Assignment 1 Making Media / Context question 3.
How would you define Instagram?
Let’s start the process of getting into the reading on Instagram with a documentary.
Abstract: The Art of Design – Ian Spalter: Digital Product Design (Season 2, Episode 5. Duration: 46 minutes)
Image: Video still from ‘Ian Spalter: Digital Product Design’ documentary
A Netflix documentary that is an episiode in the Abstract: The Art of Design series produced by Radical Media.
Abstract: The Art of Design | Season 2 Trailer | Netflix
(Please note if you do not have access to Netflix please engage with some online reviews to get a sense of the content and do some research on Instagram and the lead designer Ian Spalter)
Here is one review – Review of Digital Product Design with Ian Spalter (Art of Abstract S2)
Overview – Ian Spalter: Digital Product Design
At the start of this Instagram section, I suggest watching the whole work, end to end. The documentary is nicely put together with a high level of production and provides some interesting personal background on the lead product designer Ian Spalter at Instagram. Pivoting around Ian Spalter’s re-design of the Instagram logo and the app interface, it provides a really useful segue into the readings in this part of the course.
The documentary revisits the early development of the computer and the beginning of graphic-user interface design and information architecture. This work demonstrates the scale of the team working on Instagram and the level of research and fidelity they operate within. ‘Ian Spalter: Digital Product Design’ provides some insights into the historical developments, the success of filters in relation to authoring, and even touches on the effect design can have on society. Spalter uses the term ‘constraints’ several times in the documentary in relation to the design process and creating content, which is useful for making connections with the concept of ‘affordances’ and thinking about the studio prompt.
Instagram Reading
Move from here onto the reading on Instagram.
‘Introduction’ and ‘Platform’ sections pages 1-38 – Leaver, T., Highfield, T., Abidin, C., 2020. Instagram: Visual Social Media Cultures. Digital Media and Society, United Kingdom. p. 1-38 (RMIT Library e-book
– https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/RMIT/detail.action?docID=6027966
Read these pages and make notes that could be used to answer Question 3. How would you define Instagram?. Think carefully about making your written response demonstrate that you have completed the reading and even potentially looked at other sources. In these responses to these context, questions aim to move past quoting and even paraphrasing to writing your own thinking on the question.
Instagram Video
The final question in Assignment 1 Making Media / Context will be covered in a presentation and another blog entry.