It's All About the Design

A well thought out design on screen is the key element to grasp your readers' attention. With the help of design principles, designer can determine the relationship between the parts or design elements involved and serve as rules that a designer can follow when combining these elements in a design ( Evans 2006). These design principles are balance, proportion, sequence and consistency.

To further illustrate the design principles of screen design, some examples from my presentation slides during a class presentation will be shown in this blog!

Slide 1

Slide 1 is the cover page of my whole presentation which consists of the title of the presentation, the readings supporting the facts in the slides and the name of the presenter (me). This shall give my audiences' a brief idea on what will be presented.

Slide 2

The document design in Slide 2 is plain and simple. "Simplicity" is important to attract readers to your document design. Readers prefers document designs which are orderly, clean, clutter-free with plain, simple English for easy reading (Slideshare 2009). In Slide 2, the texts of the slides are easily read, as it is in contrast with the dark background. This is preferred as it pleasant to the eyes of the readers. English Language used in this document design is simple and is broken down to point forms for easier understanding.

Therefore, document designers have to take priorities on the principles of document design on screen to be able to convey their messages effectively to their audiences. They must also take note that print and web differs from one another, and requires different techniques used to grasp the audiences' attention.

References
Evans, Poppy 2006, 'Chapter 2 and 5' in Publication Design, Thomson-Delmar, New York

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, t 2006, Reading Images : The Grammar of visual design, 2nd edn, Routledge, London

Slideshare 2009, ' Principles of Good Screen Design', viewed on 15 April 2010.

NEW TOYS!

New forms of media publishing is taking over the internet world! Here are the insights!

Have you heard of the new term 'tweeting'? For those who have, I bet you are probably a member of the twitter world where one 'tweets' about their thoughts and opinions and shares it with the world in a more personal manner.

Twitter is a form of micro blog which involves very short status updates, but without a doubt encourage interaction between individuals, near or far. With new technology such as Blackberry and Iphone, it is definitely easier for us to update our status on Twitter as well as comment on others.Furthermore, now we can share videos with others easily, just at a click of the mouse. Video blog is the key to our answer! Now, anyone can stream videos of themselves or anything in particular and share with the online world. The world-famous video blog site, YouTube 'Broadcast Yourself" became popular due to its user-friendly browsing and its wide range of videos made available for millions of viewers around the world.So, broadcast away!

References :
Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 2006, ‘Chapter 1: The semiotic landscape: language and visual communication’, Reading Images, 2nd edn, Routledge, New York.

Blogging crazy!

'Weblog' has become increasingly popular as the number of blogs online has bloomed over the past few years. As of December 2007, blog search engine, Technorati was tracking more than 112,000,000 blogs! ( David 2002).

With the popularity of blogs increasing, this provides a pathway to 'blogging communities' where readers are gathered and linked to blogs where they can share and discuss about the same topic of interest. Internet acting as the medium which connects all walks of life around the globe has made it easier for all to interact among one another, even if one is in India and the other in London.

The word 'community' best describe a group of people who come together to give support and share information together, in a way, giving each individual a sense of belonging and identity (The Travel Tart 2009). So, in the 'blog world', bloggers unite in an environment within the blogosphere, where there are active exchanges of ideas and support between readers and bloggers.Malaysia Blogger Community (MBC) aims to gather all Malaysian bloggers to create a healthy blog environment where bloggers and readers come together to discuss on a certain topic of interest. BlogCatalog aims to bring the world together,with the slogan ' We bring the voice of the people to you'. One can explore plenty in the blogosphere, ranging from music, travel, fashion to technology. This is definitely made easier for readers as they can pick from the many categories according to their main interest.
With all ideas from different cultures, we can change the world and make it a better place!

References
David S. 2002, 'Technorati' Sifry's Alerts, viewed on 9th April 2010,
http://www.sifry.com/alerts/

The Travel Tart 2009, ' What is a blogging community', viewed on 9th April 2010,
http://www.thetraveltart.com/what-is-a-blogging-community/

Types of blogs

There are different types of blogs to choose from, depending on bloggers' topic of interest and their targeted audiences. Personal blogs,professional blogs, corporate blogs and micro blogs are four types of blogs one can choose from, whether to 'typed' down their thoughts or just simply reading. With new effects created which let the bloggers insert photos,videos,music and nice background layout to make blogging a whole level of reading experience.

Personal blogs
In my opinion, personal blogs get the most attention from young readers, however there is no doubt that these blogs do attract readers from various age groups as well. One good example of a personal blog is our own Sarawakian boy, Kenny Sia who made a big name of himself just by just blogging!
For more information about Kenny's blog, visit http://www.kennysia.com.

Corporate blogs
Corporate blogs are published by an organization to achieve their organizational goals. Posts and comments are made easier to access due to centralized hosting and generally structured conversational threads. Tony Fernandez, the CEO of AirAsia is one of the top names who have involved himself in the corporate blog world. According to his first blog post-Welcome Aboard, the reason he setup this blog is to provide another platform to keep in touch with people despite his busy schedule. With the start of his blog - The Entrepreneur, I believe there will be more and more corporate CEO joining the boat soon! (Wong 2008).

Professional blogs

The main purpose of professional blogs are for professionals to share their knowledge and skills on their professional expertise. Usually, a professional blog focuses on one chosen industry, such as photography blogs and architecture blogs. Professional blogs are meant for readers to gain insights on a certain area of expertise that they are interested in.



Micro blogs
Micro blogs such as Twitter are dominating the cyber world and many use these blogs to keep track with the lifestyles of the fast-moving society which includes brief text posts, photos and video clips.

With latest gadgets introduced in town, sharing videos (vlog), mobile blogging (moblog), pictures (photo blog) and information (news blog) are all made easier.Just a click away!!!!!


References
Wong, S 20o8, ' AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandez Joins the Corporate Blogging World', viewed on 8th April 2010,
http://stevenwongblog.com/blog-marketing/airasia-ceo-tony-fernandes-joins-the-corporate-blogging-world/

Kenny Sia, 2010, 'When Routines Isn't Exactly Normal', viewed on 8th April 2010,
www.kennysia.com

Blog-a-blog...blog...

The term ‘blogging’ is not a new word for us in this modern day. Blogging has become a trend for people to speak their mind.

A 'blog' is a word that abbreviated from 'weblog' which stands for a website that maintain a progressing chronicle of information ( WordPress 2007).Blog is like a diary except that blogging enable us to share our thought and ideas with people throughout the world, in another word, less personal.

Blogs gives us an opportunity to speak our mind, discuss our personal views with others globally. Popular blogs are able to influence people in many ways. Many Malaysian leaders chose blogging as a form of communication to reach out to their target audiences, especially the young Malaysians. Lim Kit Siang, Jeff Ooi, Tun Dr. Mahathir are some of the influential leaders in Malaysia who have started their own personal blogs.

Besides that, business blogs are used by Malaysians to maintain good relationship with their clients and companies in order to inform them about their new products/business ventures. Lately, it has been a hot trend for Malaysian women who are into fashion to start their own fashion blogs, selling clothes and beauty products to those who are interested.

The benefits of social blogs enable Malaysians to know the latest styles, designs, trends, entertainment, events (both at home and worldwide) and even travel opportunities around Malaysia and abroad. The greatest benefit Information Communication Technology (ICT) has brought to us is the ability to bind us together via its international transmission network.

References :
Walsh, M 2006, ‘textual shift’: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts, Australian journal of language and literacy, vol.29, no.1, pp.24-37.

WordPress 2007, Introduction to blogging, viewed on 16 May 2008,< http://codex.wordpress.org/Introduction_to_Blogging>

The World of Blogging

Welcome fellow readers!!

How have you all been?

Blogs,blogs,blogs!!!It is so popular amongst us nowadays. Blogging is used as a tool to express our emotions,ideas and creativity, as well as sharing those originality with the online world. This is definitely one small step to a bigger change in our lifestyles.

The purpose of my blog is to reach out to everyone in the blogging world about the world-changing issues revolving around our lives, some with regards to document design and its effects on communication among the society.

My target audiences are my classmates, those who are interested in document designs and the general public. This blog will involve plenty of discussion and interaction, so feel free to get involved in healthy arguments to achieve greater understanding of the issues discussed.

So, don't be shy! Let's join me in this journey to a world of priceless knowledge and greater learning experiences!Cheers :)