Update on my group

Hey Class, I just wanted to give you all a quick update on how my group (Visual and Audio Arts) has been progressing. I think overall, it has been a great experience, especially interacting with my group members. We formulated a great system, in order to narrow down our submissions. There were a lot of talented artist who submitted work and in every genre. From weird, to sweet, love materials, animals to just plain disgusting! Since we have six people in the group, we all decided that each submission, had to acquire at least 3 votes, to be able to move on to the final round of decision making. The first step though was a little time consuming; every member had to look through all of the materials individually and then create two categories. A maybe list, and a no list. Group members were very giving and accepting in this phase. (If you thought you even somewhat liked it, it would go to the "maybe" pile to get voted on)

After all of the "absolutely nots" and "maybe's" were settled upon, we then moved to the second phase; the voting phase. I must add here that we have harsh judges inour group and the field was almost immediately cut to half. I thought that 3 votes would be relatively easy for most of the submissions to come by, but to my surprise, most were barely getting the three votes to move on...so much so that we did not really have to usher in the 3rd phase, which was for the submission to acquire 4 votes, because not too many garnered the 3 votes to begin with. The results however was not even a referendum on the work, they were very good, but all group members had to keep reminding each other; this work may be good, but is it unique, and of quality and publishible material? Do we think that this work is unique and good enough to be on the first issue of Din Magazine? I think that was the deciding factor.

Ultimately, I think that group worked very well together and compromised fairly. We did only have one submission for music, which we all really liked and three submissions for video. One of them got the requisite three votes.

A visit to the NMSU art department

Hello all, I just wanted to give the rest of the class a quick update on what Camillo and I did on Monday. The both of us visited the art department in our attempt to solicit more submission. We did this by approaching several of the students (undergrad & graduates) as well as professors to make sure that they not only knew about the eventual publication of Din magazine, but also that we had pushed the deadline back from March 31st. Although some people seemed very excited about the opportunity to get published, there were several people who could not have look more dis-interested with our magazine or what we had to say. Isn't the goal of creating art to hopefully get as many people to see your work as possible? Either way, I hope that we were able to change a few minds in terms of submitting to our magazine; we had several people who did say that they had wanted to submit and were definitely going to. Overall, I am glad that the both of us took about 30 mins to walk around the art building and interact with potential submitters. We have a lot of talent in our art department and I can only hope that this is made evident by the work that is submitted and eventually chosen to be published in Din Magazine.

A Look Back at my Class Facilitation

Hey class, this is just somewhat of a follow up from my presentation and a quick synopsis of my facilitation if you missed class. It was primarily centered on two major theoritical questions: the first was: what will we constitute as good writing and how can we describe or identify good writing, especially when it comes to us evaluating submissions for our Din magazine? There were several good suggestions offered, but the major consensus, at least what I gathered, is that theoretically, there is no such thing as one perceived good writing. It is mostly subjective - but overall, "good writing" does have some common themes. It is informative and can keep the readers attention and entertainment level high. The second major discussion that my facilitation focused on was the concept of "The Death of the Reader and the Rise of the Writer" With this in mind, we discussed audience identification, as well as the implications of technology making the profession of being a writer so accessible to everyone who owns a computer. Futhermore, I played a video for the class which had a girl telling us how to write a book in 14 days.(Many people in class found this hilarious). This video was played to show how "good" and thoughtful writing has now given way to expediency. Also included were statistics about the rise of submissions, but unfortunately, the decrease of individuals subscribing to popular magazines and news papers. So another question I posed to our class was basically: How can we structure our Din magazine so that it is not only for writers, but readers and subscribers as well? This as well formed a healthy discussion with class members. Finally, I took some quotes from our past readings which included Charles Robinsons, Academia and the Little Magazine; The Death of Fiction? By Ted Genoways and Of Living Belfry and Rampart: On American Literary Magazines Since 1950 by Michael Anania. After looking at several of the quotes such as "In short, no one is reading all this newly produced literature—not even the writers themselves. And with that in mind, writers have become less and less interested in reaching out to readers." or "Only token, if any, attempts are made to "discover" new writers…All of which suggests that it is virtually impossible for the university magazines to cause any upheaval in current literary practice or tradition - one of the most important functions of the genre" the class then discussed what were the implications if these statements are true and how can we use this to better our own Din magazine?

Pod Presentations

There were several things that I liked tonight, but I think that creating a space, one that is somewhat unique was the overiding theme throughout all of the various presentations. I really think that in many respects, we can probably combine all of the pod's ideas, to make one simple, yet attractive online magazine. My suggestions would be having a space (i.e. a house) for which the reader/visitor can enter into. Within that house you will have the various themes suggested tonight, whether it is going down into a basement/fallout shelter, to going into a kids room where the comic book idea can be prevalent; going into a library where we have have the concept of a book and being able to turn the pages, could all mesh well in creating an interesting world of liturature and art.

In terms of being more pro active in trying to acquire submissions, I think that we as students have to take it upon ourselves to establish for example, a minimum number of submissions that we will each solicit and bring to the magazine.

Overall though, i think we now have an excellent start...the hard part now is how are we going to ultimately make the decisions as to where and how we want to proceed from here.

The Most Important Design Elements

If I was to provide advice to an online editor about the most important design elements that they could implement, here is what I would say:
First and foremost, they would have to concentrate on the attention grabbing or unique design that will serve to initially captivate the users attention and imagination. Essentially, what would you like to have your viewer see within the first three to five seconds of visiting your page.
Secondly, a web editor has to factor in the usability factor of his website. Although the initial image of a website is key to its success (especially when trying to grab one's attention), a potential user/viewer of the website must be able to navigate the site with ease, otherwise they will move on to the MILLION OF OTHER WEBSITES THAT EXISTS.
Additionally, the availability of the relevant information has to be readily available and easily accessible as well. I think that the key in keeping a user's attention (and possible return), is to avoid them getting frustrated in their search for information. Therefore, optimize what information you want to have, and decide by using an order of importance.
Listed below are a set of rules for which I found on a website (http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/31/10-principles-of-effective-web-design/) that discusses the 10 Principles of effective Web Design. They are as follow:

Don’t make users think
Don’t squander users’ patience
Manage to focus users’ attention
Strive for feature exposure
Make use of effective writing
Strive for simplicity
Don’t be afraid of the white space
Communicate effectively with a “visible language”
Conventions are our friends
Test early, test often

The Grapes of Wrath

If anything, the work done by Chris McGreal does an excellent job of depicting what he wanted to relay to his viewers. His work makes you think of a time when America was struggling to find it's self identity; all the while failing as a nation. Meant to remind people of the "Great Depression" the digital images used does a great job of depicting the hardships that American's face in today's society. Additionally, like the 1930, some groups are still being marginalized regardless of how much progress the nation has made. Looking at these pictures makes the future look bleak and helpless, which is what I think he was going for.