Following on from advice at the i-design portfolio clinic, I began to explore how I could add emotional content to the site.  I had already considered that I would like to include user-input.  By creating a community side to the site, users would be able to rate venues, and add tags to describe their experiences.  These tags would be uploaded in to a section called ‘emotions’, where a stream of the tags would flow across the window, allowing the user to choose the sort of vibe they’re looking for.

As part of London i-design I went to the portfolio clinic, for recent graduates and students.  There was the opportunity to speak to some major London-based digital companies, including some of the speakers from the day.  It was very busy, and pretty much a free-for-all, but I did manage to speak to Imagination, AIG and Tribal DDB.

The majority of my feedback was positive, to keep working on the sort of projects I had been doing, and keep building up my portfolio.  Imagination did mention that the way I presented my work wasn’t very concise.  As I had a range of different programs showing my work (flash player, quicktime, acrobat) they suggested I could present each piece as a pdf, with a brief explanation, and then show the piece in its actuality.  I think this could really help me, as I’m not the most natural public speaker, and when nervous I can lose drift of what I’m saying.   However, in an actual interview I would show my work in a portfolio, and then go to the piece on my computer, but there wasn’t room for this at the portfolio clinic.

I showed each company the work I was doing at the moment, and received some really useful insights in to how I could expand the projects.

Pixel City:

Tribal DDB suggested I make adding more emotional searches to it, as in ‘turn-it-up’, ‘turn-it-down’, relating to how heavy a night you wanted.

I did originally think of having options like ‘cool’, ‘happy’, to filter what sort of vibe you wanted the venue to have.  However, that brings up the issues of personal opinions - what some people consider to be ‘cool’ isn’t what others consider it to be.  Although I did think that the sort of Agnys Dean scene (sorry!) is generally recognised as being cool, even though its not what I’m in to.

Malcolm Garrett at AIG suggested different formats the map could be in, as in what landmarks to look out for nearby, as I had done in the way-finding section of the Virgin in-flight screens.

Virgin In-Flight Screens:

AIG liked how the screens offered a practical alternative to the usual selection of mediocre films available, and thought Virgin was a great choice as they are a relatively innovative brand.  They mentioned how cameras had been placed under the plane before, but combined with the google earth view it gave it relevance and perspective.  The overall vibe I got from AIG was to be quite experimental about the ideas, I had been designing it quite clinically - exactly how it would look and work including designing the page where movies and other existing entertainment would be accessed.

The BBC reviewed the day, including the portfolio clinic and a little picture of me whilst I was speaking to Tribal DDB.

My website was also featured in the gallery, unfortunately I wasn’t named, but I did get a nice comment.

The original idea for this came from Hi-Res!’ Meet Your City website for Nokia.  When I’m going to a new city I always trawl through endless lists on websites beforehand, to find out where to go out and where the good shops are.  Timeout guides are great for general information, but I’ve lost count of the times I’ve tried to go to a club they’ve recommended and its shut down.  The best I’ve found is superfuture, but you still have to go through all the links to find exactly what you want.  (They do have a new ‘megasite’ in construction though, so maybe this will improve things.)

The idea is that you select options from the submenu to specify which venues show up, for example you might what to find a moderately priced club that plays dance music and serves real ale (although I doubt there would be many results for that!).

Something that I am considering at the moment is how this could include user input, superfuture listings can be added by users.  The problem with this would be that it would rely on users inputting correct information in to all of the categories.  There could be a community side to the site, and some entries could be filtered through to the main page.