17 thoughts on “Weekly Blogging 3, due Feb. 26”

1. After observing the material on the New York Times on-line Flash-based segment entitled “One in Eight Million” I was pleased with the clean straight-forward manner it was designed and organized. Listening to the interview soundtracks streaming of each person while viewing monotone slide shows of their daily lives made the stories intriguing. The black and white toned images created a feeling for history and biography, each image provided insight into the life of a New Yorker. The sound and images went hand-in-hand; for example a segment on “The Type A Teenager: Omika Jikaria,” as she mentions “homework,” a picture of her sitting at a desk with textbooks appears, this showed a follow-through relationship from the words we hear and the images we see. This relation is seen throughout the segments of other New Yorkers as well. I also enjoyed the preview soundtracks that occurred upon clicking a person’s profile, it was like the contents page in a book, in sound form. My favorite segment was The Urban Taxidermist: Melissa Dixson simply because of the subject, images, and the her tone throughout the interview. She was interesting to listen to and the pictures shown in her segment interested me because they were not something we usually see.

   Compared to other Flash-based animations I have seen, “One in Eight Million” is similarly designed and organized like an artists’ online portfolio due to its alignment and focus on image. It is less interactive and reliant on mouse-clicking in comparison to other websites, perhaps because the sound and the image are enough to draw and maintain the observers’ attention. Many other Flash-based websites I have seen are usually entertainment and informational in format, this on the other hand is a combination of art, information, and story telling. The interface of the segment is rather simple, and I think, simple is best for a piece from the New York Times. If the segment were complicated to navigate people may not have looked further into the stories of the people. The Times created a well-made and thought-through maintaining their audience of readers while drawing in a new interactive preferred kind of audience.

2. I really enjoyed this page of The New York Times. It has amazing black and white photography. I mostly enjoyed the photography and the story accompanied with it is also interesting. The audio and images sync together coherently. This is an interesting take on telling a story. Instead of using a traditional video, a variety of still images are used to tell a story instead. The use of black and white images is stronger and is less distracting than color photographs.

   One in eight million–focusing on one New Yorker at a time. There are millions of people in New York and New York is also one of the most diverse cities. This site tells stories of an individual’s life. Each story is unique and different, which emphasizes on the diversity. I learned about the lives of a taxidermist, bicyclist, musician, teenager, etc.

   The flash segment is easy to use with easy controls (next, previous, play, pause). It’s a very sophisticated slide show. All the text is flush left, which makes it easy to read. The logotype (one/in 8 million) works very well. The word “one” is enlarged and emphasized; like picking one person out in a crowd of 8 million.

3. New York Times’ One in 8 Million Flash segment really captures each individual’s personality in roughly 2 minutes. I feel like I’ve met Maggie Wirth, Henrique Prince, and Fredda Dagannes in person through their stories. Even though this presentation contains only still images, it still appears lively because I can hear the individuals’ voices. I get a glimpse of their true characters through their voices. For example, I can see that Wirth has a sense of humor and is a jolly person just from listening to her. In addition, I like how I can hear the voices when I move the cursor over the video before it starts playing. I already get a sense of what the person is like before I can view the photos.
   Moreover, I like how there are close ups of the individual, as well as the people that the individual interacts with. For instance, in Prince’s story, the photographer zooms in on Prince’s fingers on his stringed instrument at 1:11 to show Prince’s passion for playing music. Yet, throughout the story, there are also several pictures of his audiences. This indicates that without spectators, Prince would probably not be where he is today. The photographer does not only want to focus only on Prince, but his environment too.
   This animation is much more classic looking than other animations because of the black and white photos. Though the people’s stories are so different from one another, the black and white design still works well for everyone’s stories. The same font and layout is also used for each story, which makes the Flash animation well organized. This animation is not very interactive or fancy like other sites, but it is still a wonderful site because of its classic style.

4. After spending a good amount of time looking over the “One in Eight Million” flash site, I have learned a new style of creating a website where the imagery speaks for itself. If we were required to imitate this flash website instead, I would have probably been done in a couple of hours. The simplicity was cleverly designed to make room for the images that speak for themselves.

   As I am looking at the people NYTimes has interviewed for this site, I notice how the use of sounds and imagery makes me feel like I am involved in the experience of their lives. I especially liked Christian Hubert, because I bike ride to work all the time, and I used to be hesitant going over the bridge. The sounds in the website were not at all background music, like in other websites. It was more of a way to enhance the imagery, and make it come alive. Furthermore I felt the images were of high quality because it seems to capture real actions in the making, so that we can create the scene in our minds. The dark backgrounds and the plain text only compliment the images, and act as a stage for what is important– the story that is playing.

   You definitely picked a great website, and I appreciate it because after I am done with this class, I hope to put up a flash website of slideshow of my photography, and I would like to re-create the simplicity in this example.

   Thanks!!

5. A few of the stories I found interesting from The New York Times segment, One in 8 Million, was “Michel Kramer-Metraux: The Wedding Wardrober”, “Henrique Prince: The Subway Busker”, and “Omika Jikaria: The Type A Teenager.” From playing each of the stories, which includes photos taken from their daily lives and also audio of their real voices, you can get a sense of what their lives are like. By including audio of each individuals voices you can get a better feel of what this person may be like; it makes it more lifelike. Even though the pictures are still images and move like a slide show, the things that are said by the individuals seem to go smoothly with the picture slide show. I think if there was no audio included, watching these videos would give you a totally different feeling, such as when I watched the video of “Omika Jikaria: The Type A Teenager.” In her video you can really get a sense of what her life is like. Omika Jikaria says in the video that she doesn’t have time to hang out with friends or watch television. Throughout her video, the background is very quiet with little to no background noise and as you listen to her talk and watch the slide show of her pictures you can see that she really devotes herself to education, school related activities, and beauty contests but rarely to any sort of entertainment. From watching the video “Michel Kramer-Metraux: The Wedding Wardrober,” I was able to get a sense of what Michel Kramer-Metraux’s life is like from working at Saks Fifth Avenue. The background noise from his job makes the video more realistic in giving insight to his life and his pictures mostly show him in action while he is at work. I think the use of black and white still photographs in these videos and the sites simple design with a black and white theme makes them more serious and appropriate in telling stories of peoples lives.

6. When I first looked at this site, I thought to myself, “It must be a very old school site.” It’s in black and white. Then I realized why this site used black and white. It’s a storybook. The Barber story was the first one. What amazed me was how well his narration went with the timing of the pictures. Also, whoever made this site commanded the computer well. The images moved accordingly to the script, in order, and at perfect timing. That’s beside the point. The barber shop in Italy is clean! The chairs are made out of leather! But overall, the animation is smooth, the timing of the audio and pictures are perfect. The photography is amazing; it tells the story as if Joe Manniello was acting it out in still pictures. The differences between the New York Times flash usage and other animations that we’ve worked with are the audio, the story telling, and he menu functions present on this site. Also the opacity of the comment box was never used in other animations. This is more of a slideshow. The other animations were of lively color and of a specific product.

7. I think the design of the One in a Million section on the Ney York Times website is too serious, or even uptight. The black and white colors do not appropriately capture the tone of all of the stories. For example, the images and the colors work for the story Freda Dagganes: The Walking Miracle, that talks about a rare blood disorder and her survival. However, I think it is really a bad choice for Omika Jikaria: The Type A Teenager, which talks about an over achieving teenager. In that case, I would expect color images. That being said, I like its layout. I like the fact that it is very clean and user friendly. It is easy to navigate between the stories.

   This animation seems like frame by frame animation, meaning it is comprised of different pictures with a sound (the person who tells the story) and a control bar at the bottom. Other websites like the ones we analyzed before were more interactive and try to sell something or to educate about something. These kinds of animations are like mini documentaries. In some way it is educating but it is more autobiography like. It is not interactive with the user, it is there just to tell the stories of these people.

8. When I started the first video on Joe Manniello: The Bus-Depot Barber, I thought that the photos were in black and white to give an old school feeling because the main character was of an older generation, but I soon find myself wrong. All of the clips were in black and white so this can’t be true. Black and white photos give me a serious feeling. The fact that its not a color print tells me that pretty much the target audience is not any children or teenager. I would say its most likely for adults.
   I think there’s two elements that make these sets of photos work out as a storybook. First I think its the sounds and the narratives of their own lives by the person portrayed. The second element is the sequence. There’s pictures of all aspects in these people’s life, the place they work/lived, the tools they work with, the people, the small details in their lives, like a picture, a piece of hair, etc. When you combine them, it seems like you’re going through like you’re going through a picture book with audio.

9. I thought this site was elegantly set up. It is definitely more likely set for a young adult to an adult audience. Unlike most websites that are used as sales tools, this one is more relaxed and low toned in black and white to relate stories of different people that live in New York City. I originally thought that the site was set to black and white because The New York Times is a newspaper and they print black and white so this is how the pictures would appear as if they were in the papers along with some text. Maybe the colors represent how the tales are told i.e in black and white. Nothing is held back because these are people that are being truthful about their outlook on life and how they go about their days. Joel Karp speaks of the one time he was robbed and how things were in the earlier days when the streets were a dangerous place to be. Joe Manniello admits that he left Sweden because he didn’t like the people. Having the audio as it flows with pictures is much better than reading a story because I could actually get a mental picture of the person as if we were having a conversation.

   The text did not have to be major attraction because the focus of the piece were the pictures. Every one was a clean shot of memorable moments of each person’s life. It can be clearly seen that Henrique Prince is passionate about what he does because it is something he enjoys, he gets the chance to entertain passers by and in a way touch their lives through his music. (I think I have seen him performing at Times Square.) Also, just by the title of the piece, “One in 8 Million” demands attention from anyone who stumbles upon it. I liked that it was very interactive so I could choose the order in the slideshow of how I wanted to view the stories. Overall, it is something different than what users are accustomed to seeing on the web today but it is always good to just sit back sometimes and get away from loud and busy colors.

10. There are two words that I would give to this website which are simple and natural. Simple is because it only uses two colors (black and white); the text is easily to be read, no need to be fancy or too over to capture audiences attention. Natural is because the photo itself already means a thousand words, and listening to stories behind each and one of the people gave me the sense of who they are even though, I don’t know them.

    The slide show is greatly in use. I like how the way they setup the slide so that when you click on each story, they will focus on that person and listen to a brief selection of the person. Most of all, I think The New York Times had done splendid job on “One in 8 Million”.

11. The “One in a Million” site was honestly more interesting than I intitally thought it would be, especially since I saw it was in black and white, I was wondering if they could bring the point of people’s, unique lives to light with that type of limitation on colour but they managed to pull it off quite well.

    The story that I found most compelling was that of the taxidermist who practices in New York. I loved how they mixed in the idea of old with the black and white images and the new with the inclusion of an apple i-phone in one of the pictures. As she mentioned herself, it is a bit strange to see death like this but she sees it as an art form, which is interesting to me although this is not the type of art I would like to do myself. The images, although seemingly disturbing because of the nature of them as there were many dead animals shown, were however very tastefully done and not as scary as one may have thought they would be.

    The typography, in my opinion, wasn’t really a great focus of the site but the choice they made, made the text very apparant and easy to read. The way in which the stories were presented, in the form of a slide show was starnge to me but I guess they wanted to make it a little more whimsical than just to have a video of someone talking so they went along the lines of making it seem like a photo album or scrapbook, which may have given it a more personal feel, as though we had gone to the person’s home and they let us look through the pictures of their lives.

12. The first story I heard in this site was “Maggie Wirth: The Singing Waitress” and I was really impressed by her popularity with the bar patrons. I have to say that this site is really beautiful in that it is really simple and straight forward. What I really like is how the photos taken in Black and White give the site and the stories a historical and documentary feel. In my opinion it gives the feeling that you are looking directly into the heart of New York, what really makes the city tick, which isn’t what many people see. After seeing this site it makes me feel like I’ve known them my whole life,and I wish I did.
    Another thing I like is how before you choose to listen to a story it gives you a small preview of what to expect. The bottom scroll could use a little more work as it appears way too simple.

13. The black and white photos and theme are very reminiscent of the actual NY Times newspaper in that the Times uses black and white photos in print. The images are high in quality and load fast for a flash layout. The fast pace motion of images in the beginning was a interesting preview to the images to come. The interaction was simple to click around and the bold serif font also correlates to the font used in the times. Mixing san-serif font was also a good contrast. The stories went well with the photos as if a book was being read to you and the person visually showed you their story. In comparison to the other work I researched, the layout was similar in informing and bring interest. The simple interface didn’t subtract from the content. I prefer the placements of interactive buttons to be visible and easy to find as with this site and the site I researched.

14. I have never seen a flash presented like the way “One in 8 Million” did. Usually when I think about flash, colorful images and attention grabbing sounds would come to mind. But in this case, flash was used unlike the ordinary colorful visuals and sounds yet it was amazing and interesting to follow through the stories of different individuals living in New York City. I thought the black and white images were very well composed and also self explanatory, however with the use of the accompanied soundtrack, the stories flowed better and the connection established between the pictures and the ideas or the story of that particular person’s life.
    The images were shown as slides and along with the consistent layout and black background, the black and white images worked very well in capturing and maintaining the focus of the viewers on the storied told. The typography had a combination of serifs and san serif, I assumed that they used serifs because that was how most news articles were written and san serifs came since it was the designed type of the website. There wasn’t much interaction with the website, basically it was clicking one thing and then waiting until the story finishes then clicking on to the next button to move on to the next story.
    The sounds were very clear and it fully records the environment where the New Yorker was being interviewed. For instance, in the story of “Maggie Wirth: The Singing Waitress”, you couldn’t really imagine how the music would be played or how the actual atmosphere is like until you hear the sounds. Looking at the images would not make the bar into a fun and warm environment but with the help of the audio and recordings of the story from the interviewee the pictures seemed to come to life.

15. This One in 8 Million section from The New York Times was interesting to say the least. First of all, I think it is great that this publication decided to use black and white images and text; it is a great way to connect the classic New York Times brand to this new section they have compiled. This exhibit is a unique way to tell a story rather then just compiling an articles and posting them. Flash isn’t really to animate things, something I am used to seeing in flash animations; it uses flash to put a slideshow of pictures together with the audio of the person telling their story. While this is not the most complicated way to use Flash; it’s a great way to make a story come to life. This is certainly the case in the story of Joe Manniello. The New York times did a great job of connecting his story to the images they captured while interviewing him.
    I really feel as though much thought was done on The New York Times part in creating this section. They were able to make this section look very “New York Times-y” with the use of black and white. The quality of the images taken was also great. Overall, I enjoyed viewing this section of The New York Times; it showed me how such old companies can embrace the internet to promote their brand. I look forward to seeing more new sections from The New York Times.

16. The New York Times is a well-established, classic yet modern, tasteful publication, and to have a visual journal designed the way that it is seems only fit. Black and white with crisp black and white photography looks beautiful on screen, and is clean and simple. The font is also true to the publications style, not being too modern, yet just enough elegance to remind the viewer that you are looking at something done by The New York Times. The layout, in which only one photograph occupied the screen at a given time was a good choice- it made me feel relaxed and confident that the site would be easy to maneuver through. I especially appreciated the sound. I like how a sentence or two from the story would play when the photograph came onto the screen, and if you clicked to the next photograph, the sound would fade out nicely, instead of stopping at a halt or overlapping the next story. The ease in which the photographs were displayed in each individual story was also pleasing, I really felt like I was watching a movie. The animation was appropriate for the content- as I’ve seen in other web pages that are overwhelming when things move and happen every time I scroll over something, this web page did not overwhelm me at all. Overall I think color was the boldest asset of the site, and the ease of transitions the strongest.

17. I was really amazed at The New York Times’ interactive journal. I was really drawn to each story, and each was brought to life with the sounds, the imagery and the overall layout of the design. This design made me feel as if I were listening to real stories ‘at story time’; it felt authentic. It didn’t feel like I was hearing about another news piece or article. The layout of the site was classic and tasteful–it make appreciative of life and each individuals story. The design really captures life. The photography used was priceless, and the sounds that spoke the words of each picture made you feel as if you were there in these such as the one about the singing waitress. What I also really like about the layout is how they had the collection content lined up for to choose from and how each had a photo accompanied by a small clip of what the individual was talking about. The colors and the typography still brought us back to remember this was somethin created by The New York TImes–that black and white with what I believe is the Garamond font. Each set I believe communicates each story not only well but vividly–it helps to make the story more than a story but an experience. You experience the story as the individuals shares. The difference I notice in contrast to previous animations I have analyzed it this one is more sophisticated, classic and tasteful design that suites NY Times’ reputation. As I saw in the Multiplication Flash their wasn’t much of a Label to represent. But in comparison to FIT, they are both design that had to entail a taste of what they are and represent. FIT represented that freedom of creativity whereas NY times represents their classic tastefulness to capture a real story.