Jordan Moore ============ Biography --------- Jordan was the premier designer for the Southern Education Library Board in his placement year. With designs drawing critical acclaim from artist across the boards in Northern Ireland, his edgy and sometimes controversial approach to design always draws attention. Jordan is also a freelance graphic designer if the AmmA Centre. Three Possible Projects ----------------------- ###Blockd Social networking is one of Web2.0's many children, websites like Bebo.com and Myspace.com attract huge chunks of bandwidth on a daily basis. Currently we experience these social networking sites on a 2-Dimensional format on our computer screens, I hope to add a 3rd Dimension of interaction with the user by taking the unorthodox approach of actually taking it off the screen... and into the hands of the user. The service will allow friends to print photo cube templates directly from the website containing pictures of their friends to cut out and fold to make a block with their friends face on it. Of course not everybody has just one friend, so people will keep printing and building blocks of friends until they become walls of friends! They can be stacked for best storage on a desk and more conveniently a reference for contacting their friends because each block will contain phone numbers and email addresses for each friend. ####Pros It is like a visual, physical address book with quick access to each person's details simply by identifying the picture and picking up their block. It jumps on the bandwagon of printing your own digital photos as the prices of photo printers drop and quality is better because the market is more competitive. It promotes creativity, cutting, folding and building paper cubes can be tricky but the end product looks elegant and innovative because nothing like this has been done before. ####Cons The cons unfortunately mainly center around the end user, it depends on whether they have the patience or the skills for this product. In some cases they may not even have the materials (eg printer, scissors, glue or tape). Even the printable media can affect the outcome of the blocks, heavy paper is practially a requirement which in itself is hard to source. A few of these cons can be turned into pros in the form of an online "Blockd" shop supplying the materials required to build perfect blocks. Making a site such as this could be very difficult as it would require a good programming background and my strengths lie in design as opposed to this. ###Rockin All Over the World Ever since I watched Lou Reed wince at the sight of his song "Perfect Day" fall apart as the BBC attempted to sync groups all over the world performing it I thought it could be done better. I liked the idea, the execution was poor to say the least. I'll openly admit that I'm a sucker for talent TV shows, American Idol, X-Factor, all of them, but surely in this era of interactivity something like this shouldn't be limited to America or the UK. YouTube is a fantastic service, that would allow people to create videos of themselves, I feel that through it I could have the potential to launch a worldwide talent search for the world's best undiscovered musician. Combining the YouTube embedded video service with Google Maps, I could create a globe pinpointing exactly where each contestant has entered from and for fellow contestants and viewers to check out the competition using the Google Maps interface. ####Pros It takes the idea of a community project with a bit of healthy competition. If conquering the world is too big a task, a local version can be created restricting Google Maps to the region of Northern Ireland. It has huge potential meaning advertisers will be desparate to buy space on the site. ####Cons Monitoring submissions could prove difficult as many people oppose these types of shows and may submit inappropriate material. It's only a matter of time before arguments flare up and people begin contesting decisions. It may be difficult to implement YouTube and Google Maps via user submissions. ###Online Soap Opera I enjoy watching soap operas, in a way they remind me of a good website, updated daily, grabbing your attention within three seconds and keeping you there until it's done its job. In the soap's case, the job is to pick up a story where you last left it, elaborate on it slightly and leave on a bombshell wanting you to come back for more. They can be addictive, so placing someone in the shoes of an online soap character could have the user hooked for months on end never mind a couple of minutes on your website! The concept is to allow users to sign up and create a character for themselves, work on a storyline with other users and submit it for a daily "show" in HTML text format for people to read and also become hooked on. ####Pros It is again another online community project where people work towards one goal promoting teamwork. It can be very addictive and is likely to keep people coming back to the website, so advertising and promotions will benefit from this. It wouldn't be as difficult as my other ideas to become a working reality. ####Cons The demand for spaces on the "programmes" may be too big and the quaility of each episode may suffer from trying to incorporate everyone. On the other hand if demand is too low then it wouldn't be possible to put out a daily show. It is likely to spawn copycat models across the internet drawing away from my product. Five Inspiring Websites ----------------------- ###SimpleBits I have become a devout follower of Dan Cederholm since reading his "Web Standards Solutions" piece of work. This website is an inspiration for me on many levels, firstly and most obviously its visuals. It is very soothing on the eyes with it's subtle pastel colour scheme, it makes you look where it wants you to be looking. Then there's the technical level, everything here is web standards compliant, there would be an outcry if it wasn't, Dan has given himself this guru standards title and he's happy of taking the burden and living up to it every time he re-designs his page. The page is built with CSS styling linked from xHTML, every last element on this site from head to footer stinks of quality. ###Google Sightseeing This website does exactly what Seth Godin preaches in his book "The Big Red Fez", GoogleSightseeing.com (not assosicated with the company in any way) keeps the user on the page and returning for more. The site reports on people's odd findings in the popular Google Earth/Maps program and has a cult following because of it. This is helped by its quirky style of language that myself and thousands across the globe can relate to. I feel that the language used in websites such as this helps build the feeling of a personal relationship with the reader and the editor and is critically important regardless of the project I undertake. I picked this as my inspirational website not for design reasons (where it quite obviously lacks), but purely for it's content. ###Color Lovers This website is one of my main resources for inspiration with not only the colour schemes they offer, but in interaction with people and the online community spirit of the users. I would regularly log on to ColorLovers.com and select colour schemes for design projects, and every time I do I can only stop and admire the system they have in place. In the form of 5 grey hearts (keeping with the love theme) users can rate each other's color schemes and palettes to determine which one is the best rated (or "most loved"). A system similar to this for the Rockin All Over the World project would more than suffice as a judging structure for acts. ###Tag a Cloud Tag a Cloud represents everything I want to do from an advertising perspective, it's a marketing dream, they are essentially using their popularity sell a text link on their site. If your tag is bigger, it will obviously get noticed easier and of course, the more money you put into your tag the more noticable it becomes. I admire the creators of this project, their nice fluffy design gives the impression that owning a tag here places you in the Web2.0 avant-garde crowd, when deep down it is a raw marketing ploy to make thousands by using the web's oldest earner, advertising. ###WWA Online I chose WWAOnline.com as my final choice for inspiration in that they have an arrangement in place I'd like to enhance in the form of my Online Soap Opera website. The concept of the WWA is simple, sign up, pick a wrestler, big your wrestler up in the form of "promo's" online, the best man wins in a scripted fight based on how strong your promo is. I was inspired by this idea but wanted to take it further, the WWA has many staff members that put together each show, it is time consuming and dependent on who can be bothered to write shows. If this idea is divided up between characters (say for example, two or more characters in an online soap) the workload is reduced, characters have more input on how the show works and production increases. The WWA to me however, I can refer to from time to time. I happen to have contacted the former owner Mark Harrington who told me it has been running for 8 years now after pioneering this new idea of an online wrestling series. An idea I can learn from and hopefully enjoy similar or better success.