CHAPTERS

DISCLAIMER

GLOSSARY

CREATIVE TEAM

"Dress for the occasion"

THE AUTHOR & THE BOOK

Being presented with many great ideas and possible adaptations of Jenkins’ theory for our project was inspiring, and enjoyable. It also was intimidating, overwhelming and I daresay scary at times. There were so many things we wanted to do, so many features we wanted to include, so many plans, ideas and intentions. How do you make that all work together? How can you capture all these thoughts and bring structure to it? These questions regularly crossed my mind the past seven weeks.

Because, as the designer, I had the beautiful but challenging task of putting everything together and making something real out of it. A few years back someone once told me ”you have to learn to think like a designer, they are the ones that can see things before they actually exist.” Before this project I never put much thought into that statement, but now I know that it is true. And that it is hard! I was given all these various bits, chunks and parts and I had to make them connect and make the whole look visually appealing and easy to use, and that wasn’t always easy.

It meant I actually spent a lot of my time practicing, sketching, watching videos, trying, erasing, and just staring at my computer screen. And when I finally made something, more often than not I threw it away again or changed it completely based on feedback. I figuratively speaking killed many of my darlings and would describe the past seven weeks as a process that consists of loops rather than a straight line.

Eventually it turned out I just had to dress for the occasion to make it work. As much as I would have liked to go crazy with design elements such as colors, visuals, typography and interactivity –I had to remember the purpose of the website and only use said elements when they added value.

Looking back I can honestly say that it wasn’t always fun, but it was always challenging, refreshing, educational and it helped me gain a bunch of new skills. And I wouldn’t have wanted to miss it for the world. What do you think about it and what would you have done differently?

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- Sophie Duindam