Entry 7： Why Typography is Important

  Presenting a good work is not only the matter of the content of the work but also the form how it exhibit to the audience. That is to say, typography can be as important as the words you put in the article.
  This context clarifies these following issues: what is typography, importance of typography, identification of typography, the audience of typography and rules of typography.
  In this chapter, i've learnt that typograhy is the visual component of the written words. It can be art to help render the words in a fashion style, but more important is its utilitarian goals to attract the audience's attention. When you want to achieve the goal to benefit the reader, you, as a writer or typographer should start from the perspective of the readers and to ask yourself what the actual readers want and to cater to them rather than simply satisfy yourself or satisfy the idealized readers in your own mind. So from my own experience when i serve as a reader, i tend to be likely to pay more attention on the article that is easy to follow in terms of the physical design as it can save more extra time to read more instead of putting more effort on one essay. So, typography is one of the tools that help you to cnserve the attention from the readers to your messages you want to deliver. It is mentioned in the context that good typography reinforces the meaning of the text/good typography supports and reinforces the message. A suitable typography can help emphasize the importance for the readers and make the readers to think the works they read are worthy for the time as they can easily get the points and learn from them.
  From my point of view, to be a skilled typographer, you should be deeply understand the goals of the text, and depends on that you are more likely to produce a good typography that can attract the attention of the audience as well as cater to them.

Entry #6: Reflect on your experience as an audience:

1. How was the infographic different from the video lecture?
The infographic is very visible and very point is shown clearly on the same page, which can help you to save much time when you're busy. In addition, the infographic is static and the information is delivered without the interaction with the audience or readers. In infographic, many detail are left out while in the video there are more explanation for you to get more things.

2. Which kind of information is easier for you to comprehend?
The information in the infographic is easier for me to comprehend.
As in the infographic, the points are clearly listed out in separate space and numbered respectively. In addition, it also applies the pictures to vividly show us what's going on and what's the whole process looks like. Every single word in this infograpic are the important words that are not wordy for me to read, i can easily understand the content. When speaking of the video, i have to say, the joke or every movement he made can be a factor that distract my attention from
the content of the delivery, and as it takes me almost 19 minutes to watch it, it easy for me to forget the information he delivered before.

3. Which was a more enjoyable experience?
I enjoy the video better because it contains interactions which can bring me with a lot of fun such as the joke the speaker has said. It's a process, we can watch, we can learn along with feeling the charm of the speaker who uses his movement, his changes in the pitch of the voice and his expression to motivate me and to impress me. It's bidirectional interaction that can greatly impress me rather than unidirectional learning whose content i may forget in just a few days.

Entry 5

http://www.newdream.org/results/infographics-shorter-workweek

INFOGRAPHIC SERIES: The Benefits of a Shorter Workweek

1) Outline the infographic essay

1. Overwork in the U.S compared to other countries.

2. Health impacts of overwork.

3. Work-Life balance.

4. The lack of vacation time for overwork workers.

5. The bad environment overwork has brought to our life.

2) Provide the Rhetorical Situation of this essay

• Purpose: to call for shorter workweek for people.
• Audience: the people with a job and the government.
• Stance: objective with evidence
• Genre: analysis
• media/design: online website. Text and picture.

3) While you are only outlining the essay--not writing it word-for-word--you can still get a feeling for what this essay would look like. How is the infographic different from the traditional essay you outlined?

It is more visualized than the traditional essay. It leaves out many useless words but with the clear picture. In addition, it consists with pictures and texts, and is more eye-catching and easier to remember and focus on the emphasis of the writer of which people are more willing to read.

4) Strengths and weaknesses of the infographic: what does the infographic do better than the essay? What does the essay do better than the infographic?

Strengths: more visualized and direct, and more flexible as you can use texts, pictures, graph and so on in different colors. More brief, you can leave out useless words. And it is suitable for people from more range in ages.

Weaknesses: essay can describe more details and more persuasive than infographic. Compared with the academic essay, the infographic seems to be too easy for the educated people as they will get less information than in an academic essay.

5) How does this qualify as an essay and not a series of pictures?

It has the construct of an essay, such as the introduction, the body and the conclusion and it also has the elements of an essay, such as purpose, stance, and theme. More importantly, we can get information from these infographics and learn something from it. 

Entry 4

response to  "Searchin'" by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson

  Music is about a personal experience. The appearance of the new technology has changed our relationships with music. It’s easy to get a song at present than it in the past, we just need to think, type, and retrieve, which can hardly be regarded as a revolution in our life. As a result, it seems rare for us to fall in love with a song and album as the feeling originally gotten in the process of finding a new music disappears in our life. However, we cannot deny that the technology indeed brings along with the convenience to us, of which we should take advantage of. Also, the fun of finding music can also be associated with the new technology if only you use it in a proper way. For example, You can follow your favorite act on soundcloud, creating your own radio station and subscribe to musicians you enjoy, which is also enjoyable.

  As for the form of presentation, the author has applied infographic in it and the colorful images have a huge impact to the readers. In my opinion, it is a bit like a mass for me for its confused organization.

Entry 3

I have to admit that data miner is a really powerful tool to analyze and process data collected from various website. As is shown in this work, which is the combination of words, pictures and statistics, the work shows in a clear way that how to attract others through algorithm method to find your significant other. There are 3 steps and many tips shown how to attract you target audience, using clear statistics and concise words and offer the reference for those to want to be popular.

If properly used, this technique can help us a lot in collecting information to benefit human-beings, such as in the area of health. However, there is a drawback of this that it will always stereotype one group. For instance, if it is shown that the most gays like Hawaiian shirt, it is easy for us develop a concept that a gay should wear Hawaiian shirt. In addition, if everyone follows the tips and steps, how does everyone differentiate from others? What if the majority of dudes wear the same-style clothes, snapped in the same angle and pose in the same way. Individuality is very significant element for every person to distinguish from others, why do we always label one group? 

Entry 2

The first appearance of Punk brought great shock to the majority, few people regarding it as art but labeling it with the word such as “crazy”. Public had no idea why young people were crazy about it as what they saw were the behaviors against the tradition. It seems to be a rule that most revolution begins along with the resistance and judgements from the public and acceptance is the process by time. Likewise, the idea of web 2.0 also need time to digest by people. The idea of web 2.0 was created by a specific group of people and then that idea grew into a movement, alike Punk was also a product by a specific group of people, who assigned the meaning of punk.

  The emergence of the web 2.0 and the punk are both product of the needs of the society. They have deeply reflected the features of the era. Web 2.0 appears when the web was faced with great crisis after the dotcom bust. Also, punk also mirrors the situation at that period when people needed to find an outlet to release themselves, and then there came the punk. We, as the generation live in 21the century, though don’t feel the power of Punk but know how amazing the web 2.0 is. Every change can result in a new world, just be astonished by it.

Entry 1

Summary: This article starts with the query of why does New York Times devote the front page to talk about a web site for advertisement for a car, and then introduces us the concept of a term: Social 3.0. It tells us what are the difference between web 2.0 and social 3.0, and what it will bring to us with the new thing.

Response: Social 3.0 software supports synchronous collaboration to collect the collective intelligence at the same time. The interaction of users will be more active as the information from others is received in real-time, synchronously and simultaneously. It indicates the coming of a new era, where web is no long a page but a platform where we can exchange our emotion, thoughts with others immediately. We are able to work with others in different location, so I think with the development of this technology, we will be more inspired to cooperate with others. I’m sure the interaction of the intelligence inside apps or on web page will build a more powerful world.