A series of Frequently Asked Questions have been developed to help you understand more about The COLLABOR8 Project. These have been arranged into five categories:
The title of the COLLABOR8 Project makes reference to 8 being seen as a fortuitous number in Chinese culture. The Chinese title of the project 设 Jì Ba) can be interpreted in a number of ways. "设计" means design and "吧" means "bar" - in this instance a design bar where different people can work together on design projects. In addition, "吧" has exactly the same pronunciation as 8 which is used in COLLABOR8. So there is an extra relationship between the English and Chinese name. The characters can also be interpreted to mean "Let's design!"
The creative industries are seeing designers increasingly adopt collaborative and cross-disciplinary modes of practice using digital networks. The emergence of global workflows means that designers are working more with others from different cultural backgrounds.
This raises questions such as:
Can eastern and western design educators, students and designers develop mutually beneficial understandings about cross cultural design practice by interacting online?
Are we able to design together effectively without ever meeting face to face?
Icograda is the International Council of Graphic Design Associations
IEN is the Icograda Education Network.
Find out more at
www.icograda.org
www.education.icograda.net
DESIGN STUDENTS
This project targets design students and has an emphasis in graphic design for a range of applications. Any student enrolled in a design school or university within Australia or China studying within areas of Visual Communication such as Graphic Design, Digital Media/Arts, Photomedia, Illustration, etc.
The C8 project offers design students the chance to be part of an innovative and exciting international online project. Using the Omnium Interface, the C8 project will form a community of academic and creative young people from unique backgrounds and cultures. This community allows for a unique and stimulating learning environment, as well as the opportunity to receive on-going feedback to your work from professional practitioners and academics in the field of design.
Above all, this experience is about collaboration - bringing two cultures together to communicate and design together to create exciting graphic design.
The project is totally free of charge for those students selected to take part.
The C8 project will be carried out over 8 weeks, commencing April 2008 and concluding in June 2008.
Due to differing time-zones from which participants will be working and the online nature of the activity, there are no official participation times throughout the project. However, it is expected that students will be able to spend at least 10 hours per week contributing to the project. As this is an online project, regular participation throughout each week is crucial for successful group dynamics. To visit the community only once or twice a week is not enough. Regular daily visits to converse with team-mates and tutors is imperative.
Faculties invited to take part in the COLLABOR8 Project will be encouraged to include the project in their project schedule for the semester. Unfortunately, neither Omnium nor Icograda can determine this, although students are able to receive academic credit following discussions with their own course authorities. This is at the discretion of each institution individually. Omnium and can provide each educational institution represented by students with full project details in the hope they may influence individual decisions made by your course authority.
Because the COLLABOR8 project will use mainly English (the international business language) a good standard of English is desirable. There are no other real pre-requisites for design students. We only ask that you be passionate and committed to the project.
Experience in Graphic Design programs is considered advantageous for the students, but is not a necessity. The last two Creative Waves projects included students at various levels of study: from undergraduate to postgraduate levels.
Access to a computer with the Internet is required for all students. For design students, a variety of imaging software will be used throughout the project so access to these is important. Students will also benefit from having access to a camera and a scanner.
Yes - The Creative Waves C8 project is facilitated using the Omnium interface. This operates efficiently on both Macintosh and PC platforms, via almost any Internet browser (version 5+), and on 56k dial-up connections or faster.
Initially, participants are required to log in using private passwords. They first create their own individual homepages within the Omnium software before accessing the wide range of features provided. Working in small teams, participants work with each other using the sketchpad, file sharing and pin-up wall features. They have several choices for communicating with fellow team-members, supervisors or other working groups including: live chat rooms, asynchronous message boards, and discussion & feedback areas. In addition, facilities are provided for publishing: lecturers, seminars, briefs, activities, useful links and galleries of participants' work. Participants can easily transfer a variety of files to each other including: text documents; graphic and sound files; Shockwave/Quicktime movies.
Definitely - It is very easy to use. It does not require users to have high-level technical ability or any knowledge of web programming languages such as HTML. Uploading and exchanging work is as simple as choosing files from your desktop and selecting where you wish to send or display them.
As C8 is a non-profit initiative and a collaborative learning experience, no one person can lay claim to own any of the work that is produced throughout this project. However, Omnium owns copyright on the Creative Waves concept and therefore reserves the right to reproduce and publish any work or contributions created throughout the project. This may mean reproduction for promotional, marketing or educational material, such as magazines, books, newsletters, websites and conference presentations. It must be stated that C8 is intended as a non-commercial project, so any material reproduced must not be utilised for financial gain without consultation with Omnium – and in this event contributors must be credited for their work.
If at any time any commercial activity should be made as a result of the C8 project, all profits will be donated to the Omnium Creative Network to support its global creative projects within developing countries – http://ocn.omnium.net.au
In past Omnium online creative projects, involvement by staff from institutions of the participants has been a very important aspect. There are many roles that staff can take. They can act as mentors for their own students by observing and encouraging their work through advice and feedback. In some instances, classes have run in parallel with such project so students not officially taking part can also experience the brief. Staff can also act as guest tutors to the whole project and visit the various design teams to offer advice and feedback. Staff can also join live chat-sessions to encourage the project participants as a whole or individually within their teams. Omnium and UNSWcertainly encourage staff participation from a variety of institutions and are more than willing to receive suggestions on how they could contribute in ways than other those suggested above.
This would totally depend on how much time could be offered. Unlike the students taking part, staff can contribute just a small amount of time or be an ongoing contributor. There is no reason why external staff can not contribute even formally with written guest lectures or provide relevant academic papers for the participants to read and useful web-links to accompany the various stages of the project.
There are many options available for your involvement in the C8 Project whether you are a professional graphic designer, photographer, writer, academic or researcher. Throughout the eight-week period, these could include:
For reading proposals related to cross-cultural design, collaborative design practice or socially aware design please contact Omnium at c8@omnium.edu.au
The decision to allow any sponsorship would have to be decided and approved by The Omnium Project. Any enquiries regarding sponsorship should be directed to c8@omnium.edu.au
In most cases, we would welcome media coverage and exposure through newspapers, magazines, online journals, websites, etc.
If you have enquiries and suggestions, please email c8@omnium.edu.au
All information relating to the project will be available on the Creative Waves C8 website http://creativewaves.omnium.net.au/c8 A PDF for promoting the project can also be downloaded from the site.
In most cases, this is certainly an option although again, this would have to be approved by the The Omnium Project. Any enquiries regarding this idea should be directed to c8@omnium.edu.au
