Build, Promote, Tell a Story – Workshop Challenge
Just finished my outcome for this last week of the module. It was intense. Did not think that a couple of sample pages would take this long, but I am very pleased with the result. As I already mentioned in the previous blog post, this week’s challenge was to create a prototype, report or a video, building on the theme we came up with in the previous weeks and present a ‘plan-of-action’ on how to get the project going.
I thought of putting everything together in a prototype/pitch book combination. Given that the product is a book, I thought it was sensible to prototype the idea. Prior to doing this though, I worked on the title of the book. I started of with ‘Clean Hands, Filthy Minds’ however the title is misleading from the concept of the book. I want that mysterious, secretive vibe going on, and such a title can give off a very different vibe. For this, I sought the Ideas Wall for some feedback. After being suggested the ‘error 404’ idea, I built on it and went with another computer error – Error 407: authentication required. I liked were this was going, but I wanted a word rather than a number.
In the end I went with Read ME* – Terms and Conditions Apply as a title and used the ‘407’ as part of the design. I translated the ‘407’ to Morse Code for the cover design. I want to go for a minimalist design of the cover, to extenuate the concept of ‘hiding in plain sight’ even more.
As part of the outcome, I included a couple of concept pages. The designs are in the prototype phase, and for this specific exercise I used generic text. The challenging part here was to look up different ciphers. For one of the designs, I recreated the symbols into a “font” as I wanted to include it, but a vector version of the characters was nowhere to be found. Should I choose to pursue this project further, after making up my mind whether I want the reader to be able to decipher the content or appreciate cryptography for what it is, I am considering having a website in conjunction with the book. Also, I think that I would either include a QR code system or even drop hints within the book itself.
This last week was pretty intense, good think I booked some time off from work and worked on the documentation over the last month and a half. If it was not the case, I would not have managed to complete this. I really enjoyed working on this though. I am very happy with the outcome. I definitely would like to explore this further, be it for the final MA project or just for my sake. Now just have to add this to the documentation and that is it. Module 3 – put a tick next to it. Below you can flip through the book or click here to have a closer look and read.
