View this post on Instagram西多士🥪係澳洲自制 想念家鄉的味道😭😭😭😭 #networkedmedia #practice #西多士 #煮婦人生 #簡易料理 #港式 #港式料理 #下午茶 #港式西多士 #你厚多士
Donald Norman “Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible, serving us without drawing attention to itself. Bad design, on the other hand, screams out its inadequacies, making itself very noticeable.” (2013)
How did you author the photo you recorded for upload to Instagram?
For this week post, I decided to upload one of my favourite Hong Kong food – French Toast as I missed a lot since I left Hong Kong for exchange. The process to make home-made French Toast
isn’t that complicated as the toast that I used to eat in a restaurant, so the authoring took around 15 – 20 minutes. In order to take the photoshoot, I place the dish on my hand and took a close-up
shot with my iPhone camera, whilst I tried different embedded filters from Apple to photo the French toast such as Vivid warm and cool. At last, I decided to use vivid cool, which seems to be the most consistent with my last week post. Additionally, the same as last week, I chose not to use the flash which would make the lighting less natural but used the light torch and the warm light from the hoods to create natural lighting on the toast. In my opinion, an appropriate amount of light could make the food looks more tasty and juicy.
However, I did not use the ‘square’ function in the camera because I forgot about it… Despite of this, I could crop it before I publish to Instagram, so it’s not a big deal.
How did you publish the photo you recorded for upload to Instagram?
Rather than editing the photo in Lightroom and Snapseed, I tried to edit the photo on Instagram before publishing. Editing is essential as it shows the sincerity of the author and to make the post look it is ‘designed’. ‘Designed photos’ are being arranged and edited to have distinct styles in modern style, sometimes used photo editing apps such as VSCO. Photos are focusing on space, shadows, close-up and little detail (Manovich, 2016 part 2, p.17). Therefore, when I was authoring, I’ve considered what Manovich perceived ‘design photos’ to be. However, when considering the perspectives and details, this photo definitely could not be defined as ‘professional photos’ – Authors aren’t producing visually interesting and perceived as ‘good photography’ which follow the algorithms with the use of smartphones to full-frame cameras. Those professional photos are focusing deep perspective, landscape and details. (Manovich, 2016 part 2, p.11). Yet, adopting the way to author ‘design photos’ would be the best-suited to my account.
Furthermore, I was discovering the affordances of using Instagram to edit the photo, because I was not used to it. First, like usually what I did, I chose my decided shot, then I scroll through the filters designed by Instagram. I pressed accordingly to see which filter suit the photo and the consistency of the account’s profile. Hence, I chose the filter – ‘Skyline’ which was discovered in the ‘Manage’ section. Afterwards, I proceed to further edit the photo with the filter, including the brightness, contrast, warmth and saturation to customise the style I want which suit the consistency. Then, before I started typing the captions, I exited the editing and save it as a draft so that I can check the consistency with my last week post before publishing. Regrettably, it did not look united, so I tried again to edit in customise. This step, I had repeated for 3 times, at last, I reduced the warmth and saturation of the photo and then go on to the caption. Despite, it still not look very aligned but under the constraints of editing through Instagram, it was the best. Comparing with other editing apps, Instagram would not be a ‘good design’ which there are too many restrictions and constraints.
This week caption was ‘French Toast, Self-made in Australia, I missed the flavour from home’ (西多士係澳洲自制 想念家鄉的味道). Without regards to last week’s post, I did not include steps and ingredients as I planned to do it in the next post – video. So that my audience can read through the steps with the assist through the video clip.
How did you distribute the photo you published on Instagram to other social media services?
Similar as last week, I included hashtags in the post, yet I enclosed more hashtags than week 9’s post to see if hashtags really bring more viewers. Comparing last week’s report, I’ve reached 10 people with only 4 hashtags in the video post, comparing with this week, I’ve published for an hour which it has already reached 5 people with 16 hashtags. Therefore, I am certain the coverage would continue to rise.
Hashtagas: #西多士 #煮婦人生 #簡易料理 #港式 #港式料理 #下午茶 #港式西多士 #你厚多士 #飲食日記 #frenchtoast #hkstyle #teatime #easycooking #hongkongstyle #hongkongfood #hongkongfoodie – Both Chinese and English hashtags meaning is identical, the reason that I used Chinese hashtags this time is due to my target audiences are mainly Hong Kongers, hence, these hashtags could help my post to distribute to my target.
On the other hand, I distributed this post to my Facebook simultaneously as it’s really convenient. However, there are limitations which the updates in Instagram could not be updated on Facebook, yet hashtags on Instagram and Facebook are different. In this aspect, it is not a ‘good design’, as they are not synchronised.
Also, I planned to distribute on my Twitter simultaneously, but I discovered I forgot the password so I gave up and uploaded to Pinterest in
my ‘Food’ board together with my ‘egg dumplings’. The caption is ‘French Toast HK style’ and enclosed a link to direct people to Instagram. The caption was simple as Pinterest isn’t my main channel to interact with my audience.
References
Manovich, L. 2016, Instagram and the Contemporary Image. University of San Diego, USA, part 1 p.11-17
Norman, D., 2013, ‘The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition’, Basic Book, New York, Preface Chapter