Hoping New Hampshire Sees Greater Turnout Than This
January 7th, 2008 by Dan Meyer
Alright, with a week remaining, it's a two-party fight between Alice Mercer:
and Tom Woodward:
The turnout confirms what I suspected going in: this design challenge is prohibitively challenging. Colossal TA Katy awaits your submissions nevertheless.
It’s always a two-party fight in this country.
You’d think we be past all that in these here parts.
#1 – I was one of the first entrants in your last contest, but many more followed.
#2 – If not, the timing may have been off, because most of us are returning to school (that’s why I knocked mine off so quickly).
#3 – I would say that Tom’s got me beat on sheer design.
mercer is right, the timing is that i just traveled 20 hours back to asia and have this thing called “work”.
but i’m going to submit an entry. i plan on using every hour of the deadline; i’ll post it online monday morning hk time.
I probably should have used more of the time allotted but I had some fun and it made me think. Plus, I’m now totally dissatisfied with flirckr stats.
I’m gathering an arsenal of data logging applications as we speak (can I use that phrase while typing?). I may have to do this on fairly regular basis.
I need more time–I’m in the percolating phase.
I have at least two of my graphics mentally designed, but I’m pretty sure I won’t get the actual stats in time for the deadline, never mind actually figure out how to get them from my brain into the computer. (Midterms this week, friends from out of town this weekend, grades due Monday…put me down for another vote with the timing.)
Whether or not I get them in time for the deadline here I want to make them for myself. If that’s not a quality assignment, I’m not sure what is.
Tom, your look is really fantastic but I would love to see your numbers better reflect how awesome what you’ve done with those photos is. With the flickr, I would love to see you emphasize the “value” of your photography by emphasizing the views, and how many of your photos are favorites. Those numbers are SO physically small while the sheer number of photos is given a graph. The number of your photos is not nearly as impressive (it is impressive) as how beautiful (and well thought of by others) they are.
I’ll be re-looking at my “look” and “style” issues, and I may find some newer, more striking examples. I’m thinking black/white and greytones and ditching all the color except the photos and one spot color. My design eye is decent, but not great, and not a spot on yours.
I’ve been perusing websites from other elementary schools in the area preparing to launch a Website for my school. I will not share with you the HORROR that is considered “good design” in elementary schools. Banner text, and animated lettering is the rule. ARGHHHH!
Ugh. Timing was clearly off. For the record, the back-to-school crunch was a consideration but, uh, when else are you gonna run an annual reportage contest? Freakin’ March?! Such are the soul-squashing dilemmas faced by the informal-blog-run-contest organizer.
@ A Mercer-
that’s one of the problems I found with flickr. There’s no real way to delineate by time. Until fairly recently you couldn’t get any decent stats at all.
In order to get the photos by year I had to go in by hand and essentially count them. I’d hop back by ten or so pages at a time for the big account and check the dates until I hit 06 and then add the stragglers. Ugly.
It’ll be more interesting next year. I may end up doing some visual report on just flickr in the coming months and using the pictures as part of it.