Set up a website for this task using Weebly. Use the choice of layout, text and graphics to reflect your personal style, interests and attitude. You can adjust the Weebly templates – including fonts, colours and photographs so that your blog best represents you. (Discuss with your tutor if you have experience with and want to use Wordpress or Wix).
Create a title page. Write an introduction about an aspect of yourself, and include text, design, photos, artwork and/or videos that capture the ideas that you wish to present – this can be personal and/or tangential and creative. You could focus on a specific interest or obsession – anything you wish to present.
In addition to the title page, organise the website into four pages. Title each with one of the journal entry names below. Include the images, information, diagrams and reflective statements as noted below and in the excursion brief for Week 3.
Remember to write and present your observations with an autoethnographic emphasis: self-reflection and writing, exploring anecdotal and personal experience which you connect to “wider cultural, political, and social meanings and understandings” (Ellis, C., 2004).
Journal Exercise #1 – Personal Object Inventory
Record every object that you touch in at least a 2-3 hour timeframe – choose a busy time such as cooking, dressing, working on your job or hobby or preparing for something. You could scribble a list or take a quick snap shot of each. Exclude permanent objects like handles, taps, light switches, and large objects like cars. Include the item only once even if you touch it a lot (eg. phone). Include train tickets, receipts, tissues. Use a replacement image for perishables like food or items like money. Be honest, detailed and have fun. Include even the small objects you don’t think about (like a teaspoon) and you can add extra favourite personal objects if you like.
Collect and arrange the items altogether in a creative way that reflects you and what the items say about you. You might like to order your items according to theme - the daily activity it shows like preparing a meal or for going out, or it might be chronological, or colour-coded. Create one good quality photo with clear lighting and perspective. Make your composition compelling, creative and clear. You can include you in it if you like. Additionally, you can draw your objects.
Write a 150-250 word reflection about what information these objects reveal about you. For example: Your values and beliefs - what is important to you? Your gender, age and cultural background? Your relationships? Your interests and hobbies? Your tastes? Which objects are functional and which are emotional? How do some make you feel? What did these reveal about how you spent your few hours? Was there anything surprising? How do they make you reflect on your past or future? In 5 years time will your objects be different- what will be new, what will be redundant? Take an overview as if looking from the outside.
This exercise is based on Paula Zuccotti’s project. Please refer to the text. See Zuccotti, 2015, p.4 and 5 – available on Canvas)
Journal Exercise #2 – Your Objects: “Good” and “Bad” Design
Read the excerpt from The Psychopathology of Everyday Things by Donald Norman. Watch and take notes about Dieter Ram’s definition of good design. Consider ideas in the Week 2 lecture that define good and bad design.
Find one or two examples each of good and bad design from objects in your own life and include images of these in your blog.
Write a 100-200 word reflection about each object, stating why you would consider these objects examples of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ design. Mention some relevant qualities also that come up in the Week 2 class discussion. You must also include Norman’s concept of ‘affordance’ in your comments, showing how affordance is obvious (or not obvious) in your chosen objects.
Write a correct in-text citation and reference for the Norman article and any other references.