Top 5 Design Websites

Top 5 Design Websites

http://www.studio7designs.com/

http://www.sterlingprm.com/

http://www.digimode.co.uk/

http://www.forwardslashtemplates.com/index.php

http://www.myspace.com/icondesignuk

looking deeper

Referring back to both journals this is how i would look into the subjects more to find out more about them.

For urban design I would take a walk around the city centre on a busy day such as a saturday and have a look around at where people are meeting and ask myself these questions. Is it because the meeting place is well known? is it because thats where everyone meets anyway? Is it due to good urban design and is designed as being a meeting point? And why is it in this exact spot?

I think the only way to find this out would be to ask the public themselves and they would be able to give me some answers as to why they are meeting someone at that particular spot.

Looking at maps of the city centre would be a big help to see from a birds eye view of how the town is layed out and why it is layed out that way.

Id also like to find out why people socialise in certain places around the city. But again, i would have to ask the people themselves.

As for young adult having paranoid thinking, id like to ask around college and university students and find out if theres anyone they know or know of who has had these kind of problems. I am saying this because college students are always usually out at weekends and living the student life. I'd like to find out if theres many young adults who suffer from paranoid thinking in the a more fortunate country such as ourselves. In the journal it only tells us of paranoid thinking in non-clinical countries. I know that young adults in this country would have some kind of paranoid thinking but i don't know if it would be worse. It may be, because so many young people in this country are put under pressure with things such as college, school and family life, there for the rate may be higher. Once again id have to interview people/young adults to see what they think themselves and see what would give them this kind of paranoid thinking and self consciousness.

comparing social journals

Urban Design and Social Interaction on Streets.

Vikas Mehta

In this journal we find out about how urban design can effect people in their social interaction with others and how it is used to get people in certain places.

"The biggest competitive advantage of the neighbourhood commercial street is its ability to support social interaction as a part of the daily routine"

This mean that cities and towns are set up to provide easy access to peoples every day life and how they go about it. This would be good urban design because it serves peoples needs in every day life and if there is something they need then they know where to find it. We learn that streets in towns and cities were used as places to serve basic needs of communication such as political, religious, commercial and social aspects.

"However, especially in many centre-city and mixed-use neighbourhoods, people still depend on streets for functional, social and leisure activities, for travel, shopping, play, meeting and interaction with other people, and even relaxation"

I find this interesting because I have never thought about towns and cities this way before. When i read this quote it makes me realise that people actually do use these places to meet and socialise.

I think the point that the author is trying to make here is that places such as towns and cities have to be designed properly for he general public. We learn from this journal that the shopping experience isn't just for shopping, its also about going with your friends or family and socialising together and not just to buy goods. We are told that there is such thing as a 'behaviour setting' which consists of a milieu (a particular layout of the environment) This is interesting to know that people are designing places not just for shopping but for a social experience. This journal gives us facts about how long behavioural studies of open public spaces have been in use for. We are told how people do surveys on the general public to see how they perform in and around the designed areas and how there are certain points in these places that are classed as meeting points for social groups.

Social Skills, Paranoid Thinking, and Social Outcomes Among Young People

Heidi R. Riggio and Wing Yee Kwong

This journal aims to tell us about links between paranoid thinking, social skills, and social outcomes among young adults from a non-clinical population. We get some useful information from this journal about how young people feel self conscious about themselves because other people. I think personally that this may be down to social group and how some may be classed better than others because some people have more money than others. I believe that there would be better off groups compared to others and this is why some are singled out. Also in this journal we find out that some groups lack in social skills, i think that this will be down to the fact that these people don't have things such as social networking sites. They don't get the chance to 'mingle' with others and share personality and beliefs.

"Engelberg and Sjoberg (2004) found that individuals with poorer abilities in reading facial expressions and interpreting social events were likely to be lonelier than others" The author here is bringing up a good point but it think that if these people have the sites that we have such as facebook, bebo, myspace etc then they would have a place to start their social skills and take them to the next level, and i think that this is why people in places such as the UK and USA etc are really good communicators because we start to grow up with sites such as these. In the journal i feel the point that the author is trying to make is that the people in non-clinical countries need the social groups and aspects of social life that people in more fortunate countries have. If they had the same technology as we have then they would have a better social life and wouldn't be so self conscious about themselves. Not only that but there would be more different types of social groups to suite other peoples personalities.

I think that these two journals are related because people from less fortunate countries don't have the money to spend on designing places for people to meet up with their friends or family and actually have things to do. People from more fortunate countries have it easy because we have these facilities and places and social networking sites. We can interact nearly anytime we want. Yes people in more fortunate countries are still self-conscious about themselves but i think that people here can maybe find themselves a lot easier by sticking to the social group that suites their personality and what they like to do. Urban Designing may have a big part to play in the 'self conscious' side of things because people plan out streets, towns and cities so that big brand names are in your face so people will buy. Some people may not be as fortunate and wont be able to afford this and this is why they are self conscious. In my opinion urban design can be good for getting people together and to meet in certain places etc but at the same time it cant maybe make people feel bad about themselves and make them feel that that they aren't as good as others. There for some people may not socialise as much as others. I have found both journals interesting and it has made me thing more about the social aspects of life and how urban design does actually help and affect people.

Top 5 articles

Social network analysis in primary care: The impact of interactions on prescribing behaviour

G Fattore

2009

This article is basically about how relationships develop in social networking and how some people have needs for it

Characterization of different groups of elderly according to social engagement activity patterns

S Croezen

Sept 2009

JOURNAL OF NUTRITION HEALTH & AGING 13 (9): 776-781

This article is about putting elderly people into sub groups, which would determine their social pattern/life

Social skills, paranoid thinking, and social outcomes among young adults

Riggio, Heidi R

Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 47, no. 5, pp. 492-497, Oct 2009

Social Learning Theory and Web-Based Learning Environments: A Review of Research and Discussion of Implications

Hill Janette R

Song Liyan

American Journal of Distance Education, 2009, vol. 23, no. 2, p. 88-103, pp. 16, 50 refs., ISSN: 0892-3647

Look Closely and You Will See, Listen Carefully and You Will Hear: Urban Design and social interaction on Streets

Mehta, Vikas

Journal of Urban Design, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 29-64, Feb 2009

These are my top 5 articles which relate to my social networking poster

These articles will help me to see how other social groups work and what goes on

wether something bad is going on and a group is trying to change this etc, it will give me an insight to how many more social groups there actually are rather than just social networking groups such as

myspace

facebook

bebo

To Kill Achilles

TO KILL ACHILLES

My band that was formed in late January 2008, it was originally made up of four people,

Marc - Guitar (far right)

Myself - Vocals (second in from right)

Kevin - Drums (middle very back)

Matt - Bass (second from left)

At the start everyone had high hopes for this band and we all wanted to play the same kind of music, Hardcore. Things were going well and everyone was having fun writing the music that we loved. We then had 5 songs that we thought were acceptable at the time and we thought it would be a great idea to record them. We started recording in June, it was only a two day task and we were recording from 10 at night until 2 in the morning on both occasions. We had a right good laugh and thought that this was the real deal. Having these recordings for the very first time and hearing ourselves in the car was amazing, The band though it would be a great idea to show them all off on myspace and let people hear what we were like. At the start people were fairly impressed but they turned out to be nothing compared to what the rest of the Dundee hardcore scene was like. There was a review done on our 5 tracks but someone on Myspace and a blog was posted. All of a sudden we found ourselves in a massive discussion about how good or bad the tracks were. Some people thought we were trying to be like other bigger artists but this wasnt the case.

We had our first show on July 21st 2008 and the venue was packed. Everything went well and we some good comments on our live performance and music. We werent heading for anything big yet. We played gig after gig in Dundee but this wasnt for us and we wanted to get outside of Dundee and try other cities.

In December 2008 the band had new songs that were much better because of all the practices at Kevins house. (which was amazing because his mum would make us food) Being very happy with ourselves we recorded again but with a guy named Stu. We heard that he was good and new what he was doing so we went for it. Recording was a ot of fun again and we had a video of the band recording on Youtube. This got us some views and some interest from people, Having the new recordings, we put them up on myspace and people were more impressed this time. More impressed by the music rather than the recordings which is why these songs brought us down a little.

After this we decided that the music needed more and we introduced out friend Mark Tindal to the music scene to play synth for us. People liked the music more when they heard the synth and it was live, it just gave the music that extra hit.

We bought a van! £300 and it was the worst van in the world. 55mph was its top speed. The thing was a mess and we had to sand it and re-paint it. We made it so that it was good for travelling in. We bought new seats and sprayed the inside. It got it got us from A to B and we played many shows having mini tours all the time in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dundee, Perth and Stirling.

This got our name about and people we starting to apreciate us. Still, the music and the recording werent up to scratch. This is where To Kill Achilles came to its peak.

It took a while but we wrote new material that sounded amazing, it was off this world compared to the old stuff. This time we went for it and went to a proper studio to get recordings, got promotional pictures takes and got a whole new myspace designed. All we wanted to do was promote this new sound that we had created which isnt around that much in the dundee area. After months of promoting and spending thousands of pounds on equipment we had our first gig that a lot of people turned up at. It didnt go that well and that was down to lack of practice. We had a show a day later and it went really well but had less people there. Although things went bad the first time we still got very good comments on our new style of music that was more synth based and people liked it.

Roughly 2/3 weeks down the line and the symthest Mark Tindal decided it was for him along with the drummer Kevin. This shot us down and and we thought that this was the end...

4 days later and To Kill Achilles are back again but with two new members who will not be named at this time.

who knows whats to come next....

brainstorming

The Tipping Point

The law of the few mind map
The Tipping Point mind map

Reading The Tipping Point was fairly interesting, It was a book that kept my interest and made me want to keep reading on.

From doing the mind map on the tipping point it has helped me to take in more information from the book and break it down into sections.

Its a lot easier to take it all in when you see the information on a piece of paper enfront of you which has been broken down into sections.

I chose my second mind map to be done on The law of the few, i felt that i could write more about this subject and it was the one i found most interesting.

I think personally that when i have to read a book for university again i will do a mind map on it once I'm finished because i think its a good skill to use so you can look at everything that happens in the book a lot easier than reading through time and time again

This years lectures so far

lectures so far this year have been really interesting.
This year my attention has been kept and i feel that im learning more already.
Being a graphic designer i was interested in the part about the signs and how they are well recognised and they are only there for a purpose and not to look nice.
Along with that, colour plays an important part and how we asociate colours with meanings even though colours mean "nothing".
For example we would asociate red with love,anger and fire.
But red is only a colour and nothing more
So because we asociate red with fire, fire signs have then been made red to be noticed in the event of a fire and not to be admired.
I also found interesting that 1 person out of four that was standing at the front of the lecture theatre got the taste of the starburst wrong because he had his eyes closed and couldnt see the colour of the wrapper.
I feel its amazing that we can look at the colour of the wrapper of the sweet and realise what flavour it is before we even put it in our mouths.
what does everyonelse think?

project DVD

Dont know what im writing here just now
Watching pleasantville again for the second time was actually quite good
I thought id hate it but its actually not that bad