Multimedia

Simulated Client:Website Layouts

Here are some layout designs for my Anti-Piracy website. These first two images show a slightly different compositions of the elements. I'm not sure why the blue text is so fuzzy but the second image is my preferred design.

The way the Piano keys are positioned almost acts as an arrow attracting your eye to the word "Pirates", which is a more logical way of reading.

The way I have positioned the magpie on the microphone suggests that we want to hear the pirates views, which is the direction i am taking this sight in.
Personally I think the imagery and word 'Pirates' is enough to explain the site's purpose. However I will find out through user testing to see if this is the case. If not I will add a short statement explaining its purpose on this page.

This 'Take Part' section will be my interative element. The user will be able to post their comments concerning piracy and previous comments. You won't have to become a member to take part as it is an uneccessary procedure and could deter people from posting if the have to fill in a form before hand.

The posts will display in time order and I might include a 'name' field.

The section at the side containing the navigation menu and strap-line will be fixed, so when you scroll down to view other peoples comments they are always at hand.

At the moment the information pages will follow a similar format. I will try and keep this information concise and unbiased. I do not want this site to make the user feel like they are being nagged but rather informed. In the same way, if this site was to go live I would only remove comments if they are offensive. By giving people free rein to say what they feel and perhaps suggest methods of addressing piracy, a lot could be learned.

Although I think the strap line it is ok, could be improved and will try to work on this. I am either going to try a pirate-linked pun or try to work with song lyrics...

Web Design Critique: Neave.com

Paul Neave is an interactive designer and his site takes a new spin on portfolio sites where the emphasis is on his work not himself. The site shows off his capabilities and not only encourporates roll overs and quality design, but also uses sound which creates a sense playfullness and involves the user. The site follows a simple navigation structure with small explainations of each link. The links on the HTML and Javascript homepage take you to a number of fun and sophisticated Flash games and interative elements.

The main element that interested me is 'Vote'. This is a type of quiz which follows a multiple choice format where the options are more humerous than challenging. Neave asks random questions, most of which the options are so obscure that the user forgets about being 'correct' but instead focus on giving the most popular or humerous answer (the results of all users are displayed).

I think this is very interesting concept.I found myself answering the questions very honestly when a more serious one came up just because I was entertained. The answer became almost irrelevent because you are only given one question at a time and very little thought had to be put into it. I also think that the slow transformations of the background focuses the users attenion on the more static questions.

I'm not sure how effective this would be when addressing breaches of copyright and piracy but i will keep it in mind when decideing upon my interative element.

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Simulated Brief: More research...

In July's issue of .net magazine, it states that the founders of Pirate Bay were sentanced "to a year in prison and a £2.4million fine for infringing copyright". The entertainment industry hoped that this would cause shockwaves throughout the world of illegal downloading. However similar high profile cases "simply made illegal downloading harder to trace, harder to prosecute and harder to stop". It concludes suspecting that this court case won't have much impact on the wider issue of piracy and that sites such as Spotify and Google may be next in the firing line.

Rory Standley's (a reader) response to the above article in issue 192 of .net magazine suggests that "the music industry seems to have adapted to this very well. Has anyone noticed the many new festivals and such renewed emphasis on live performance?"
This is a good point and he goes on to say that artists even encourage the sharing of their music.

On page 19 of the same issue Gary Marshall delivers an extrememly sceptical but amusing arguement where he says "This is a very special arse[...]it's this arse from which the copyright industries pull figures when they're talking about piracy. It's the arse that decided illegal downloading costs the UK economy £12billion a year". Its interesting to see another perspective on the issue and one that is quite possibly shared by the illegal downloader. In this artical he admits that he has downloaded illegally but argues that not every illegally downloaded file is a direct loss to the industry. Many people download a song to see if they like the track enough to buy an album.

.net magazine, Year3, Year3 Client Project Read More

Simulated Client : Design

I have decided to focus on piracy in the music industry. The reason for this being that it seems that there are not many websites addressing this angle of piracy and personally I think this is the main sector that is affected by peer to peer file sharing. Maybe not financially, because the music industry have other avenues whereby they recieve funds: concert ticket sales and through royalties. However, I believe a larger quantity of songs are downloaded compared to film, mainly due to being smaller files.

These images illustrate the style I want to go for with my website. The slogan needs a bit of work but I think the general aesthetics are on target for my audience. I am going to work on a clever twist of lyrics, from an easily recognisable song. Queen, Abba, Michael Jackson, Elton John,Tina Turner etc etc...The images are just from Google searches so obviously if this was for a real client I would have to source my own.

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Simulated Client: Government Campaigns

Through my research so far it seems that there is alot more being done about film piracy, which I find quite surprising as I would've thought that music piracy takes the biggest hit(excuse the pun). I decided to look at a couple of government campaigns that target the younger audience. Pablo being a 'Talk to Frank' campaign and Anti-Binge campaign which employ techniques that Susan Carney identified in her article : Advertising to Teens. These include capitalising on teenage anxieties such as body image.

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Simulated Client:Targetting teens

From my research I can state that the most effective target audience is 10-25years old. This is a large range in a lot of ways, but you don't have to do much research to know that people in this age group are statisticaly more likely to be downloading illegally. All the websites and advertising I have come across concerning anti-piracy and copyright combat the younger market with competitions, social networking, giveaways and quizzes. These are all interactive element that involve the user with the intention to encourage legal downloading.

I think it would be interesting to create a website that doesn't nag or point the finger at the potenial illegal downloader, but one that asks questions and involves the user to discuss their experiences. As Buckminster Fuller said:"You never change things by fighting the existing reality". I could possibly incorporate an element of social interativity for my interactive element. Although I need to consider the how much time that would take to produce over something like a flash element.

"How do marketers do it? They know how to capitalize on important teenage issues and anxieties, like body image, peer acceptance, coolness, and a need for power. They use these themes repeatedly in advertising geared towards children and teenagers. Marketers also often hone in on themes and attitudes that parents might find inappropriate or offensive, like sex or alcohol and drug use, further escalating the “coolness factor” of the product."Read more...

It's part of youth culture. This generation of young people is growing up with the Internet as a daily and routine part of their lives.

Parents generally do not understand the extent to which kids are being marketed to online.

Kids are often online alone, without parental supervision.

Unlike broadcasting media, which have codes regarding advertising to kids, the Internet is unregulated.

Sophisticated technologies make it easy to collect information from young people for marketing research, and to target individual children with personalized advertising.