This weekend I wanted to try out Google Apps Script and looking in my Google Drive I found a spreadsheet listing Japanese words I picked from an article about chopsticks manners (that I was supposed to learn).
Google Apps Script is rather straightforward (so far) and the documentation is easy to use. I used Masonry to handle the column layout.
For several reasons (see Background below) a complete redesign of the French Institute website has been decided. I worked over 6 months (1 month development) as the sole designer and developer, with over 12 stakeholders, to analyze, design and develop a new version of the website.
– The institute activity had widen and broaden and the website wasn’t representing its variety or respecting the balance between the different departments
– The majority of the content was presented and organised in an administrative way (not user-friendly and not business oriented)
– Key features were missing
– Some information was out-of-date, duplicated, misplaced or not longer relevant
– Some key information was only in pdf not on web pages
– The CMS was not adapted to the technical needs
– New graphic guidelines have been released by the main institute and have to be implemented
Last Saturday, I visited “Digital Egypt: Museums of the Future at the Petrie Museum. Several displays using new technologies were added to the permanent collection to experiment new ways of exploring exhibitions, with the designers here to explain and help and gather feedbacks at the end of each experiment. Ipads, Kinect, Augmented Reality and more!
The fourth and final week of the TransformatLab was mainly focus about finishing and rehearsing our pitches, but we also visited Pervasive Media Studio at Watershed in Bristol and had a masterclass about “10 Things we’ve learned about multiplatform” at Aardman Studios (and had a peek on really really really cool puppets).
The third week of the TransformatLab programme was in Paris, at Gobelins school. The main purpose of this week was to go deeper in our projects and to focus on the user (who is she/he, why is he doing this, when, how…).
The first day we began with a great masterclass by Antoine Visionneau (Information Architect) and a intensive workshop with Pauline Gomy (screenwriter), to help us to develop our projects around the user experience. Lot of ux storyboards and personnas on the walls!
Free online mockup tool: https://moqups.com/
Last week was the second week of the TransformatLab programme, in Budapest at the MOME. This session was more about seeing concrete but innovative applications, especially with non-standard interactions.
We visited the studio Kitchen Budapest (who does very nice things like a Snake Charmer, a snowman to hug or subjective mapping) and had demonstrations of Arduino, Kinect and OpenSoundControl. Fun examples of what Arduino is capable of: www.makeymakey.com.
But the main event of the week was the setting of the teams and the beginning of our projects! There are four projects with very different and interesting directions: art, interactive video, reflection about objects, city game… We are three in my team: Camille Lequenne will be the producer, Oriane Hurard will be the project manager and I’ll be the creative one. Our delicious project will mix: city, food, ARG, online game, live event… Can’t wait the Paris sessions to develop it more!
The TransformatLab is a four-week traning programmme (over four months and three countries) of workshops, masterclasses, development labs, networking events and studio visits, about transmedia. During this lab nine students have the opportunity to develop their own cross-platform project (by team). I’m one of the lucky participants and last week was our first days in the lab, in Wales at Newport University.
Last Tuesday I attended a Transmedia meetup/talk at the Bafta, I went to another in January and both times it was really great. There are (very interesting) speakers who are talking about a crossmedia project (or more) they are working on, so it’s extremely practical and as they are from different backgrounds (could be game developers, writers, project managers, film directors…) it’s a fascinating panel of experiences and viewpoints.
During the last talk, the three speakers were Heather Taylor (film writer and director), who is working on Raptured a web series about a rapture going wrong (and she’s looking for help to make the season 2), Hilary Perkins (Multiplatform Commissioning Editor for Drama and Film at Channel 4) who worked on Dreams of your Life a very adult, sensitive and serious multiplatform experience, developed by Hide&Seek, to support the film Dreams of a Life (talking about the death of a 38-year-old woman found only 3 years later), and Louise Downe (service designer) who worked on games, films & interactive installations.
As a webmaster at the French Institute I’m in charge of the graphic design of the e-communication: web flyers, invitations… Here are some of my works
The BD & Comics Passion website is online! This new festival, celebrating the graphic novel genre, will take place the 7-9 October, at the Institut français (London). Dave Gibbons (Watchmen), Jean-Claude Mézières (Valérien and Laureline), a cosmic party… and much more !
As webmaster of the Institut français, I worked with the Book Office (organising the festival, in association with Comica Festival) to design and develop the entire website.
www.institut-francais.org.uk/bdandcomicspassion (Edit: unfortunately the festival stopped in 2013)
The graphic design is based on the festival poster made by a French graphic designer.
