a visual element.
Information Architecture: It is the process of building
systems such as web development, user interfaces, programs
for websites and games, in that it bridges not only how a user
would interact with the media they are presented with but the
aesthetics of it. Consider it exactly like the role of a traditional
building architect except that we are talking about library
systems, software, websites, games, online communities,
databases, the list does go on. Sometimes information
architects are web designers.
Art Director:
An art director's job is to tie all of these skills together
and generally unify the communication design for the
company or project. They tie together, in our case, the
programmer, graphic designer, illustrator, writer, and
information architect to produce an exciting game for people
to play. As per the owner's contract with them, they ultimately
handle the creative vision of the project and make executive
decisions on the entire creative process. Artists are paid to do
a job, and the job is to usually follow the art director's vision
so that all work is produced with the same level of
understanding even if the artists never meet in an office or
are from other disciplines.
OWNER
ART DIRECTOR
PRODUCER

Illustrator

Market Researcher

Graphic designer

Advertising Head

Information architect

Book Keeper/payroll

Writer

Investors
:(
Illustrators lack a style, color palette, and standard of quality
Illustrators are left to decide what is appropriate, but when they have not
satisfied the client there is much debate about what the owner wanted in the first
place
Illustrators have little say in negotiating the value and price of their work as they
are understaffed and underrated as an integral part of the game's process
Graphic design is extremely basic and often must go under alpha reviewing for
small coding mistakes
advertising is very basic, not visual (except for ancient banner technology), and
mostly word of mouth
programming is often done by the owner, who is very minimally trained and
using older coding techniques
Items may be misplaced, misused, not created, sometimes created twice, which
all of these things hold up or frustrate further production
There is no room for pushing technological/gaming envelopes when only the
basic defacto goals are sought after
Deadlines are not often met because this team (if it even is a team) often lacks
specific deadlines and goals, or is not treated seriously!

:)
DESIGN THINKING
“Design thinking is a different way of
approaching the big challenges we face. It
starts off with really trying to serve people's
needs. It connects constraints with creativity,
enabling us to look at old problems with new
eyes and generate new possibilities. There are
many things in our organizations and markets
that we can't control, but your mindset and
your approach to your challenges--those are
up to you.”
- Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO
1) Define the goal
2) Research the issues, obstacles, investors, end users,
etc
3) Brainstorm and log it, charrette and do not shoot down
early concepts
4) Prototype and test drafts of the best ideas, seek
feedback, try to remain neutral
5) Review objectives and consider what ideas are the
most successful
6) Implement and begin delivering first wave to the client
and gather feedback from the participants
TEAM BUILDING
1) Have an art director and
producer
They just want to help!
OWNER
ART DIRECTOR
PRODUCER

Illustrator

Market Researcher

Graphic designer

Advertising Head

Information architect

Book Keeper/payroll

Writer

Investors
PAY THEM REAL MONEY
At a fair price!
2) But how do I find them?
The internet!
NO NO's
Other sim games (find the designers through
another owner)
 Deviantart (unless you are reaaaally picky)
 Not hire and provide competitive payments
 Not having a contract
 Not researching the legal issues of royalties for
artwork or design work, etc

!!YES YES!!
Go to portfolio sites that are more reputable for
designers (see my bibliography)
 Find designers outside of the sim circle – we
know it is limited!
 Know what you are looking for before you go get
it
Young college students, hint hint

3) Bare bones team
Ready to see it again?
OWNER
ART DIRECTOR
PRODUCER

Illustrator

Market Researcher

Graphic designer

Advertising Head

Information architect

Book Keeper/payroll

Writer

Investors
COMMUNICATION
IS KEY
Make sure that your team here has gone
through and helped you conceptualize and
plan tasks for the future, with deadlines.

Really, communicate with them. Have an
organized forum and uploading location where
all the designers can share ideas and share
project work together.

Don't assume they know what you want. You
have to tell them.

Thankfully if you have an art director you
won't have to worry about designers meeting
standards because that is their job. Yay!

Follow design thinking strategies and you will
always have the team asking questions,
thinking forward, and feeling confident they
are part of the plan.


GROW
CLOSING
“But I think perhaps it's time to leave behind trying to
be less bad and start trying to be 100 percent good.
Rather than stewarding the planet into oblivion why
not awake to our kinship with all life and leave
behind a footprint we can delight in? Why not make
the human influence on the planet restorative, vital
and good? Why not follow the laws of nature so that
we can generate fecundity and good growth? As an
architect I have to follow the law of gravity. It's not
just a good idea, it's the law. Understanding the laws
of nature is fundamental to design.”
William McDonough, Architect
Let's grow something
good together!
Ask me questions and feel free to
email me: [email protected]