something very unreal about being afraid to find food because if you do someone else will kill you for it. A dying mother with her two dying children. *sigh.. the world has much to deal with we have to start some where.

 seattle times article here.

re inspiration

coming to a realization that I didn't have 'it' and setting myself back a little longer it has been a hard process but i've come up with an answer and solution to my problem.. while dealing with the 'grad year crisis' .. questions like 'what am i doing' 'what is the purpose of all this' started to come up just making stuff wasn't good enough.. that's when a sleepless night i went for a walk in the biting cold to see molly sleeping in a sitting position on the corner of granville and georgia at 2am.. it was freezing and about to rain yet she was truly 'homeless' not one of those 'i'll get money in the morning and go back to my house in the evening homeless' people. A small tattered cardboard sign at her feet saying 'hungry and broke please help, sincerely molly'. It was a sincere cry for help and I couldn't help but goto subway and buy a meal giving her the cookies and all the change i had in my pocket to give her a reason to live one more day. A little bit of hope. I went home that night and started madly working another concept for my project and came up with 'a reason to live'. Giving is a two way street without her there is no one for me to give to and without me there is no one to receive from. She was my reason to live that night. I hope that she finds a reason to live the morning after. a little hope that we all share and suffer along side each other. I found another site with documentry photography on charitable actions and causes around the world. Have a look . I hope you get something out of this like I did and start to understand why we are so lucky to have enough to give someone a reason to live another day. we do have the power of life and death. we can choose to exercise that. www.ontheground.ca

status update

after the last presentation I realized I had to simplify much of the content as things were getting waaaaaay out of hand as far as complexity goes. In the last couple of frames I started to consider the visual impact the website had instead of having so much text as most other charity sites are based on. So I started with the map again and the causes.

As you mouse over the causes the map would lite up where the places were effected the most

when you click on a cause the map would minimize and a series of auto scrolling panes would move across the screen containing images of the cause

when you click on a picture the pane would expand to screen size to get a full view of the picture and the story would appear on the right. details button would be at the bottom so that you can add to the cause or see the connections that were made from this story

I'm still having issues trying to resolve the problem of showing the extent of the impact of the story I don't feel like the story is enough but I want to show the results of people contributing. I'm not sure if this would be an info graphic or something but it doesn't feel resolved right now and i'm feeling a little unsettled if anyone has any ideas that would be great.

I'm planning on working probably around 10 key wire frames to skin for the final project. Colours are still to be determined at this point but the blue scheme with more contrast is what I think I'll want to go after. 

I've also changed my typeface to be a little friendlier and not so gimicky.. so century gothic right now.. i'm not sure what is 'default' on most web browsers i'll have to take a look into it a little bit more. more work still to come. oh my only a couple of weeks left.

the blog doesn't seem to let me upload too many more photos. i'll have to try again tomorrow.

merging news and community

It just occured to me that the TED model website has a 'feature' splash page. Maybe I can get somewhere between the 'news' feed of the ted site and a community based webpage. It has filters on the side as well that really spearhead the headliners and more important articles. A cross between the two might be an extremely effective solution.

While I was typing out all the causes from the wikipedia list of causes by death in the health I realized and it reinforced why I was doing this and how invaluable this tool could be to connecting people.

I also realized how massive this site would have to be and how much work would have to go into it and not just a few frames here and there but where the frames would need to be; making it user friendly but delivering massive amounts of information at one time. It seems to be going very text based and i've tried to integrate as many pictures as possible to keep it visually stimulating as well. 

The map might not happen in the back since the information that needs to be conveyed and communicated might trump the space needed for the map.

There's also the trouble of keeping someone 'hooked' onto the site rather than just creating a one time profile and leaving it at that. Maybe a desktop app can be developed that would make it easier to track and input information without the lengthy need to login to the site etc. This might encourage people to use it more if the app was an autoload app. 

More thoughts on a take away: a shirt that says 'living legacy' somewhere on it. that is sent as a gift when making a large enough of a valuable contribution. Someone else would have to purchase it for you in recognition and you can't just 'add to cart' for yourself. Or statements that say 'I've started my legacy, have you?'. A phrase to get people thinking.. yes you are living right now.. you are effecting people around you... for better or for worse.

I'm looking forward to sharing my findings on thursday and hopefully can get some feedback on different skins and maybe a better way to organize the architecture making it more accessible to people.

until then.. practice giving

wire frame so far. Just getting a start.. there's going to be more to come including an inspiring story from one of my friends who is an activist. 

Decided to go with Agency and Scala Sans as the two type faces as have a contemporary look and feel that may appeal to younger generations but not so intimidating that it is inaccessible to older generations. 

mood boards and colour tests from start to finish. I want to have a clean accessable approach to the site and it should bring something else to the table besides just being a community site. I'm still trying to pin down how to integrate 'story' element as a dominant part of the site as this is what differentiates it from the rest of the community sites.

I also had the idea that the profiles at the bottom are 'live' profiles and pull out to introduce others' stories and causes. 

I'm going with the blue/green colour palette at the bottom for its light/fresh/clean feel