Interactive Space:Design Process Part 2

I have posted all of my new photos now. As I said before the practicality of my initial idea inhibited the process considerably, hence the need for change. Something I did not mention before however was the feasibility of the story line within the desired context. The story simply did not make sense using different types of trainers. This initial idea would suggest the involvement of a range of characters throughout the interactive space thus creating a fundamental floor in the design process.

For my revised idea I have decided to focus on just the one character, ‘Harvey High Top’. I decided to use a name in order to personify the shoe and make it more involving and emotive, as my interactive space is aimed at a young audience, aged 6-10. I decided to fashion the piece for this demographic as children begin to read individual words at the age of 5 and by 6 they can start to read short, simple sentences. Although my narrative will probably prove too advanced for a 6 year old I would hope to challenge and encourage their reading skills, through the use of images so that they could follow the interactive space confidently by the age of 7 or 8. I decided to use my brightest pair of trainers as children tend to be more responsive to bright colours, this way I would hope to encourage their desire to read through visual engagement. I will use Photoshop to add in the narrative in a comic book style before linking the photographs using html.

The pictures took a very long time to take simply due to the range of locations I had to use to accommodate my storyline. I found myself walking long distances around the city in search of suitable backdrops for my photos. If I were to improve this I would use a white backdrop in a studio and bring my own props to the trainers in order to demonstrate the story. In doing this I would also be making the image, as a whole, cleaner and simpler to the eye; something which I prefer as a personal preference that would also be more suitable for children. Another problem was the way I portrayed the trainers and the practicality involved in this. With my initial images I used trainers on their own, not being worn by a person. I decided to change this to improve how realistic the images looked, however in doing this I was automatically presenting the need to incorporate someone else to help with taking the photographs. This became a problem, as I was not able to pay anyone to help take pictures I had to fit in around the schedules of friends, something which proved to be frustrating as I found it hard to coordinate my availability with theirs, this prolonged the photography process.

I am quite pleased with my photographs in that I believe they successfully show the story I had in my head, and, with narrative and editing this will be easily presented to the audience. Obviously I will not be using all of the photographs I took as this would make the interactive space far too long and tedious for children to remain engaged throughout. I intend to choose around 15 photographs to incorporate into my final interactive space.