Welcome - Week 3 - Part 1

Welcome to the "Hair Design Teaching Tool" blog. This blog is part of a 4rth year honors project that I am carrying out at RGU university, on the course "Design for Digital Media". I will be using this blog to document my progress throughout the project, and also hopefully get some feedback from the general public who are interested in the project.

Week 3 -

After much deliberation, work is finally beginning on the project, the final proposal i submitted is as follows -

"Following a personal interest, I aim to create an instructional DVD which illustrates the fundamentals of hair design through the use of a website style interface. The tool will reference the key techniques from sources supplied by a collaborator (a college, private hair salon) and sourced books. Example topics include face shapes, profiles, and the history of hair design. Through the use of models created in 3ds max 9 using the hair tool, videos and photography, the user will be able to better understand the information presented. The project will include a degree of interactivity from the user. This may include the rotation of a model, changing design options or activating different types of media e.g. voiceovers, movies. The product will be targeted at students looking for a reference to basic hair design theory, or the general public who are interested in hair design for personal benefits. Depending on the final level of educational content, the DVD may be aimed at the private sector to be placed in waiting rooms of salons, the idea being to replace the traditional stack of magazines. The initial idea regarding visual style resembles the medical feeling, a clean and simple interface which reflects the industry. The main drive behind the project will be to produce high quality lifelike models in 3d, and to produce a flowing and graphically sound interface that is simple to use but also effective in delivering content. The project proposal should not be mistaken for a fully interactive hair design tool where face and hair adjustments can be made at any time."

After mind mapping/brainstorming the project, I have set myself a task to have completed research on the following topics by the end of the week..

- teaching applications similar to the proposal e.g. Learning to drive
- source applications that utilize hair/head visualization for comparison
- source websites that provide tutorials on hair design and examine interface and content
- define potential market through research - most like educational, colleges?
- research teaching fundamentals - image, sound, text
- application techniques and software that could be utilized

It is important at this stage that I try to get a collaborator on board, I've already emailed the Aberdeen college who run a hair and beauty department, but have yet to receive a response from the curriculum manager. Dundee university also runs the course, so I intend to email them as well to broaden my chances of collaboration. Alternatively, I will have to consider contacting hair studio's in Aberdeen for feedback.