Thursday, January 26, 2012

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE READING

10 NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS FOR DESIGNERS

"This year’s gonna be a goddamned golden age. Last year we trained. This year we fight."
                                                                              - 10 new years resolutions for designers
^^^^^preach it brother.

This article was quite interesting, inspirational even. It drives home the point that we as designers must be more than just visual people. We must be critical thinkers. Design in every aspect is just as much, if not more, about the worth of the idea as it is about the beauty of the arrangement. No more excuses, just results. 



WEB DESIGN IS 95% TYPOGRAPHY (“Webdesign is all about typography. Period”)


"Yet typography is an old school discipline that requires a lot of studying, repetitive concentrated effort and looking at printed materials. Typography in practice is not choosing fonts or making fonts, it’s about shaping text for optimal reading experience."
"Typography is not about choosing fonts."

As much as I love sifting through my type library, He has a point that I cannot argue with.


"Even though we all know that reading is what we mainly do on the web, we thought that online we could snub the rules of typography. Some said that due to different platforms, annoying resolution issues and lack of fonts there was no point to even start to care for typography. What a cheap excuse! What a severe misunderstanding of the medium."

"Explain to them what the medium is about. It’s about information. It’s not about shopping, it’s not about advertisement, it’s not linear. It’s about communication in one of its most competitive forms. Communication and not effects – that is what we should be concerned about as designers."

"Optimizing typography is optimizing readability, accessibility, usability(!), overall graphic balance."

This puts a whole new look at the web for me. Honestly the web is something that I have been avoiding as a designer, but lets get real, theres going to come a time where we cannot avoid it and that time is now.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Motorcycle Club Secondary Research

D E F I N I N I N G   A   C R U I S E R

Contemporary models are modeled after Harley-davidsons and Indians. Cruisers are designed with a laid back riding positions.  Cruiser rider generally is set into a position with feet forward and hands in a neutral or high position. This makes cruisers a popular choice for casual riding. Many cruising motorcycles have limited performance and turning ability due to a low-slung design.

60 percent of motorcycle sales are cruiser models.
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M C   T E R M I N O L O G Y

Colors, or patches, are each individual clubs logo. These can be sewn onto their leather gear, painted on, or tattooed onto the person.

Cuts are the leather or jean vests that are typically seen on participants of motorcycle culture.

The AMA is the American Motorcyclist Association that organizes many activities and fights for motorcyclist rights. There are over 300,000 members of this club.

The RICO act was designed to allow Federal Prosecutors to go outside the normal rules of conduct and evidence to gain convictions.
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T Y P E S   O F   C L U B S

Registered Motorcycle groups, which operate within the law, were described as making up 99% of motorcycle riders in 1950 by the AMA. Usually these groups form because they share common interests along with their love of motorcycles. Other groups are so diverse that the only thing common between members is the fact that they ride motorcycles.

Outlaw Motorcycle groups also known as 1%ers is biker talk for the 1% of motorcycle riders who operate “outside the law”. Common biker gangs, like the Hells Angels, can use this patch as a symbol of rebellion.
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K C   C L U B S


The Iron Order Motorcycle Club formed in a garage in January 2009. Their website lists their common values as brotherhood, friendship, community, contribution, and an overarching sense of national patriotism and pride.  Membership is described as a privilege and they are against druggies, pushers, and pimps. 

People to contact:
Gunner (president)
CUZnIT (vice)
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El Forasteros (Spanish for the outsiders)
The EFMC was founded in 1962 by a proud 1%er named Tiny. Only about a dozen other true 1%er clubs still remain today. It was brotherhood founded on a love custom motorcycles soon to be known as choppers.

People to contact:
John Monk
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Galloping Gooses
GGMC started around a motorcycle racing team out of LA in 1942. This MC is an ally to the El Forasteros and have a charter in KCMO. The Gooses are also well known 1%ers.

Sub Culture: The MC World

User X Reading Response

This reading brings to the table, the idea of Qualitative research informing design for a more meaningful experience for the user. More importantly a designers involvement in a combination of ethnography methods, Qualitative research, Quantitative research, and anthropology yeilds more true products that resonate. With the study of sub cultures comes more obsticles. The reading talks about the symbols of Punk Jewlery and characteristics of skin heads that define the culture to the culture. In order to truely understand the subculture/counterculture its important to see and engage with the culture in everyday activity. If the research is not done in a Qualitative way, there is too much room for speculation rather than observation. I would like to sum up with what Henry Dreyfuss said. "Field research is crucial to industrial design" same goes for any design!