@NETWORKEDJESSIE

Camera phones capture the everyday – they are highly portable, accessible and immediate and this is reflected in the approach toward authoring content and how these affordances affect the way they are used to record photos (32) e.g. “Snapshot aesthetics” (39) – Manovich, L. 2016, Instagram and the Contemporary Image. University of San Diego, USA. (pp. 24-113, Parts 1-3, pages. Chose a part that interests you. ‘Part 1: Casual Photos’,‘Part Professional and Designed Photos’ and ‘Part 3: Instagramism.’)

For this weeks photo, I decided to post a set of three images, as one whole post. I wasn’t originally going to do this, but after taking these images, I felt they told a story put together. The story being that things can be a good design, before they become obsolete or need re-designing, connecting to our quote in focus from Donald Norman; “Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good design fits our needs so well that the design is invisible, serving us without drawing attention to itself. Bad design, on the other hand, screams out it’s inadequacies, making itself very noticeable.” Camera phones do capture the everyday, without their portability and accessibility I wouldn’t have been able to author these photos, that capture the heart of the city (something we all see) – under construction.

HOW DID YOU AUTHOR THE PHOTO YOU RECORDED FOR INSTAGRAM?

Because of the constraints I had, being that I was in a moving car, I chose to use the camera app, on my iPhone 8Plus, before posting the set to Instagram. I was careful to use the square option, however, keeping in mind these were to be posted to Instagram and needed to fit their grid look on the platform. This was because (as previously mentioned) they were taken in a moving car, and it was an opportunistic moment. This is interesting when we look at Manovich’s quote from above, about camera phones capturing the everyday, due to their portability. After taking the images, I then moved to the Instagram platform to edit, publish and distribute. I’m not a huge fan of the limited filters that Instagram offer, so I try my best to achieve the best quality photo I can while taking it, in terms of composition, colour and light. Because of this, I try to keep constraints and limit myself to using only touch-up tools that alter the exposure, saturation, brightness and sharpness. This calls for a better look overall, when looking at my Instagram profile at a whole, as all the images will appear aesthetically similar. So for this set of images, I only brought up the brightness (ever so slightly), sharpened the image, and moved the exposure of the images up a little bit, so the shadows of the inside of the car were less visible.

HOW DID YOU PUBLISH THE PHOTO YOU RECORDED FOR INSTAGRAM?

Once I was happy with the images, and the set as a whole, I posted it with the caption Sometimes things can be designed good, or well. Sometimes things become obsolete. Sometimes things are still useful but need redesigning.
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“Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good design fits our needs so well that the design is invisible, serving us without drawing attention to itself. Bad design, on the other hand, screams out it’s inadequacies, making itself very noticeable.”
#DonaldNorman #thedesignofeverydaythings #1988.

This was to help convey the story I was feeling from these images, as well as keeping to the theme of my overall feed, which is based on good and bad design and the quote in focus from Donald Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things (1988). Using the quote from the text, and the Hashtags, will assist in the distribution of my content and Instagram profile on the platform. Not only this, but I used the GeoTag Docklands, Victoria to also assist in the distribution process.

HOW DID YOU DISTRIBUTE THE PHOTO YOU PUBLISHED ON INSTAGRAM TO OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA SERVICES?

I made use of the GeoTags and Hashtags, as previously mentioned in the publishing process, to distribute my content to the broader Instagram community. The GeoTag and Hashtags are used to collate images together that use the same tags, meaning my post will appear when users search the GeoTag Docklands, Victoria or the Hashtags #DonaldNorman #thedesignofeverydaythings #1988.

@NETWORKEDJESSIE

HOW DID YOU AUTHOR THE VIDEO YOU RECORDED FOR INSTAGRAM?

I chose the steam machine in my house as a subject for my video, as it was clean day in the house and took the opportunity to film a piece of well designed cleaning equipment.

Although I hated using the platform as a means to create video, I did author it directly within the Instagram app, on my iPhone 8Plus. About the only feature I enjoyed was the fact that you can pause and restart the filming process – but this was definitely useless considering it was too hard to trip sections out if you ruined one, and found myself deleting the whole video multiple times and reshooting. I was determined to stay on track with using the platform (This is interesting when we look to the focus of our quote, as I didn’t find the poor design within the subject of my film, but instead it revealed the poor design of Instagram). I then added the filter Valencia, and sharpened the film. While I’m not a huge fan of the filter, and prefer to try to capture beautiful light and colour when taking the image – it was a video of a dirty toilet, and I wished to disguise that part of it slightly, so the focus of the video doesn’t shift to the state of the toilet, rather than the subject of the video, which is the steamer.

HOW DID YOU PUBLISH THE VIDEO YOU RECORDED FOR INSTAGRAM?

I published the video directly to my Instagram account, after editing it, adding the description “Good design fits our needs so well that the design is invisible. Everyday items are so often invisible – but are well built and are simply something we cannot live without.
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“Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good design fits our needs so well that the design is invisible, serving us without drawing attention to itself. Bad design, on the other hand, screams out it’s inadequacies, making itself very noticeable.”
#DonaldNorman #thedesignofeverydaythings #1988″.

I decided to use a caption that was related to the image itself, while also referencing the quote in focus and Donald Norman, and his text, itself. This was so I could assist in the distribution of my image, making use of GeoTags and Hashtags within the caption in relation to both the image and the quote in focus.

HOW DID YOU DISTRIBUTE THE VIDEO YOU PUBLISHED ON INSTAGRAM TO OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA SERVICES?

Once the video was published to my Instagram account, which is public and allows the entire world to view it, with the use of the GeoTag The Clean House and the hashtags #DonaldNorman #thedesignofeverydaythings, it compiles my video with all other images and videos on the platform with the same GeoTags and Hashtags. This means its globally distributed on the SNS and allows my video to have better chances of being seen worldwide. To my surprise, I gained followers straight after the post, meaning that this is an effective means of distributing your content and gaining followers, globally, on the platform.

@NETWORKEDJESSIE

“Daydreaming of being apart of the world, taking note of the good design in the home until…
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 “Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good design fits 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.” #DonaldNorman #thedesignofeverydaythings #1988

HOW DID YOU AUTHOR THE PHOTO YOU RECORDED FOR INSTAGRAM?

I chose this LEGO helicopter that my brother built as the subject of my image, because it was the first obvious thing I could find in my home of ‘Good Design’, in relation to our quote in focus – “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.” A quote from Donald Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things (1988).

I chose to take the image in front of a large window in my lounge room, as it was some of the best lighting I could find in my house. Because of this, I had the plane placed on my hand, which I tried my best to cut out of the image when taking the photo – This, explaining the reason behind the odd composition.

For this photo, I authored it directly in the Instagram app, on my iPhone 8Plus. The device features two back cameras, which was what I used to take the photograph, using the touch screen feature to control the exposure. After the shot was taken, I moved on to the editing section of the app, and brought the exposure all the way up to wash out any colour from behind the plane, to a very pale blue and to add a final touch – I brought the sharpness up all the way, and faded the image slightly, to attempt to give it a somewhat grainy look.

HOW DID YOU PUBLISH THE PHOTO YOU RECORDED FOR INSTAGRAM?

I published it after authoring it straight from the app, with the caption “Daydreaming of being apart of the world, taking note of the good design in the home until…

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. “Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good design fits 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.” #DonaldNorman #thedesignofeverydaythings #1988″

While I added my own caption in relation to the image, I chose to obviously point out the quote that we are focusing on, enabling me to use hashtags in relation to Donald Norman, his book and the quote to help with distribution of the image. Although Norman states that good design can be a lot harder to notice than poor design, this LEGO plane is an obviously good design.

HOW DID YOU DISTRIBUTE THE PHOTO YOU PUBLISHED ON INSTAGRAM TO OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA SERVICES?

Once the image was posted to my Instagram page, I made use of GeoTags and Hashtags, which are used to collate a feed of images and videos together that are all related to one another. This way, because my profile is on public for the entire world to see, if they search the GeoTag Somewhere Else But Here they will find my image among others. This would work the same way if they searched the hashtags #DonaldNorman #thedesignofeverydaythings, my image will come up with any images or videos with those tags – making my work open to the entire world through the public Instagram platform.