Internet and Chinese democracy

The Internet, as a new medium has great practical and potential impact on society.

One potential impact is the improvement that online space has made in public and private

discourse, providing the marketplace of ideas vital to a democracy. Chinese online space is acting as a public sphere that allows ordinary citizens to discuss public affairs. When the public opinion is strong enough, it can influence public policies to ensure that they reflect and match real public interests. This is a big step in the progress of democracy in China.

Before internet can be widely accessible to the public in early 1996., the predominant role of all media was as an organ of the party, with their political orientation and fundamental policies depending largely or totally on those of the Party . Media didn’t need to care too much about market or readership because they were financially supported by government subsidy. They functioned as tool for the Party and government to create and disseminate political propaganda, rather than acting as a public sphere for citizens to discuss public and political issues. 

The era when people blindly believe what the government tells them is over. Likewise, the era when the people are too afraid to speak out is also over.

Apple the Evil Cult

Some people say Apple is a cult and they certainly are. That is why no one can really compete with them because they don't understand what it means to be a cult.Apple is just competing against ordinary people and  almost always wins or at least wins in the public relations area.Apple is more than a cult because they are just as passionately loved by ordinary users as they are by the geeks. That makes them a religion.
So if you think religion is evil, then Apple pretty much is evil. You want technology heaven? You follow their path. That's how religions work. you got have the latest iphones, ipod, ipad, ipadmini, "wait, you don't use apple product, what is wrong with you?" 
That's the deal we make with regular belief systems and Apple will not change any more than your favorite religion will. At least not fundamentally. So if you are talking about competing with Apple then you'll need some religion of your own because you can't seriously do this by numbers, or by the book.
Look at Microsoft - they were never better than Apple - but they got richer because they were anointed by a higher Power a/k/a IBM which gave them the exclusivity of owning their operating system.
So all those Google/Android/Palm Pre iPhone wannabes take heed. You can do OK against Apple by offering better features, better mobile carriers, lower prices and blah blah blah. But you can't win unless get a higher power to anoint you. Become the official phone of the Obama White House with one free call to the man. Or put yourself at the heartbeat of youth culture , say, by buying up every major record label and film company. Or better than that, finance their talent directly..... Or pay for every kid's online college education.
we all domed! dame you apple!

Wonderful Smart Phones

Smart phones are now an essential tool in our society, In Ireland in the past few years the number of smart phone users has also increased dramatically, iphone, blackberry, samsung galaxy, just few brands of smart phones in our society. They become integrated part of a person’s daily life and they are with us where ever we go. On the bus or train, reading newspapers, is becoming a thing of the past, catching up on the latest business news you increasingly see people with their smart phones, downloading and picking up important emails before they even get into the office. Lunch break in a park or waiting in a queue, people can pay their bills without physically going to the bank or post office, even in the gym when people are exercising they can check up on the baby sitter through live video feed.

Before smart phones, in the “old days” about ten years ago, in order to achieve multi functions such as today’s smart phone has you will need a computer, a camera, an mp3 or CD player, a game console and even more. Can you image to carry them everyday instead of a mobile phone? These days’ technologies have made our life so much simple and easier but also complicated more than ever the same time. As “the” technologies in our world, digital technologies are changing the way we conduct our private, social and business lives, and transforming our experience of media out of all recognition. Smart phones as part of digital technologies, it has made huge impact on our society.

Technology has always had an impact on society. First came the PCs that changed our life as we knew it. Then came along the mobile phones that transformed the way we communicated with each other. And finally came the smart phones that enabled us to do most of the things both the inventions did by just using one device. Nowadays there is an increased trend that more and more people have started to use smart phones. Their use has affected the society and culture in many ways, and lots those effects are in a good way. As time passes there will be new technologies to make them even “smarter”, the future is here today.

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Wonderful World Of CSS3

Spend whole Saturday doing CSS, and learned a bit RGBA colour from CSS3. Now it is 1 o’clock Sunday morning, I just want to shout to the world “I am the king of CSS.” I properly lost you there, just let me start from the beginning.

I am not computer type of guy, but I am not totally useless either. I can download software and install them, I can fix common problem with computer. Sometime I just use internet to find solutions to my problem. If it is more than that, that will be the job for my friends. But generally speaking I am comfortable enough with computer.

But that has changed since I encountered css:my new enemy, two weeks ago. As soon as I get bit comfort with it, more css storms my brain, leave me defenseless. Don’t worry, as a mature and responsible man, I will not give up I will fight. So Saturday afternoon I’ve decided to spend a bit time with my enemy, get to know it, figure a way to beat it.

The first hour is unbearable, nothing is make scene, and my enemy is fighting back on every inch of the battlefield. In the end there is no surprise, I failed. But don’t worry I managed set up a defensive line and holding the remaining battlefield. Maybe css won the battle but I will win the war.

After a quick bit and few cans of red bull, I was ready to fight again. As soon as I rally all my brain cells, we entered enemy territory again. Imagining thing happened, everything starts to make scene, and everything becomes clear to me, css doesn’t scares me anymore. My enemy was retreating and I was marching towards victory with my head held high. By the time before dinner I have already had sew css exercises done. Oh man that felling is good. While my enemy is completely conquer by me, then I’ve decide to dig up some hidden treasures hide by the enemy. I always want to design a website that looks very professional, with cool background and transparent page, but it was going nowhere from the beginning, it looks like my enemy is not ready to give up yet. Then a knight in shinny armor appeared; RGBA colour from css3.it was a lifesaver. With no time I had a beautiful web designed. You know what if css3 is a girl I would marry her.

I am going to bed now, I will have a beautiful bream, a beautiful dream about css3. 

HELVETICA

Watched a film in class this week, it is about a font; Helvetica. I have to say I was really enjoying it. Ok, if you were telling me I am going to enjoy a film about font two month ago, I will tell you that you are crazy. But two month on, I have never been so passionate about font, about graphic design. Suddenly everything I have learned in the past starts to make scene now. I never can imagine font can be so beautiful, can be so expressive. In the past I never look them twice, back then in my mind only graphics are graphic design. Think of somebody sitting in front a desk design font for a living, one word usually pots in my head “loser”. Man, can I be more wrong?

So far Helvetica is my favorite font, properly because I have always been a fan of minimalism, from architecture to design.

The development and growth of Helvetica was very much a product of modernism. Developed by Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann in 1957 for the Haas Type Foundry in Münchenstein, Switzerland, Helvetica had all the qualities to become one of the most successful fonts in the history of font design. Though it was originally called Neue Hass Grotesk, in 1960 the font was renamed the more internationally-friendly, Helvetica - the Latin name for Switzerland.

Helvetica captured the modernist preference for using clarity and simplicity to suggest greater ideas. The fact is that the typeface is so clean-cut and simple means that it can be used as a neutral platform for a wide variety of settings; it is the particular context and content of the messages that convey their meaning.

These days Helvetica is everywhere, as part of Swiss design, you can find them on road sighs, cooperate logs, government buildings, and just let me say it again, they are everywhere. Its success ultimately becomes its problem. Because it is everywhere, so many designs end up really feed up with it.  A famous example of this was when David Carson, a leading proponent of deconstructive typography, produced an infamous edition of his über trendy design magazine Raygun. When a commissioned piece on the musician Bryan Ferry came in, Carson thought it so dull that he set the copy in Dingbats – a typeface used to display shapes and symbols – thus making the article totally unreadable!

I am not saying typefaces shouldn’t be expressive at all, like the “god “of graphic design Massimo Vignelli said, but David Carson? Really?

The invention of language and words only service one purpose that is “communicate”, typefaces are the style of fonts and words, they should have the same function. One day when you find typefaces no longer make scene at all, that will be a tragedy, who ever is doing this, it is considered as cultural vandalism.

Eventually, when the public could no longer handle the often illegible work of designers like Carson, clear typefaces like Helvetica, once more will found new followers. 

Long live of Helvetica! (Ha-ha, only joking)

Discussion About Design

Had an interesting discussion with a friend of mine; a graphic designer.

He considers  vague, meaningless as the measure of a success design. Even his own work is like that, don’t get me wrong, he has some good designs, but you have to really go beyond graphic to understand its meaning. He often uses the word “elegance” to describe his work. Ok, maybe he is an artist, but what is the point to design something that mass audiences can not understand. Somebody like my friend may say that’s the expression of his thoughts and his feelings, but the problem with people like my friend is that they are intentionally design something like this because they think they are artists, they are better than general public. They are intentionally looking down on the general public, in their mind, if the public don’t understand their works that’s because they are not intellectual enough, because through history all the great artists were ahead their times.

Is that true?

Today we are living in a commercial driven world, there is no denying that there are muss produced soulless graphic designs purely for commercial reasons, but that is no excuse to looking down on the public, no excuse to design something meaningless, vague, nobody can understand. Maybe some designs make scene to the designer, but it doesn’t matter how good a designer he or she is, he or she fails the first rule as a designer. Massimo Vignelli wrote these in his book “Semantics, in design, means to understand the subject in all its aspects; to relate the subject to the sender and receiver in such a way that it makes sense both.”

This is the essence of graphic design, it is graphic designer’s duty to design something that has a meaning, that is not arbitrary, that has a reason of being there, and that every detail in the graphic has a purpose. Don’t looking down to the public, because nobody or few understands doesn’t make it art, it just makes the design ignorant and foolish.

So next time if somebody looking down on you just because you don’t understand something that he or she calls art, you just tell them “You are an ignorant and foolish human being.”       

Reasons Behind This Course

The reason I chose GCD is quite simple. I used to be a interior architecture student here, even though this is not the best organized college in the world, I can’t speak for everyone but personally I had very good experience in here, in terms of tutors and some of the design work I’ve done.

Also there is another story behind this whole motivation of getting a master degree.

I had a discussion with my mum two month ago about plans for the future, she suggested that I get a master degree and come home, as a mummy’s boy such like myself, I didn’t even put up much fight before I gave in. There is no significant meaning so far.

Why did I choose Digital Media? That is a good question. That is a question I never ask myself. There is not much similarity between Design and Digital media except few soft wares. Few weeks ago I don’t even know what digital media is all about, but after one and half week, I have a new understanding of digital media, and it is the right course for me.

We are living in a digital age, a new era. Nothing is ever the same as fifteen twenty years ago.

Mp3 player can allow us store thousands of songs but only size of a pen, we can use digital camera to capture thousands of image and make our own video without cost a fortune. You can share photos with your friends on facebook, video chart on line with you family, or some girl who you claim to be you girlfriend, catch up the latest movie and current events on your couch on your convenience. These are only few things that we benefit from the digital age, there is so much more.

Love it or hate it, we are in the middle of this new era, we just have to embrace it, get to know it, learn how to master it before it abandons us.

That is why I think it is the right course for me.