Professional Practices Journal
July 1rst
Four Website Design Companies
Level 10 Design
www.leveltendesign.com
This company boasts how they use a team of highly trained experts to create a website for a client that contains many key components that other sites usually lack.
4 Guys Interactive
www.4guys.com
This company creates websites for industry-leading businesses in the U.S. and Canada. Their process for creating the website starts with the Strategy step, which involves them planning out the entire project, working with the client to help define their mission, goals and how to measure success for the project. The next step is Exploration where they determine the basic look and feel of the website. The next step is Development where they begin to make the website. The last step is Launch where they put the website to a server and make it live.
Q Industries
www.q-industries.com
This company creates engaging, interactive websites mostly for businesses. They begin with Strategy by consulting the client and mapping out their business goals, allowing them to measure the results. Then they create an innovative design using state-of-the-art technology.
Infocreek.com
www.infocreek.com
This company creates professional, affordable websites. First they analyze the client, asking them about themselves and how they want to use the website. Then they design the website for the client keeping functionality and ease of operation in mind.
July 7th
First group meeting today. I was not able to attend due to a doctor’s appointment. We decided upon creating an advertising campaign for a game that my company would release, named Outbound. One idea involved posters and jewel cases for the game. Another idea was to create a commercial for the game. The last idea was to create a website for the game.
July 9th
We changed our project to creating a new game system that will be releasing the game, Outbound. The game system is a next gen system, with its main feature being the built in screen. The screen is a 180 degree dome-like screen that curves around the player. It will simulate more of an actually degree of vision while playing games, rather than the flat view most gamers are used to. When someone in the game comes at you from your left, they actually come from your left. The screen will be compatible with normal movies and pictures. It will have an auto-correcting feature that will allow you to watch movies, without them seeming like they’re curved with the screen. The system will also have usb ports, firewire, and an sd slot.
July 14th
DigmTech – my company
Digital Contour Inc. (DCI) – their company
Digital Arc (DArc) – Name of game system
We figured out more defined aspects of the game system, DArc. Estimated prices based off of the costs of the same size TVs.
July 16th
Met with the group today. Went over the budget and costs of everything. We decided how many of the product we would make, what types of advertising we were going to do and what our timeline for advertising would be.
July 20th
Today I went to the beach in Ocean City, NJ with my girlfriend and a bunch of people from school. Had a great time. There were nine of us in total, split between two cars. It was a nice day with the exception of the water being numbingly cold. We spread out towels and blankets on the beach, ate lunch and lounged around in the sand for a few hours.
For future reference:
Make sure enough suntan lotion is applied before falling asleep on the beach…
Sunburn is going to hurt tomorrow.
July 25th
I had to create a letter for our group, asking for venture capital so we can technically have a budget. I wasn’t sure how to go about asking for venture capital so I googled it.
Wikipedia basically just gave a history and definition of venture capital.
“Before World War II, venture capital investments (originally known as "development capital") were primarily the domain of wealthy individuals and families. It was not until after World War II that what is considered today to be true private equity investments began to emerge marked by the founding of the first two venture capital firms in 1946: American Research and Development Corporation.”
Then I decided to define my search a bit more and looked for how venture capital works. That led me to this link which explained more to me about how venture capital works and how it’s used to make money. http://money.howstuffworks.com/question398.htm
It was similar to what we discussed in class where a venture capital firm will invest in a business, basically gambling on whether or not the business will succeed or fail. If the business fails, the venture capitalist gets nothing in return, but if it succeeds and “goes public” (selling shares in a stock exchange) then the venture capitalist makes money.
Although I was learning more about how venture capital works, I still wasn’t sure how to go about requesting for it. I defined my search more, this time searching for requesting venture capital, which brought me a venture capitalist’s website that told people what they wanted to know when being asked for venture capital. www.colemanswenson.com/request.htm
I used this as a reference while writing the letter requesting for venture capital. I wrote about who I was, what my company is, and the business plan for the upcoming Project DArc that we wish to produce and release to the public.
As for the name of the venture capitalist that I was writing to, I got the name from one of my favorite shows, The Venture Bros. The show is a spoof of many old cartoons. A majority of the jokes seem to be based on the old Johnny Quest cartoons. The Venture Bros. is about a super-scientist dad, Dr. Thaddeus Venture; his two less intelligent sons, Hank and Dean; and the family bodyguard and secret agent, Brock Samson. I used Dr. Venture as the venture capitalist because of having the name Venture and ironically because in the show he usually does not have much money due to his failing experiments and creations, ending up trying to get money from the government.
August 1rst
I hear it’s good luck to if the first thing you say on the first day of the month is “rabbit rabbit.”
Rabbit Rabbit
August 2nd
The group decided not to meet this week. We all feel what we have left to do, we can all work on our own and show in class next week. I have written a letter asking for venture capital this past week. Now I have to go about writing letters requesting for the cooperation of IMAX for the use of their dome-shaped movies, and the cooperation of WB for the release of The Dark Knight as one of the movies released with the DArc. Also I have to find out how long it will take to create a video game, how many will be available upon release of the DArc, and how many will come out after the DArc is released.
August 6th
Today for class we had to choose a website and answer the following questions about it:
- Who is the target audience for the site?
- What do you think is the objective the site is trying to accomplish?
- If there was one thing you would change about the site, what and why?
The website I chose was www.ign.com
- Who is the target audience for the site?
- What do you think is the objective the site is trying to accomplish?
- If there was one thing you would change about the site, what and why?
The target audience is anyone interested in video games and/or current media entertainment.
I think IGN is trying to relay information to its viewers. The website is full of articles and viewer posted information.
I think the website is very cluttered right now. A change I would suggest would be to clean up the layout and organize it in a way to add some more space. Possibly tabs.
August 14th
So apparently my doctor’s cousin works for an animation company in New York, Curious Pictures. They do all sorts of things, like “Codename: Kids Next Door” and “Sheep in the Big City” that were cartoons on Cartoon Network. My doctor got me his email and I’m going to contact him about a possible internship in the future.
August 25th
Met with the group today. Got the presentation ready for Wednesday. Decided to think about it until then and meet early before class and make changes if we want.