Interpretations of a Briefing
 

I don't know how many of you are professional/semi pro designers in the real world, but one thing I've come accross numerous times is the way different people interperet the same briefing, and the Chinese Wispers effect.

You can have a design briefing for the project, send off two designers, both will come back with something completely differenet, and also totally not what you were asking for. And if you have an intemediatary layer, things are worse you get 'Chinese Wispers' you know that game? Sit in a circle, wisper a message to one person, they wisper on what they heard and it goes round, the last person says allowed what they heard, and it's nothing like the original.

ANYWAY, as I waffle along in a whole new drivel.

This gave me an idea for a project. Interpretations of a Briefing. The idea being, get a quick overview description of what a skin should be, kind of theme, and so on, and everyone go off and make a skin to that design, without discussing it with each other. Probably only to the first prototype stage makes sense to start with, and then all post up what the skin came out like. It'll be interesting to see how people come up with different ideas from exactly the same text. Cultural differneces and so on.

Anyone interested? I think it could be a very cool thing to see.

very interested, but absolutely no time. Sorry Mike. :( Maybe Christmas?

sounds cool.. but put the deadline far far away please..

thats actually a great idea

Sounds fun.:)

are u going to organize/run it Mike? doesnt seem like you're here often enough

I'm in (if I have time). If it happens are you gonna submit them as a "Variations Upon A Theme" skin pack?

Great idea, put it this Winter or something....
One more thing, instead of making 20 Winamp skins, how about making a suite which will include some other programs (Beatnik, XX Calc, Cool Player, Shitique, Windows Lag Player etc.

I'm here deceptivley frequently ;)

Mainly I lurk, but I am here.

I was just away for 2 1/2 weeks on holiday. But I'm not having any more time off until Christmas, when I'll be at home, and so online a lot anyway (and coding!)

And in three weeks, my 9 months of being on-site finally comes to an end and I'll be back to my old style of coding, slacking and surfing at work a lot more so rest assured I'll be around.

Ok, I'll write up a briefing now, and some rules, and a first idea of a deadline. The rules are open to discussion, as is the deadline. The briefing is open to a few questions.

Interpretations of a Briefing

The aim of this project, is to show how different people interperate the same thing differently, just for the sake of interest really. The idea is to take the design brief bellow and design some skins that match it as far as you the skinner are concerned. Then look at all the different things that come out of it.

Rulez

• Adhere to the briefing where it is specific.
• Interpret the briefing as you like where it is not specific
• Each skinner may submit as many skins as they like.
• Skins do not have to be complete (see note 1).
• No art work may be taken from anything you don't own (see note 2).
• Your work should be kept secret from other users (See note 3).
• Collaborations are allowed, however only work in one collaboration.

Any other suggestions for rules?

Deadline

Firstly, noting that skins don't have to be finished, I suggest perhaps end of the month as a deadline, this isn't a competition, just an interesting exercise really. Does anyone want to extend that? I'm open to that idea, as it's just an interesting exercise.

Briefing

The skin is to be called, "Interpretations of a Briefing" with skinner name variants. The words Interpretations of a Briefing, or some logo, or accronym invoving "Interpretations of a Briefing" must be included somewhere on the skins. For example, you may use something like "IoaB" on the skins.

The skins should avoid as much as possible skin clichés. As such, the following effects are not wanted:

• Metal
• Standard LCD display
• Plastic appearence

The skins should be contemporary in design. No retro look and feel, and should not be a skin to promote a brand, product, person etc. It's a skin for the concept. The design must be original.

It is essential that the controls are all available, and easy to find and use for a winamp newbie, however this does not mean you are constrained to the standard concepts of buttons as used in the base skin. Merely that the switch of concept should be as easy as possible for the user.

The skin should feel 'clean' to the user, and not be over cluttered. The skin should also not be dark. It should be clean, clear cut, and 'friendly' to the user. Not dark, industrial type stuff.

Is that enough? Do you want more?

Notes

1) Skins do not have to be complete.

When giving a design briefing to an agency, it is normal to see some concept works before chosing a concept to expand on and give more feedback. So to raise interest (and get more offerings) we'll do that. By the deadline, you don't have to finish the skin. Just effectivly a graphic that is the screen shot of the skin is all that is needed. But feel free to produce full skins.

It may be a cool idea to take the concepts, and give them to other skinners to adjust to 'managment feedback' expand and complete. That could be interesting too...

2) No artwork should be taken from anything you don't own.

When a design agency is commisioned to produce some graphics for someone, they can't go steal copyrighted images from anyone, or use other company logos. Imagine this is commercial work for a real new company, coming up with their new brand image.

3) Your work should be kept secret from other users.

The idea is that this is your interpretation of the briefing, you're not going to give anyone that if you're all looking over each other's shoulders. The idea is to see how different you all are.

I decided you can collaborate, but if you do, keep it secret from everyone else, and do not collaborate with more than one partnership (tho if you all wanted to work in one group that would be fine, but pointless!)

Comment?

Looks like I can't use Moon Amp or Lara Amp for this :D:D :D:D:D.