The Design Process
Throughout all of the "Studio" assignments we have completed in this course, the one common factor is the importance of "design", and the "design process" - And this studio was no exception. From day one we discussed the importance of design and the way we develop our projects. This section of the report covers the manner in which I moved through the different phases of design and came out with my final design idea. I would like to state here however, that I feel the design process, and the design implementation/production are not mutually exclusive. Although I start with a pen on paper design process, I quickly move to development and continue to expand my ideas in a 'rapid prototyping' format. I will cover this technique more in future sections.
Initial Plans
Long before the semester started I knew what I wanted to create. I had long admired the work of "flight404", and I felt I could do something in a similar fashion ( although to do it in a single semester would be a challenge ). Throughout the holidays I worked on early prototypes for sound analysis and beat detection. I realised that no matter what I was creating, It would need a sound/audio "backbone" in order to function properly. The details of these audio implementations are continued in the "production" phase. I also originally wanted to create a visualisation creation tool that incorperated video stream, custom user input, and allowed users to create and mix their own visuals ( Designed specifically for VJs - Ironically, very similar to the final assignment ), however I decided to drop this idea as I felt it would be too complicated and the lecturers would tell me to work on something with a but more simplicity. It was about this time we began the design of our first presentations, and the start of the project.