Monday, April 19, 2010

Designing the Media

"A good design encourages a viewer to want to learn more"

Alexander Isle quotes on design is true. A good design could encourage and motivate the readers to keep reading the articles. Tool (1998) also agreed that design comes from the ability to be imaginative, consistent, organize information in a creative way. Therefore, designing the online and printed documents are different.

Besides that, Jakob Nielsen (1997) explained that readers tend to read 25 percents slower on the web/ computer compare to reading on the paper. This results that most people do not really read on the computer, they just screen through the page. Jakob Nielsen shares some terms in writing the web page, which are:
  • Scanability - author should make headline, sub-headline and emphasize the messages through different style of fonts colors and size.
  • Hypertext - in order to split meaning, focus on certain topic, write text in deep content, and structured based on audience analysis.
  • Be succinct - since that many readers just screen through the page, it is better to write the article in short text.
Parker (2003) added that single columns are not suggested for the documents on the web. Nielsen (1999) pointed out that online media should be 1- dimensional and N-dimensional with up-and-down scrolling experience, whereas for printed media, authors should pay more attention on the layout and it should be 2-dimensional.

Picture 3.1: The Sun Newspaper - Online


Picture 3.2: The Sun Newspaper - Printed

Based on the examples of the pictures above, the characteristic of print document and online document are different. Print document tend to contains more text compare to the web page.

References

Nielsen, J 1997, Be Succint!, Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, March 15,viewed 18 April 2010 (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9703b.html)

Nielsen, J 1999, Print vs. web design, 24 January, viewed 18 April 2010 (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990124.html)

Parker, RC 2003, ‘Ch. 14: Designing documents for web distribution’, in Looking good in print, 5th edn, Paraglyph Press, Scottsdale, Arizona.

Toor, ML 1998, Graphic Design on the Desktop: A Guide fo the Non-designer, 2nd edition, John Wiley & Sons, NY.

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New Generation of Media Publishing

As technologies has keep improving drastically in the last few years, so as the latest trend of publishing. The new media technologies today are radically challenging the media forms. Moblog (mobile-blogging) has become the latest trend of publishing. Nowadays, people can get connected to around the world by just using any mobile devices on their hand. It is very convenient and less time consuming. Bloggers could post their posting anytime and anywhere through their cellphone.

(Picture 2: Mobile Blogging)


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Community Blog: types, method, and its stucture


Blog community is made because of the similar interests, purposes, and passion within members. It is become a place where people with the same interest or passion joined in the blog community and discuss the same issues or topics.

Few example of the community blogs are:
Wolfenstein for example, this community blog is created for those who are interest and passionate about Wolfenstein game. The blog is contains about the most updated news, media, the game, mission, and even the online buying. The member of this blog community could post any comments, messages, or new topic discussion about any current information relating to the game. This blog is very useful for those who are 'addicted' to online game, besides understanding and keep themselves updated about the game, they could also make a circle friends that share same interests.


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Classification of Blogs

Since blogging are getting more and more popular, different types of blogs had also being introduced. Besides that, each posters might posting different types of blogs for different reasons. There are several types of blog according to its classification.

According to subject matter:

According to device:
  • Moblog or mobile blog: Moblog is a blog that published to the internet from a mobile or other mobile devices that normally includes photos or camera phones (Wikipedia.com 2010). Example of moblog is Justin Bieber Fan Page
According to media type:
  • Linklog: Linklog is a collection of URL (hyperlink) that the maintainer consider enough to collect (e.g Fashion Blog)
  • Vlog: video-based journal that posted online (e.g Eri Peng)
  • Sketchlog: blog that contain sketch art work (e.g Lubasa Sketchlog)
  • Tumblelog: blog that contain with photos, quotes, video, features links that usually used to share author's creations, discoveries or experiences (e.g Austin Kleon)
According to status of publishers:
References
Wikipedia.com 2010, Mobile Blogging, viewed 18 April 2010, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_blogging)


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Blogging Phenomenom

Picture 1 Blogging since high school


Blog has become familiar in today's society and it is become a popular trends from young generations, adults, or even politicians. Picture 1 from Royston Roberstson's blog shows how high school students are now familiar with blogging. He is agree that blog is the flexible way to talk what he ups to instead of giving any static portfolio site. Blogging has also become one of the strategy on how people get connected to one another, exchanging their ideas or communicate through it, for example on-line shopping in the weblogs are so popular nowadays.

In the Problogger, one of weblog, Darren Rowse (2005) simplified the meaning of blog. A blog is a type of website that is usually arranged in chronological order where people post their writings. On the other hand, Reep (2006) said that a weblog or a 'blog' is a website structure where one or more people posting messages like on-line diary.

The trend of blogging has now spread all over the world. According to Microsoft.com's report (2006), it showed that young generation has fueled the Asia's blogosphere. Almost 56 percents of the bloggers are the age under 25, 35 percents are the age from 25 to 34 years old, and the rest are bloggers that are older than 35 years old. The report also shows that most of the bloggers are female (55 percents) and the rest are male. However, in Malaysia blogging are only popular among the politicians, especially before the 2008 election, where the blog posted are more specific to the political issue. Unfortunately, it only hits 14 percents interest of the readers reading the blogs (Microsoft, 2006).

The Benefits of Blogging
Since people are keep posting blogs, here are some of the benefits that they get while blogging:
  • Bussiness Channel: Blog can be used as a communication tools between you and your customers, where it enables you to interact directly to your customers in more personal ways. It is also a tool of marketing your company/ products (Business Link, 2010). Besides communication, blog also used as promotion to promote your products (e.g on-line shopping). Rowse (2007) said that blogs can be used as a tool for selling at their best when they are conversational, relational, and offer their readers something useful to enchance their life (e.g Emila Yusof).
  • Social Networking: Blog could be used a s a tool where people share their experience or ideas for social networking for fun.
  • Politic: As mentioned above, blog also used as a media tool where politicians posted their politic issue, for example to get more voices for the election or any information that are not published in mainstream media (e.g Malaysia Kini)

References
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Sunday, April 18, 2010

The purpose of 'The Lighters'

The Lighters is an academic weblog that is made to examine the issues in media, publication, and design.

The credibility and the accuracy of this weblog is guaranteed, because there will be detail information about the writer posted in every posting, which are will also be supported with academic certified sources citation and references of trusted authors.

So, who is the audience of The Lighters?

This weblog is presented to everyone who has concern in current issues of publication issues, for example in the communication, journalism, and also people that are involved in blogging activity. this weblog is also targeted for those who are searching for more information about publication, media, and publication. In this weblog, readers could participate in giving comments in certain posting, or giving any open critics, suggestions. i personally hope that this weblog will become one of the source where readers find something new to learn and motivated to keep learning.


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