Initial Collection Descriptions

These are four initial studies of how we might organize our catalog. Categories include scientific names, symptoms, reasoning and a rationality scale from 1-5.

Summary of Phase 1, 2, & 3

Here is the final summary of the first three phases of the project.

Revised Backstory

Collector persona (who is the collector of the collection)
Our collector is Ramona Killington, 28, of Boston, MA. She is currently a grad student at Boston University studying psychology. She is writing her dissertation on phobias and their relationship with adolescent minds. This collection is her dissertation.

Collection narrative/context (what is the backstory)
As a high school student, Ramona had a deep fear of public speaking. Her phobia affected her performance on the day of graduation when she was giving her valedictorian speech. Her fear overwhelmed her and she passed out before finishing. She knew that in order to fulfill her goals of becoming a professor of psychology she would have to overcome this fear of speaking in front of a crowd, so in college she made this a priority. Eventually, with practice, she overcame her fear and this inspired her dissertation about phobias and their rationality.

Exercise 04 - Reading Responses - Krigney

Collective Curiosity - Exercise 04 | Kate Rigney

Reading 04 - Classifying Lassie - This article is about how to look at the information presented and organizing that information. The article suggests slicing it up into smaller categories, such as alphabetically, by weight or by country of origin as with the dogs. This helps to get a new look at the information by comparisons and looking at smaller details instead of getting overwhelmed by all of the data.

Reading 05 - Subculture - This article is about subcultures and their history in the fields of sociology and anthropology. A subculture is a small group of people within a larger culture that share connections and similarities within this small group. These collections can include things such as music preferences, style, hobbies,etc. What I found interesting is that a lot of the explaination has a negative connotation to the description of subculture. Originally the term was used to describe groups that were in opposition to mainstream culture due to thier negative “relations” to values and actions of mainstream culture. This was interesting because after taking the Interactive Zine class last semester where our target audience was a specific subculture, our idea of what a subculture could be moved from something negative and in opposition of mainstream culture, but a group that exists within and alongside the mainstream and are just connected through similarities.

Reading 06 - Audience Theory - This article ties in very nicely to our major, which in many cases is about communicating to a specific audience. It is about understanding that when, in our case, you are designing something, it will give that audience some sort of reaction. It is our job to realize what we want that reaction to be and if what we have made will create that reaction.

Reading 07 - Persona (Marketing) - This article is a more in depth look at who is using the design. Like Audience Theory, it promotes the importance of knowing and understanding the audience. It suggest that breaking all users into smaller groups (demographics) and using market research methods to undestand who the user is: what they know about the subject, how and in what context the design is used and the users’ skill level. This is extremely appropriate for our project. We are using surveys to collect data about fears and are creating personas in order to direct our design toward a specific audience.

Exercise 04 - Reading Responses - kpfromme

Kayla Pfrommer
GIC
Exercise 04 - Reading Responses

Reading 05 - Subculture
This article mainly just gave a definition and some background on the word “subculture.” A subculture is a smaller group of people in a culture that have similarities which connect them together. These similarities can include the kind of music they listen to, the clothes they wear, and more. I found it interesting that when the article explained all the different types of subcultures, most of them were countercultures. It seems that most subcultures, atleast in the article, are bound together by some kind of revolting or rebeling force. Some subcultures like this that were mentioned include punk, Dada, goth, and more.

Reading 06 - Audience Theory
The article about audience theory was interesting because it is what we do in a lot of our core graphic design classes. Basically, audience theory is all about having a target audience that you are trying to address to. We are using this concept in our current GIC project by making up 3 personas and a collector who would in theory create this collection. By imagining the type of people who would be interested in our collection, we can better understand which way we need to communicate our idea so that it appeals to that person.

Reading 07 - Persona (marketing)
This reading was more in depth about the previous reading. It mentioned market strategies such as surveys which is something that Kate and I used in our current collections project. Surveys are a good way to generalize information about people so it can be sorted. The article also explained a bit more about being aware of the user and how to communicate with the user realistically. For example, a cook book written for simple recipes for the houseowner would be wrtten much differently than a cook book for professional chefs. It is good to be aware of the audience/user so you design for that particular person/group.

Exercise 04 - Personas/Collector

Mind Mapping

Once we established we liked the idea of collecting fears, we created a mind map in order to flesh out some ideas and sort of narrow our concept down.

In our mind map we developed the idea of an "encyclopedia" as a way of classification. We would like to move forward in this more scientific way of looking at our collection, posing the question: Is fear irrational?

Early Process

At the beginning stages of this project, Kate and I brainstormed different ideas on what kind of collections we wanted to make. Our top three ideas were collections of goals, fears, and emotions. After discussing in class and receiving some feedback, we decided to move forward with our concept of a collection of fears.

The Smithsonian Institution - Exercise 3

The Smithsonian Institution is the world's largest museum complex that houses a collection of 137 million artifacts, works of art and biological specimens. This collection is not only interesting for its epic scale, but for its presentation of global science and culture. Being as interested as I am in both science and the nature of human being, this collection is most intriguing.

The Institution, which was established in 1846, has been presided over by many but the main goal of the Institution is knowledge through education and research.

The whole complex is broken down into 19 different museums which include the National Air and Space Museum, the National Museum of Natural History, the National Zoo and the archive area which is not seen by the public. It is obvious that a good deal of the collection is organized by what museum it is housed in. What is amazing is that only a little amount of the collection is seen in these museums. The rest is archived for research.

Smithsonian Institution Website: http://www.si.edu/

Exercise 3 - Collection of Modern Tarot Decks

This collection of modern tarot decks was organized by Adam McLean, a well known researcher into alchemy, expert in emblematic symbolism, and accomplished artist. As of December 2010, this collection contained 2124 items.

I find this collection interesting because I have always been interested in tarot cards and their meaning. Another thing I found to be interesting is how difficult it is to study modern tarot since they are not collected by libraries. There is no way to see them except by purchasing copies. McLean's collection is now one of the largest most comprehensive collections of modern tarot.

If I were to describe the collector, Adam McLean, based on the fact that he collects tarot decks and is an artist, I would say he is probably a little eccentric. He probably has a very deep or dark side to him, since tarot cards are used to dig deep into someone's personal life and can bring out secrets. McLean may also be a bit extracted from society, as many serious artists tend to be.

This large collection can be categorized in many different ways. It can be organized by date, size, or country. It can also be organized by the type of tarot deck it is, such as high art tarots, mass market tarots, self published works, and gift and promotional tarots.