Report

Introduction

The end of year show has always been a milestone for me; my concepts and ideas for a final piece to present in the show have been developing since last year. I find that interactive content in exhibitions or gallery spaces to be far more interesting than static work because you can touch and interact with it. Luckily as I will be continuing on to the third year BA Interactive Media I still have the chance to present my work in next years show. This year is still equally important for me and I can use this years experience in next years show. I am also fortunate enough to be able to present my work in London at New Designers in July.

This has only been a short unit with a big requirement for the final outcome; I have put up two exhibitions on previous courses here at the Arts Institute and one at Brockenhurst College. This has given me a little knowledge of displaying work and promoting myself, unfortunately they both came with problems. I will not let them ruin this show but it may be me cautious.

What will go in the end of year show?

The Interface unit from the course last year was my favorite project; my idea was to develop an interactive food menu to work in a restaurant. My idea was to design an interface aid the process of ordering quickly and effectively without queuing. The menu benefits from a touch screen controller based on a Kiosk system foundation. The menu is fully updateable; it can be updated to highlight changes to the menu and show special offers. The intended market for the product would suit busy restaurants and fast food outlets like MacDonald's express lane. I intend my Express Menu as it is called to be my main showpiece in the year-end of year show.

I would also like to present some of my web site work from the last two years on the course. I have worked on many web sites now and some have been for well-known organizations like United Nations - World Summit Awards, Southampton University – Centre for Enabling Learning Technologies and Taylor James. As a group we have decided to have machines showing our online portfolios. My online portfolio features links to these web sites. To decorate my exhibition stand I will produce some printed screen grabs of those web sites to go on the wall behind my Express menu.

As part of the show layout we have decided to construct a cinema to present a loop of our show reels. This will be the best way for me to highlight some of the other projects that I have worked on during the course. I do not have as much experience in video production, composting and editing as web experience. The Digital video production unit was my favorite group project where four of us filmed and produced two 40-second adverts. The Composting unit title sequence and my Image manipulation 15-second animation will also have a place in the show reel.

Adapting the menu

When I developed the menu it was intended for use with a Touch screen monitor. Touch screens are very expensive, a 7” Touch screen would cost £400 +. My budget was fairly limited so after some searching I decided eBay was the best bet, eventually I won the bid for a Brand new 12” LCD Touch screen colour monitor costing £170. I found the same monitor on an online shop for £626 saving £456. Having a touch screen to test my Express Menu on I realized there were certain minor problems with the original interface layout design of the menu. Mainly the problems were button placements near to the edges of the screen. Moving the buttons in slightly solved this, as the edges of the screen were not as effective when pressed. This is known as the footprint, it is adjustable to make it more responsive.

From the original express menu interface design there were a few changes that needed to be made so it can run as it was intended. Firstly I have made changes to overall design of the menu, the colours have become more fresh using lime/ mint green and a fresh XP blue colour palette. Before the colours we washed out and fairly stale. There has been some changes with the back end script that runs the menu, the menu prints a proper receipt now and this means the menu could be used commercially with professional EPOS systems. The Flash menu is actually embedded in a Windows full screen kiosk application. The Flash script talks to Visual Basic and performs a Windows system print document command. The menu passes the food order list via FScommand from Flash to Visual Basic which then sends a text string to the printer, in this case the receipt printer.

The menu can hold an infinite amount of items as a scroll feature has now been added to the menu. It works a lot better now and I am very happy with its performance. A lot more features can now be added as it now talks to Visual Basic/ C#. All orders can be sent and stored on a database and even Chip and pin machine could be added.

EBay again was the best place to find a Receipt printer, unfortunately as I spent quite a lot on the touch screen so it will have to be very inexpensive to buy. I did make a few enquires at a local cash register shop CCM. To buy one second hand was still very expensive, as they never go wrong. I was also told not all of them come with windows print drivers so they can be used on a Windows PC. I still have not found a receipt printer and probably will not have one for the show but I am still looking.

To house the Touch screen and PC unit I needed a sturdy stand, the stand had to display the menu at the End of year show at The Arts Institute and also at New Designers. My original plan was to build a wall hanging frame to support the screen made from Stainless Steel with a wooden frame. The Touch screen will slot in the back and the wires will feed out the back to a PC behind a panel. I have also designed a floor standing unit that will be a self-contained unit that will also contain the PC. This option would be better for both the end of year show and New Designers. The construction will have to be strong and well built. Some inspiration has been taken form other kiosk stands on the market.

My Online Portfolio

My online portfolio has been developing since the start of the course. Every project brief I have completed during the course is on my media server web space. My Online portfolio has been recently re-designed to present my work in an easily accessible way. My web site has been branded with my SOI logo and can be found at www.soi.me.uk . The web site is a portal to present my online work. The site features a description, image and link that will open in separate window. The portfolio is updateable using XML (extendable Markup Language), updating it is easy which is the main reason for its re-design. The web site features my freelance work, course projects and personal development learning.

My Show Reel

I decided to produce a show reel to present a brief animated preview of my work; the show reel is also branded to the style of my web site using my corporate image. I wanted to create a quick insight of my projects with video clips edited down in Adobe After Effects and put together in Adobe Premiere and Final Cut. I gathered clips of previous video units, web page screen grabs and other video clips of random interesting clips. I managed to fill a modest 35 seconds of footage.

I am very happy with the end result, it has taken about 10 hours to edit and complete the final show reel. A friend created the track used in my show reel, it is called Transmission. He has allowed me to use this track and do what I like with it.

Planning the show

My involvement in the overall planning for the end of year show has been dedicated to setting up my touch screen menu as a showpiece. I have also helped to come up with ideas for the room layout and have construct a scaled model of the show. I will help to set up the show from the 26th June, painting boards, arranging them and putting up work. As a group we decided to construct a cinema room to project show reels, set up a series of G4 Mac computers to show our online portfolios and other students work. I will also be adding my Express Menu. It will all balance on how we work together when we put up our show between 26 th and 30 th June.

Bibliography

Learning:

Visual Basic 2005

Beginning

Authors: Thearon Willis, Bryan Newsome

Published: Willy Publishing, Inc Indianapolis 2006

ISBN-10: 0-7645-7401-9

VB, Windows Full screen mode - http://addressof.com/blog/archive/2005/04/05/1668.aspx - 14/06/06

Flash embedded in Visual Basic - http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/fscommand.asp - 14/06/06

Printing a document in Visual Basic - http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/Visual-Basic/Printing-With-Visual-Basic/1/ - 14/06/06

Equipment:

Ebay – http://www.ebay.co.uk - 14/06/06

SabreVision Kiosks Units PDF - http://www.sabrevision.com/pdf/Touch%20Vision%20lowres.pdf - 14/06/06

RM Touch screen - http://www.rm.com/FE/Products/Range.asp?cref=RA213587&catref=1608.3.4.425 - 14/06/06

Protouch Touch screens - http://www.protouch.co.uk/AMAZING/items.asp?CartId=&Cc=Open&Bc - 14/06/06

Touch Screens - http://www.touchscreens.com/ - 14/06/06

Receipt Printers, EPOS equipment - http://www.primemark.com/epos/receipt-printers.php -

14/06/06