Nov 1 - Methodology + Video

For class, we started with a discussion of what methodology is. Immediately with the word -ology, I thought the definition of methodology as "the study of methods." As with all cases of defining a word in the class , we broke the word down to have a clear understanding of the definition. So we first looked at other words that have "-ology" and the definition of it (ex. mythology, psychology, biology, etc.). "-ology" is a "body, a set of beliefs, or a specific group within." Then we looked at the word "method" as "ways of doing things, procedures, techniques", completing the definition of the methodology as study of methods / procedures - series of actions in series of orders to get consistent result. As designers, we have to use different methods in the design approach for producing our designs (brainstorm, sketch, etc). If the result is not what we wanted nor successful, then a different method would need to be used, since the design have to be smart, beautiful, relevant, appropriate, and fun to make.

Next, we watched a short film by Saul Bass called Why Man Creates. The video was very humorous and entertaining while showing the series of process of exploration of creativity. The introduction of the video had a cute animation that shows a quick history in time, kinda reminded me a school house rocks style. The series of process of creativity were the following:
1. edifice    (def- An elaborate conceptual structure)
2. fooling around: sometimes idea start that way
3. the process      (building blocks and not giving up)
4. the judgment       (criticism / positive / negative)
5. a parable       (def: A simple story illustrating a moral lesson)
6. A Digression    (losing thought or focus of idea)
7. the search: work in progress on new ideas   
Throughout the video, few words were surprisingly spoken as the rules were written down and visual clips were used in examples for each point. The video was entertaining and education, and I liked it very much.

The class then did a quick overview look everyone's homework of doing sketches of 10 original games. For my own share, I honestly have maybe 4-5 that I put some thoughts into it and the rest were just random ideas. My sketches mainly have rules/explanations and stick figures for illustrations. It was interesting to see what the other people thought of, there were a mix of creativity, uniqueness, simplicity and repetitiveness. For the judgment, everyone had to choose the best original games of each individual for only 20 min. Not enough for everybody to explain their 10 games. In the end, the best games chosen for the voting poll were Tumble-Topple (balancing marbles on unstable levels), Pandemonium ( combination of charades and maze), Who Took the Cookies? ( not being the last one to have the cookie card with maze). The winner was Cee with Pandemonium, I guess since charades is a classic game and simple. It was still a fun and challenging activity, just wished we have more time to go over all the games...

Our next homework is to have 10 images for one of the deadly sins: lust, wrath, pride, sloth, greed, gluttony, and envy. Similar to our previous homework of 10 images for one message, so it have to be indirect.