DIGITAL ARTEFACT

This semester took a completely different approach to any learning style I was already accustomed to at uni, however, the experience proved to be very interesting and valuable in adding to my scope of education.  Throughout the thirteen weeks I reviewed new technology and became comfortable with the utilisation of these in order to produce tangible creative pieces. Whilst also becoming familiar with the design process of formulating these. Overall, the learning session was extremely peer and group orientated which initially pushed me outside my comfort zone but made sense and was quite supportive and beneficial in moving through tasks and assessments collectively. With studying emergent media, we obviously utilised a lot of mediums within this category. Available technology of this nature included several different programs and machinery that students made use of. However, specific to myself I employed design programs, description and writing generators, machinery, and website generation channels throughout the semester.

 

In the initial weeks of the term, we undertook a personal project in order to familiarise ourselves with the available emerging technological components. This was seen not only as an initial ‘familiarity testing prototype’ but also as our first assessment. This process allowed me to workshop the different modal media to determine what works best for my skill set; ultimately aiding the creation of my final assessment. To start this process, I first elected to design my image concepts using MidJourney as this program allows you to easily manipulate and skew ideas in the direction you choose. This was a software I hadn’t used before and due to my immense unfamiliarity with this particular IT project, MidJourney was extremely beneficial in creating my conclusive design. To further this, once I had my project idea and chosen a creative direction, I constructed the outline in Beam Studio to resemble my desired shape. From here, artistic decisions were made such as the physical design material that would be used, size bearings, and if further components would be added as a stylised feature. Ultimately, this process led to the creation of a wooden bookmark that was manufactured using the laser cutting machine. After completing this initial assessment and tool exploration, we moved onto the formulation of our collective digital artefacts.

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From here added components were included in the process. We had to formulate marketing tools for our product, and further uphold these, whilst also undertaking the creative design and tangible development process. One of my biggest learning moments was in the creation of my bookmark. It was amazing to see my product concept come to life, however, during this process I discovered that this style of product wasn’t the market I most thrived in, and moreover, I wanted to go further and explore other technology such as the sublimation printer. As a result, the product my team created was a clothing line called ‘Emergent Clothing’ – a nod to the developmental tools utilised and subject basis. Our brand featured t-shirt lines characterising specific collisions of unrelated musical genres for our niche audience. A second key learning moment to note was regarding the application of my strengths in this process, from the initial assessment I learnt I didn’t have the patience required or correct technique to appropriately succeed in the design formulation aspect, however I realised I strongly favoured website creation and design, and instead chose to contribute to this assessment that way. Emerging media tools such as chatGPT aided in the formulation of product descriptions and text mock-ups, whilst website generation templates helped to stylise our platform and selling-based store.

 

The developing defined social utility for our project is to explore an identified gap in the market regarding cross-genre clothing design, and to provide enjoyers of multiple facets with a brand that caters directly to their tastes. The sustainability of our clothing and brand itself is quite high as there are constantly new ideas, creations and collisions of genres occurring constantly; even possessing the capability to venture further than genres but to specific artists and songs themselves, which demonstrate the same ideologies of our brand. However, these can both be developed and impacted by market competitiveness and our dedication and commitment to the upkeep and continuity of our label. To ensure our project was well rounded I conducted some initial context research and found several sources that aided in building my understanding and knowledge around the topic. These included, Malin Picha Edwardsson and Daniel Pargmans ‘Explorative Scenarios of Emerging Media Trends’ (2014) to explore other possible scenarios of creativity with emerging media; Barney Darwin’s ‘Politics and Emerging Media: The Revenge of Publicity’ (2008) for the issues and risks regarding emergent media; MSSMedia’s ‘What Is Emerging Media & How Should You Use It?’ for context on the subject matter; Beatrice Kariuki ‘6 Emerging Printing Technology Trends for Modern Business’ (2023); to hone in on our clothing brand idea; and Thiago Veloso’s ‘10 Emerging Technologies That Are Revolutionizing the Media Industry’(2022) to explore other components that we could have incorporated into our project.

 

Lastly, inspiration for our brand was predominately sourced from existing clothing websites who produced band and music paraphernalia but with a varying approach to our designs. This was to see what else was popular in the market and if there was a starting point for us somewhere here. These included, Bandtshirts.com.au, whose designs take up a similar simplistic concept as ours; Rockabilia.com, these designs are a lot more immersive to the shirts than ours but are a great reference; Threadheads.com.au, who take a comedic approach to their designs; Jbhifi.com.au, whose clothing is very stock standard and expected; and finally, CultureKings.com.au, who showcase a variety of clothing and demonstrate potential business expansion.

 

Overall, this semester was a great addition to my learning experience and provided valuable insights to technology and tools available to me, that I otherwise would have never experienced.