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nezumiismissing · 5 years ago

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Missing Character Analysis Pt.3

So we come to part 3 of this series, finally. For the uninitiated, this is where I talk about the characters that were included in the novels/manga but left out of the anime for any multitude of reasons, and how their omission affects the story as a whole (Part 1+Part 2). I won’t say it’s the last one, because there are a few more characters I want to talk about, but this will probably be the last long one, as the characters remaining are fairly minor and there isn’t quite as much to analyze. That being said, this monstrosity is over 3000 words, so if you do decide to read it, make sure you have the time. It’s kind of wild, things get a little conceptual/abstract, but it’s at least marginally coherent, and that’s all that really matters, right?

So this time around we’re actually going to be talking about two characters, Fennec and lab coat man, not because they are too minor to deserve their own posts, but because they are too interconnected to focus on one without talking about the other. As the leaders of No.6 they hold a huge amount of power, and yet their dialogue occurs almost entirely between themselves. And while individually they are completely different people, what makes them strong characters is much more about the role they play as a single force within the city. Each one of them will get a section of their own, and then at the end we’ll move into the discussion of them as a “unit” and how their absence affects certain aspects of the anime. I'm going to start with lab coat man because, for me at least, Fennec is the far more interesting of the two, so I wanted to save him for last, as well as the fact that chronologically, he also makes the last appearance out of the two of them. Also I’m just going to call him Labcoat because he doesn’t have a name and that’s basically his only identifying feature.

Let’s actually start with that. The fact that he doesn’t have a name (even less so than the mayor) but still appears in the story is extremely odd. I’ve mentioned in the past that something I really like about the anime is the lack of any characters guiding No.6’s actions, which make it seem like a full character with a will of its own (I will touch on this later). But there’s something almost as creepy about knowing who the antagonist of the story is, having an in-depth understanding of his ideology (even if it’s bullshit), seeing him have full on one-on-one conversations with other important characters, and yet having no way to really identify who they are or how they ended up in this position. His character is overly vague and simplified, but to an extent that ends up being nearly as terrifying as him not existing at all. He’s the one that’s actually running No.6, making every major decision about what direction the city should move in up until the very end of the story, and yet his death happens without us seeing it, and without the intervention of any of the main characters. This functions not only as a way to show how insane he was or to what extent he isolated himself in order to do his work, but also reveals the fact that he is completely unnecessary. Not to the story of course, he’s very important to our understanding of No.6, but to No.6 itself, his existence was meaningless. No one outside of Fennec and Safu (the two people he is shown interacting with) ever make reference to his existence, and even after he dies, and the main characters find his body in the mayor’s office, he is only mentioned for a moment to explain what had happened to him. He seems perfectly happy with this arrangement, but it leaves a lot of questions unanswered. How did he become the most powerful man in No.6? Why did he do it? Was complete power always his intention, or was he an idealist in the beginning like everyone else? We’ll never know the answer to these questions, but at the same time, it doesn’t really matter why he did it. Labcoat is a character that is so integral to the story and its events that his motives and existence outside of his ideology become completely meaningless. Which almost seems contradictory, but is also maybe the point of his character. Rather than an actual character with a concrete purpose and role in the story, he is a stand-in for the ideology that drives No.6, similar to the way that Rashi acts as a personification of the sociopolitical status of the city (please read my obscenely long post about Rashi).

At the root of this ideology, and Labcoat’s character, is the overwhelming fear of failure and losing control. Scenes including him are centered on his progress updates, which immediately are recognizable as nothing but reassurances, that “it was only a small obstacle”, that “it should be under control now”. At no point are we under the illusion that he actually knows what he is doing, and with no information regarding what is actually going on until near the end of the story, we are left to watch him desperately struggle with something that is either impossible, or doesn’t exist at all, much like the concept of utopia itself. We already know that his ideology and rational thought process will not allow him to accept impossibilities or non-understandings however, and so it is at this moment that we fully become an active part of the story ourselves, not as simple observers or analysts, but instead as a driving force in the plot, here in the form of the source of Labcoat's paranoia. Within the story, there is no doubt in his mind that anything and everything can fall under his control, and to a point, he is right. Elyurias is ultimately able to defeat him and No.6, but only after severe damage has already been done and some control had been taken from her temporarily. By existing outside of the story, we exist fully outside of his realm of control, and in recognizing our existence, he must come face to face with the reality that certain things exist that cannot be rationalized (more thoughts on this concept another time). Again similar to Rashi, this realization causes the collapse of his ideology, and by extension, No.6. Because that ideology is the entirety of his character, there is no reason for him to remain a part of the story, and so he is killed, quite literally, by irrationality.

Fennec is one of those characters that from the outset is obviously more complex than is let on. He's the undisputed mayor of No.6, wielding unprecedented power over every single character we meet in the story. But he doesn't really want any of it. And as I mentioned above, he doesn’t really have it either. Now whether he realizes that he is being used by Labcoat or not is unclear (up to a certain point), but it is obvious that he knows that he is not fully in control of the city. His only real job is to serve as the face of No.6 and its perceived ideals, keeping the general population from ever suspecting that anything may be wrong. However, even in this job he is unable to succeed, and ultimately only exacerbates the process by which citizens become suspicious of the city’s leadership. He is arguably the most ideologically pure character in the entire series, other than perhaps Karan, whose ideology is not fully developed over the course of the story, and Safu, whose purpose in the story does not even necessitate any kind of socio-political stance on her part. Despite what he has ended up doing and taking part in, I don’t think that he ever really moved away from dreaming of an ideal world, and while much of his uncertainty about his position certainly stems from being unsure of whether or not they are moving the city in the right direction, I believe that much of it is also part of working towards one of the questions that frames the entire series: “Is it even possible to create an ideal world?”. Without an answer to this question, he is unable to overcome his uncertainty about his own position in the city or move forward ideologically, and thus is easily used as a tool by others such as Labcoat to further their own agendas and ideological positions, rather than develop his own ideas and work towards his own goals of utopia.

While some of the other characters such as Labcoat, and to a certain extent Rashi, are very much a personified version of the city in its idealized authoritarian form, Fennec exists very much on the opposite side of the spectrum, and instead paints a picture of the political and ideological structure of No.6 as it actually is, and likely always has been. While Fennec, like everyone else in the Rebirth Project, went into the creation of No.6 with utopian ideals, he is also probably the first, if not only, one of them to realize that what they were attempting was likely impossible, at least in the way they were attempting to do it. With the information about him we are given, it seems safe to assume that he may have been suspicious from the start, and perhaps was pushed into the leadership position not only as a way for Labcoat to become the de facto ruler of the city, but also in order to convince him that the city was indeed possible, and that it could only happen with Fennec's help. This of course was never a good idea, and likely led to a good portion of the instability that allowed the story to happen in the first place, but by portraying a leader that is so uncertain not only of the concept of the city itself, but also in his ability to lead such a city, we are able to see just how unstable the situation has been from the very beginning. This makes Karan’s comments about Fennec much more interesting as well, as at face value these are obviously comments about the distrust of leadership in the city, and thus distrust in the city itself, but in seeing Fennec’s own insecurity, we are able to place these comments also within the context of a distrust of the self, and a recognition that the entire situation is really out of everyone’s control, making the stability that marks No.6 as the “Holy City” subject to collapse at any time and for basically any reason, which of course it ultimately does.

Basically every death in this story has immense impact, often resulting in significant character development or otherwise important shifts in the story, and Fennec’s death is no exception to this. Like Labcoat, his death occurs without being seen and without intervention, although this time the main characters are at least aware that it is happening, but nonetheless it shifts the tone of the moment. In my experiences reading this scene, it’s always been there to create a quiet, grounding moment for both us and the characters to come back to reality and start processing everything that has happened over the past 9 books. The entire last half of the series is incredibly dense with action scenes, sensory overload, and things that are so far separated from reality that it’s difficult to figure out exactly what their purpose is, and even before entering the Correctional Facility, peaceful scenes are few and far between. So in this brief moment at the end of the series, when we know for a fact that No.6 has finally fallen and the nightmare is (mostly) over, we are finally able to enjoy a single moment of certainty amidst what is otherwise complete chaos. In these moments we are able to see Fennec realize not that he had necessarily lost against Nezumi, Shion, and the protesters, as his actions were almost entirely a result of Labcoat’s manipulation, but that he had been manipulated in the first place, and that his own life had been taken over by the “idea” of No.6, rather than the reality of it. The death of Labcoat and the realization of what had truly transpired within the city results in a return of control to Fennec over his own life, as well as over the city. With his knowledge of the city’s truth, and newfound power over it, he must now make the choice of whether or not to justify everything that has happened up to this point. Manipulated or not, he recognizes his position as the symbol of the city, and therefore his role in its actions, and so in keeping with his utopian ideology, he does the only thing he feels is appropriate in order to avoid going against his ideals and once again relinquishing his self determination to a yet-undecided power. I can’t say whether or not that choice was the right one, and opinions are probably going to differ a lot between people, but it is at least an action that, unlike so much of the rest of the series, is not unexpected and can be rationalized outside of an authoritative framework.

I’ve already done some of this, but this last section is going to go into how these two function as the single unit running No.6, and thus how their lack of presence affects the structure of the anime. On their own of course neither one of them would be able to take on the position of leading the entire city, and although neither one really seems interested in being deeply involved with the other, they have become dependent on each other in order to remain individually stable, with Labcoat needing reassurance that he is indeed in charge, and Fennec needing reassurance that an ideal society can exist, despite neither of those things being entirely true. As a unit, they represent two sides of No.6 in reverse relation to their own positon within the city. That is, Labcoat represents the idealism and scientific superiority that characterizes the world’s perception of the city while remaining a highly secretive figure, while Fennec represents the frailty of the city that is kept hidden from the citizens, despite acting as the city’s public persona (I will be referring to them as a unit from now own because their function is collective rather than individual here). This unit itself is a highly isolated structure (relationship), interacting with only a few other characters within the story during important moments, but otherwise interacting only within itself. This is what allows this setup to work at all, as their isolation enables them to freely trade information and plans between themselves without involving others or worrying about the information finding its way out of the structure. While it is clearly highly manipulative on the part of Labcoat, this is unclear to Fennec as well as the citizens who watch the mayor speak, and so the unit is able to stay intact as it is without being questioned by those who may seek to oppose it. This does not free them from criticism, obviously, but instead makes it impossible to criticize only one or the other from the perspective of a citizen, because as far as they are concerned, they are the same person. The unit, in having two distinctly different personalities functionally taking the place of one, is able to efficiently complete tasks semi-publically that would otherwise be seen as unacceptable by publicly presenting itself, and in fact believing itself to be, an idealized system of leadership which works in the citizen’s favor. Labcoats’s mistakes are able to be rationalized as small obstacles through the lens of Fennec’s nonunderstanding, and Fennec’s paranoia of this nonunderstanding mitigated through Labcoat’s complete trust in scientific inquiry and methods.

Despite the omission of these characters and the unit entirely from the anime, the story is still able to work because the city itself is able to take the place of the unit as the primary actor in the events of the story. With no leadership being portrayed throughout the anime, we are left with the impression that the events are unfolding independently of any kind of governmental system, or at least the government that does exist is vague and devoid of ideology outside of “militant authoritarianism”. Instead these events are framed almost as a type of natural occurrence that likely could not be avoided without the formation of some kind of mediation system such as a government, and without such a system, the responsibility falls somewhere else: society as a whole (or more specifically No.6). With no visible government in the form of the Fennec/Labcoat unit to control and mediate the situation, the unit expands to include everyone, as they become collectively responsible for governing themselves and thus understanding and accepting to a certain extent what is happening throughout the story. It would be a significant understatement to say that the sociological implications of this are immense, and someday I will write that essay. But today is not that day, so we’re going to stay surface level.

I would like to point out that yes, obviously this is not actually how No.6 functions. It’s not an autonomous collective governed by the people. It’s not even kind of a democracy. My point isn’t so much to say that No.6 is or even approaches being either of those things, but rather that the structure of the story, by excluding certain details and characters, gives us a conceptualization of No.6 that is far different from the one portrayed in the novels, and thus may in certain instances be seen as ideologically distinct. In this instance, the omission of Fennec and Labcoat, both independently of each other and as a unit, serve to create the feeling of the situation in No.6 as being entirely out of control, not as a planned series of events or experiments, but rather as a spontaneous occurrence fed by unexplained impulses felt by certain members of society, here taking the form of those recognizable as government officials or soldiers. While the government is certainly mentioned in the anime, and clearly exists in some form that is able to exert that level of control over the citizens, it exists mainly because the way we live requires a government, and so any story that does not explicitly state otherwise is simply assumed to have one that functions in a way we can recognize and relate to.

In the novels, although they are not the only ones in the government, Fennec and Labcoat occupy the highest position, and are able to confirm the existence of a structured government, and give insight into the background and current issues facing that government. Through them, the events taking place are to a certain extent demystified, and while not explained entirely, we are able to more accurately identify those events as being somewhat purposeful and directly related to the overarching story. Their absence in the anime, while useful in its own way for adapting the themes of the story and creating a sense of mystery in a visual medium, also result in a (perhaps unintended) ideological shift in the overall message of the story, leaving it unclear as to what exactly happened, or could happen in the future. Also, like most things that got left out of the anime, this seems to be at least partially a result of the time crunch of fitting 9 books into only 11 episodes, so while I may have (a lot of) issues with the overall result of this particular change, there also isn’t really much that could have been done about it outside of just making the show longer (which they should have done but I know that wasn’t really an option). Ultimately though, through Fennec and Labcoat, and their existence as a unit in the series, we are able to better contextualize the events of No.6’s story, understand how those events came to take place, and get a better sense of how No.6 as a city and a society really functions. With their omission, we not only lose those understandings, but the ideology portrayed and supported by the story also change, and while that change may not be important to the overall enjoyment of the story, the implications end up being quite significant, and not necessarily in the way you would want.

#no.6 #no. 6 #no.6 analysis #long post #this is disgustingly long i cannot believe #i dont think ive ever had such mixed feelings about something ive written before #its kind of a mess #please feel free to completely rip into it #thats what its for #plus im curious to see what yall think about some of these topics *eyes emoji*#also if you make it all the way to the end of this you are my hero #big shoutout to this being the longest single essay ive written for anything ever #original

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eidolonlathi · 5 years ago

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Sokabe’s wider Role in the Story

Taken it’s been many solid chapters since he has disappeared from the manga, I thought it fitting to have a closer look at the role Sokabe used to have in the story.

I miss Sokabe. As long as he was still around in the manga, the dynamics in Team Tosaki (and the fractions bordering next to it) were still uncertain and it was always fun to witness how they would develop next. Since Sokabe is gone this energy has become kind of... stale. If you have a great antagonistic character don't make them leave too early.

What makes a character an antagonist in this manga’s mess of motivations and ambitions set on the grey scale though? I always viewed him to be the different side of the same coin as Tosaki: Just as much driven by ambition, just as ruthless in his approach. All while showing to have enough patience and foresight to plan in a long time manner, thus becoming an element one couldn’t dismiss in its potential to bring in unexpected positive or negative dynamics that carry gravity. And yet: Despite his wish to win over Tosaki’s position of job, Sokabe proved himself to be reliable, the messenger link keeping Tosaki connected to his position once his place on the hit list had forced him into hiding. Gradually Sokabe earned his part in the story and the periphery of Tosaki’s team: For a long time he kept providing support and information despite Tosaki’s fall from favour in the eyes of their superiors.

Proving to stay useful like this might have been fuelled by Sokabe’s own ambition, but Tosaki never made a secret he viewed him with contempt, letting this bias influence his treatment of him. Yet he had no hesitation using him whenever it was convenient – demanding him to participate in risky tasks like digging up information about Sato’s background (that at this late stage of the manga might prove to be crucial). Sokabe openly stated it would bring him into trouble should it be known that he had shared this knowledge. So, motivation aside, Sokabe deserves respect and at least some recognition for remaining this patient when constantly getting confronted with this kind of capricious whims.

I also have the impression he genuinely felt supportive towards Tosaki’s goals up to a certain point. Because that’s it: Sure, he had a rivalry dynamic with Tosaki going on, but once matters got serious and counted, Sokabe always proved to be reliable. Yet Tosaki made the impression he was not only taking Sokabe’s help for granted but at the same time acted dismissive towards him. Everyone would grow tired of that at some point.

Chapter 53 reflections: Tosaki getting a call from his mysterious secretary, speaking with them. Once upon a time, I was hoping for mystery secretary to show up for real in some panels. It felt like they could have been an interesting addition to the plot, bringing all kinds of fresh dynamics into it. Because given the fact Sokabe later explicitly pointed out that he hired one, instead of just getting a nebulous phone call informing him about what Tosaki had done to the secret data, it didn’t seem random. I could only assume their presence had gotten introduced for some kind of reason.

But, with this plot thread leaving left hanging empty and leading to nowhere since many chapters, I guess we won’t hear any more concerning that subject. Which would be a missed chance, really. With Sokabe framed in the position of an antagonist towards side Tosaki, it would have been interesting to see him humanized a bit, by showing that despite his unapologetic approach and motivation he still had people in his life caring about him –like a subordinate he got along well with- instead of going the safe and convenient route and showing the baddie is liked by none. It would also have added an interesting layer on his repeated comparisons with Tosaki (them looking vaguely alike is no coincidence), showing that both men might be able to commit heinous deeds but at the same time are able to care for people in their lives. Proving like this that the capability to commit evil acts wears no easily recognizable face (but that it sometimes may wear glasses).

Sokabe pointing out Tosaki’s inability to let go of the wish to return into the familiarity of his old life despite already having wilfully committed heinous deeds is framed as him being the antagonistic part here. But honestly, keeping in mind the atrocities we already saw Tosaki commit: Sokabe has a point here. With the manga speeding on Tosaki’s redemption in his final chapters, instead of following the more time-intense path of the gradual betterment he already had started walking -even going so far as to retcon his repeated threats towards Izumi as holding no weight- the story also tried to make a point that Tosaki is supposed to be the lesser evil than Sokabe. Which he really isn’t. Both were willing to use the suffering of ajin used for experiment for their personal gain, with the difference that Tosaki tried telling himself he did it for a good reason, using the illness of his fiancée Ai as an excuse, even though she once told him explicitly she didn’t wish for him to go down an questionable path should he ever feel pressured to do so. Sokabe on the other hand uses no such excuse, ironically appearing as the one staying more true to himself here by not explaining away his readiness to go down dark paths for the sake of reaching his own goals.

Soon after the glove panels the action in the main timeline intensified fast and Tosaki suddenly saw the need to kill Sokabe, getting wounded deadly himself in the process. All this for the sake of trying to prove that Tosaki never had been a real threat to Izumi and had been on her side all along. Frankly? It would have been more impactful if Tosaki would have been on Izumi’s side despite him intimidating her in the past, despite him holding data about her able to reveal her status as an ajin should she ever stop standing in his favour. That would have been a meaningful redemption. Tosaki already showed potential for change and even regret – seeing him earn a change would have felt more rewarding than seeing him being forced by canon to backpedal on his past flaws entirely, on top of this being allowed to find a quick solution in death, escaping any incoming conflict caused by his acts for good. Through the story he proved ready to act ruthless for the sake of reaching his own goals many times. On a more complex note, this also made it more meaningful once he lessened his harsh treatment towards Izumi, him starting to treat her more humane: Implying that though he stayed ready to keep using other ajin, interacting on a daily base with her wasn’t letting him stay unaffected. This slow redemption and thus humanization of his was one of the more engaging parts of the manga, and I’m disappointed that after a strong start it got rushed, letting it end in a manner not feeling true to what we encountered at the beginning.

What we got instead was a rushed solution for the sake of redeeming Tosaki quick. During the Iruma base arc, we’ve seen Sokabe imply he knew about Izumi’s status as ajin and that he would have been ready to use this as a threat to keep her in line, once Tosaki would have been out of the way. So, in other words, we’ve seen him do the exact kind of intimidation Tosaki used against Izumi. But instead of acknowledging Tosaki’s past flaws, it was retconned as him never having possessed intentions to reveal information about her at all, his threats supposed having been empty all along. More, Izumi no longer was allowed to hold conflicting feeling towards the man who gave her a second chance at a point life had already robbed her of everything (at that time out of purely self-serving motivations, not because he cared about her personally, make no mistake) but at the same time had the habit to threaten her into compliance: The manga lets her claim she “knew all along” about his threats being empty, letting her thank him instead for everything he “did for her”: Thus reducing her struggle to stay safe in an hostile environment that could turn on her any time as her playing along in a connection of mutual convenience she never had the need to feel in danger. All of this for the sake of rushing the final confrontation between Tosaki and Sokabe into a quick solution: Reducing Sokabe from skilled schemer to moustache twirling cartoon villain who is suddenly wielding a narcotic gun, oh so heroically getting taken out by Tosaki, who went from ruthless opportunist who slowly experienced a change of mind to a player only holding a bluff of cards in his hand, never having needed the redemption he already had started earning. For the sake of protecting sudden damsel in distress Izumi (female characters only allowed to act badass when convenient) who is no longer allowed to hold her own complex motivations and grievances, but now got reduced to another prop supposed to support Tosaki’s softened origins. (Sadly the story isn’t giving us time to dwell on this, as she is already kept busy again with having to cater towards demanding and ungrateful manchildren who are making no secret they’re taking her for granted.)

I can only assume letting the started redemption of Tosaki -his mending of his relationship with Izumi- letting reach its organic end would have taken too much development. Time the manga wasn't willing to give this plotline, so it got speeded along by simplifying and outright retconning already established circumstances. These three characters would have deserved better. But sadly it is unlikely we’re getting much more on that front: Tosaki getting wounded deadly erases the question how his and Izumi’s complicated relationship might develop further. (Him letting his fiancée join in death also erases the question what she would have said finding out her boyfriend went against her wishes to not engage in questionable actions should circumstances ever pressure him. On top of this him justifying his actions by stating he committed them for her sake only.) With Sokabe also dead he no longer poses an uncertain force towards what is left of Team Tosaki – be it as a potential threat or as source of unexpected support, making the final showdown between these manga’s two opposing sides less uncertain and thus sadly much more predictable.

#ajin #sokabe #tosaki yuu #shimomura izumi #tosaki yu #eidolonlathi writes #lathi writes ajin

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gamersonthego · 6 years ago

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Chase Koeneke’s Top 10 Handheld Games of 2018

2018 could’ve been a bummer of a year. The game I was most excited about – Fire Emblem: Three Houses – got pushed to 2019. We were getting a new Pokemon game...but it was based on a mobile game and was fundamentally changing the formula I loved. And outside of Smash Bros., there was little left I was anticipating.

And yet, 2018 turned out to be a fantastic year in handheld gaming. I got a turn-based strategy game that’s up there with any Fire Emblem game I’ve ever played. That Pokemon game ended up being pretty great! And there were a bevy of unexpected indies that kept me entertained all year long. Here are my top 10 handheld games from 2018 (as well as a few honorable mentions).

Honorable Mentions: Mark of the Ninja Remastered, Gris, Kingdom Rush Vengeance, Donut County, West of Loathing

10. Minit (Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC)

I like to take my time in games – fully exploring worlds, talking to NPCs, reading item descriptions. In that sense, Minit, a top-down Zelda-style game that only allows you to play in one-minute sessions should be my nightmare. But it’s not. In fact, I really liked it. Minit’s limitations freed me from my thinking and made me engage with the game on its level. In a world dominated by GPS and a games’ landscape dominated by easily accessible maps, there’s something refreshingly challenging having to commit the area to memory and make plans on not only what to do next, but how to make it there in time.

9. Golf Peaks (iOS, PC)

I’m bad at real golf, but golf video games, especially the ones that don’t try to meticulously recreate the sport, are my jam. Mario Golf on the Game Boy Color is one of my favorite games ever. Golf Story was one of my favorite games last year. And Golf Peaks takes that crown in 2018. Golf Peaks expertly mixes golf, card and puzzle mechanics to make for a uniquely pleasing combination. New obstacles are layered in world by world and get increasingly bizarre, until what you’re playing is barely recognizable as golf. Golf Peaks feels meticulously crafted, and it makes for a difficult, but rewarding experience. Unfortunately, because it’s so bespoke, it’s a finite experience, and once you’ve completed it, there’s little reason to revisit it. A new world has been added since the game’s release, but after completing it in less than an hour, I’m back to waiting for more.

8. Alto’s Odyssey (iOS, Android)

Alto’s Adventure was one of my favorite games of 2015, a gorgeous and fun take on the infinite runner genre. Alto’s Odyssey further refines the formula by adding in even more things to do. The silky-smooth jumps, grinds and backflips return, along with the sublime wingsuit power-up, but they are joined by Tony Hawk-style wall rides that add a new dimension to the game. With uniquely skilled characters to unlock and upgrades to literally and figuratively grind for, Odyssey will keep you busy for a long time. It’s one of those rare phone games that’s good for play sessions both long and short, and its action never gets old.

7. Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition (iOS, Android, Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC)

I was intrigued by Final Fantasy XV on the PS4, but ultimately bounced off its combat and general milling about. Pocket Edition fixes both of those issues and lets me enjoy what I really like about the game: its story and its characters. The miniaturized version of FFXV has turned it into a linear game with simplified controls (touch controls if you’re playing the phone version). The way it retains quite a bit of the themes and depth (and voice acting) of the original game despite streamlining it never ceased to impress me. And weirdly, playing Pocket Edition has actually reawakened my desire to play the original game. I want to see this treatment given to other Final Fantasy games.

6. Florence (iOS, Android)

Florence is not a game I would traditionally play on a phone. It’s not an infinitely replayable, puzzling experience like Threes or Drop7 or even a Kingdom Rush. But it is an experience, and one I deeply appreciated. Florence made me feel more than any other game this year, and it did it in a game that takes only about a half hour. It tells a mundane, yet impactful story about relationships. It’s beautiful. It’s funny. It’s tragic. But most of all, it’s real, and it uses its touchscreen controls to great effect to make you feel like you are an active participant in the story. It’s somehow simultaneously abstract and extremely specific, and I think it’s something everyone should witness.

5. Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee (Switch)

This is the Metal Gear Solid 2 of Pokemon. Let me explain. In MGS2, you play as Raiden, and you learn that you are being put through a similar adversity to the original MGS’ Shadow Moses Island in the hopes of turning you into another legendary hero like Solid Snake.

In Pokemon Let’s Go, things start familiar enough to anyone who’s played the first generation of Pokemon games (particularly, Yellow). You get a starter, you battle your rival, you face Brock and Misty and the other gym leaders and you stumble into and interrupt a nefarious Team Rocket plot. It’s all there. Except then you run into Blue, who is the real rival from the first generation of Pokemon. Which means your rival isn’t your rival. And you aren’t you. It’s fascinating and I ended up loving it.

Mechanically, it’s a weird mix of adding from more recent games while also stripping away complexity. Mega Evolutions are in. Held items are out. HMs are out. Steel, dark and fairy types are in. And there are some brand-new mechanics like catch combos that are a fun and new way to engage with Pokemon. It’s not all rainbows (I’m still not sold on the GO-style catching system,) but I hope the next mainline Pokemon game takes a little inspiration from these games. And I hope they remake Gold and Silver in this style too.

4. Holedown (iOS/Android)

Holedown became my go-to phone game for most of 2018. While you can beat it in a manner of hours, the game is so addictively fun and replayable with its final, seemingly endless level that you’ll be happy to dive back in again and again to improve your score. Holedown is satisfying in every sense of the word. Endorphins rush when you see and hear massive streams of balls ping-ponging off walls. Hitting the perfect angle to keep the combo going higher and higher is intensely gratifying. It’s so easy to play and understand, and yet you’ll be learning new tricks after your hundredth attempt. Holedown rules. Play Holedown.

3. Super Robot Wars X (Vita, PS4)

OK, this one’s a bit of a stretch. Super Robot Wars is not available in the US last I checked (though it is available in English.) Also, I did not play its handheld Vita version. Instead I played it on the PS4. So, on one hand, this game doesn’t really belong on this list. On the other hand, I love Super Robot Wars X so much, so it’s staying.

This was my first dip into the series and immediately found it to be an incredibly dense and confusing experience. It’s a turn-based strategy game like Fire Emblem, which sounds right up my alley, but the number of things to account for is staggering. To list all its mechanics would be a daunting exercise. Slowly, but surely, I learned to engage with more and more systems until finally, I felt like I could see the code, that I had entered the Matrix. I suddenly knew strategy game kung-fu. The game would set up almost impossible odds and, sometimes after an insane amount of consideration, I’d find a solution. I could boost the range on one weapon for the one turn I need it. Or maybe that shield I’ve never used would actually come in handy here. Oh wait, this pilot has a special skill I could utilize. The solutions are always there, you just have to look for them. It’s a beast of a game, but one I became utterly mesmerized with.

2. Dead Cells (Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC)

I jealously watched early access PC players make run after run on Dead Cells. I heard people extol the game’s virtues on countless podcasts, and then, finally, the game released on Switch and I too could experience its splendor. And boy, did it deliver. Dead Cells bends over backwards to tailor the game experience to you. It allows you to choose what and when to unlock new skills, letting you further customize your arsenal as you play. It accounts for novice players who need to take their time getting through its sprawling levels while also providing options for crafty veterans who are able to speed through its content. And yet, as much as it caters, you’ll inevitably get to a point in your run where the game says “OK, now we’re going to test you.” I have failed that test every time. I have not beaten Dead Cells. But I am damn sure ready to try again.

1. Into The Breach (Switch, PC)

Where Super Robot Wars X is a turn-based mech strategy game on a macro scale, with an inconceivable amount of systems and options to deal with for your double-digit army of robotic fighters, Into The Breach stuffs all the same intensity into a comparably tiny grid and only a trio of battlers. It maintains the perfect amount of complexity, making every unit, every weapon, every move and every choice matter. It’s the ultimate chess game. And just when you think you’ve wrapped your head around its mechanics, it hands you a new team of mechs that plays completely differently. Runs are short, but meaningful, and the optional challenges (that let you unlock more new teams) push you out of your comfort zone to learn new strategies. Not only is it my favorite game of the year by a country mile, it might be one of the best games of all time.

#goty #gotggoty2018 #chase koeneke #minit #golf peaks #alto's odyssey #final fantasy xv pocket edition #florence #pokemon let's go #holedown #super robot wars x #dead cells #into the breach

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susanpallmannhitegd-blog · 6 years ago

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Inquiry 2 - “Crescendo”

Background

I am taking six classes this semester, and five of them deal specifically with art/design. Most of them have to do with the context and ideation behind art, and I really enjoy these because they provoke some interesting ideas. The philosophy class I’m taking, aesthetics, especially likes to deal with art as a way to portray things that you wouldn’t usually be able to - kind of seeing it as an alternative to speech for things that speech or writing fails to evaluate.

Although yes, most of these are about art, I find that there are a lot of parallels to the world of design. The obvious one is that design is visual communication, but I like to take it deeper than that. I’ve always loved putting meaning into my work on a deeper level, even in something as subtle as the colors (in some for-fun works, I made my name the hex color #bada55 just for giggles), and perhaps, for me, that’s where I find the art in design.

Anyway, these classes have prompted a lot of interesting discussions with friends of mine, and one of them led to us trying to paint a color without using that color - instead working off of how that color feels visually. Our pieces relied more on shape and composition, and it turned out to be a really interesting thought experiment and produced some pretty cool abstract works:

So imagine my surprise when the next day our workshop was to create something based on how music made you feel! I included this not to take away from the workshop, but because I think the color exercise was really when my concept for Crescendo began - how to make something visual in a way we’re not used to.

Concept

Conceptually I wanted this project to build on the aforementioned background, but doing that in a class about adventuring didn’t sound very challenging. Usually that means it’s time to seek out a more interesting angle, so I thought: why not make unconventional branding? Usually a brand has to be made with purpose in mind, but in a class about adventuring, surely it’s appropriate to pursue expressive and conceptual branding instead.

The Brand

Crescendo is what I called my made-up concert hall. I thought a music arena might be a good choice because usually they don’t need to advertise themselves too heavily - the focus is on the musicians visiting, because everyone has heard of the venue already. Crescendo is a music theory term meaning to get louder, notated by an angle bracket of varying lengths, so it seemed like an appropriate name and unique marker.

When we did do the “digital mixtape” exercise in class, I found that I reused a lot of visual elements, no matter how the song changed, largely transparency, lines, and circles. What I find interesting (and incidental) is that music notation is largely made up of the same. Most notes are lines and circles, with differing fills to notate length of the note. I decided to use these three design elements to build my branding, and this decision was made before the font was attempted.

Not Quite Futura

So believe it or not, this actually isn’t my first kind-of-a-joke font...

A year or so ago I partially designed a font I nicknamed “Discount Helvetica” for a poster about modern design. Neither font is really intended to be popular or necessarily a real font, but both allow for an in-depth personal study of how type works. At worst, if I ever do decide to make a real font, I’ll know from experience what details to pay attention to. Thanks to the first font being a much more complicated grotesque, I didn’t have a whole lot of difficulty with “Not Quite Futura.” Most of it was just shapes. Despite the name, this was not made by looking at Futura at all. The proportions were based on the serif Ovo, as it was still fairly rounded, but quite readable.

Once I did all of this, however, the transparency created by the shapes to make the letterforms just... wasn’t pretty. To some degree I had to pick and choose which overlaps to keep. The end font hints at how it was made, but it doesn’t give away everything, probably for the best.

Promotional Media

I don’t think it has been much of a secret that I love Josef Müller-Brockmann‘s work, and Swiss modernism in general, but that’s because it makes a lot of sense to me. The way this style portrays music has always resonated with me, so it was definitely a thoughtful decision to build off of that for my own work. Fortunately my color scheme and shapes and use of transparent layers definitely keeps the posters distinct.

It’s important also to consider the context. These posters are something I imagined hanging in a really large frame (much larger than the printed ones I could bring in to class) - the kind of thing you see in malls or subway stops. A viewer should be able to look at these and recognize an artist they love and the style of the concert hall.

While definitely this project didn’t seek to be especially conventional, it is worth noting that this strategy of eye-catching, but stylistically memorable posters is something I’ve seen in the real world before. In Melbourne, Australia, which I’ve spent a little over a month in, many of the train stations have poster campaigns that you get accustomed to. You do not even have to read it to recognize the “Dumb Ways to Die” train safety campaign. You see a cute figure being chewed on by a shark and remember to avoid that yellow line. It seems to function well there, so my choice in using a recognizable style over hitting the viewer in the face with the logo is based somewhat in experience.

The tickets turned out to be one of the most fun parts, which surprised me. There was something really satisfying about holding them in my hand, and they are definitely the kind of thing I would want to keep to remember a concert by. I did get a comment that they look kind of like plane tickets, but I think I will just attribute that to the fact that I’ve been in considerably more planes than concerts. ;)

Taking it Back to the Screens

The great thing about conceptual branding as an idea, though, is that it can truly be applied to anything, including interaction, and that is an area I hope to explore in future adventures without question. To kind of illustrate the possibilities, I did a very brief mockup of an app to keep track of your tickets to Crescendo’s shows, but the point was more how this concept of line, circle, and transparency, can inform interaction elements, even the little things we might not think of.

A really great real-world example of this is the loading icon on Google Home’s setup app, which I will link to as I don’t think I can get the gif on this post. Those colors and shapes are all throughout their branding. They could have left the loading icon as some typical spinning wheel, but instead took the opportunity to make it something personalized that still reminds the user of their identity. That’s the world I tried to step into, and why I think simplifying branding down to shape, opacity, and color has an appeal. You can do a lot more with branding that starts simple than something that is confined to a logo. Probably something to keep in mind for the identity systems class next semester.

In this screen you can kind of see how my branding is influencing the hamburger menu we’re all so used to. Firstly I made the hamburger a little more rounded. There aren’t many squares in any of my brand materials in this project, so I tried to round out the form without losing the idea that it’s a menu. I also had the idea that when clicked on, interactive elements would then gain color and transparency, kind of like how music comes to life when someone touches an instrument.

Looking Back

Did it work? I will admit (and hopefully this doesn’t shoot my grade in the foot here) that this isn’t something I’m most proud of. I think I can do better, but I had one week and I think sometimes the deadline requires choosing a less-than-inspired idea.

However, I don’t think the experience wasn’t valuable, as I learned and thought about a lot along the way. There are aspects of interaction and conceptual unification that I had never considered before that got to be explored. I got to practice with designing a font, and further embed conceptual elements into that. I have really flashy tickets to concerts that don’t exist. Oh, and it was fun? Even if I wasn’t in love with the idea, there were lots of new things to explore along the way as I fleshed it out anyway, and I think that’s really the point.

As for if it is effective or not, I think it’s cool that most of the people I asked who professed to be really into music said the concept resonated with them visually.

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ecsundance · 4 years ago

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Review: The Blazing World

The Blazing World, director Carlson Young’s debut feature, seemed to shoot for the stars, but unfortunately was a failure to launch. I can’t understate how much I wanted to see this film succeed. Partially, this was because I think horror films written and directed by women are often some of the most brilliant, but everything about The Blazing World’s description sounded promising. After witnessing the death of her sister at a young age, Margaret Winter (Carlson Young) finds herself slipping further and further from what seems to be reality and eventually finds herself in a nightmarish and bizarre world, where she must navigate the deepest recesses of her trauma and grief.

The one thing I can say for the film is that it was visually striking during moments. Certain stills, if pulled from the film, would make better pieces of art than the storyline they string together in my opinion. The neon lighting and intricate set design do their parts to create bizarre and ethereal settings, placing us in a similar headspace to our heroine. The soundtrack was another slightly redeeming feature, with scores from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker and other whimsical musical pieces guiding us through the world of the film and its characters. However, the rest of the film falls utterly flat. The film obviously attempts to draw on many iconic stories as well as other filmmakers with such instantly recognizable styles. To name a few, it heavily incorporates aspects of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, as well as (I would say nods to, but some aspects feel directly lifted from) Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) and Henry Selick’s Coraline (2009). However, much like Alice herself, the film gets totally lost in references to the aesthetics and devices of these other works without seeming to retain any of the message or emotion that made them special. It’s being pulled in so many different directions, it can’t seem to decide what it wants to be. While inspiration and pastiche have always been a part of filmmaking, The Blazing World seems to want to draw from everything at once without ever really diving into the implications of any of it. Ultimately, it lays all its eggs in the aesthetic basket- but even still, the writing and performances are so disruptive it seems to spoil even the visual side of things.

Young’s performance as Margaret lacks nuance and feels static throughout the film, but the writing also does nothing in her or her costars’ favor. The dialogue is clunky and even corny at times, and the pacing is absolutely all over the place, lingering excruciatingly long in some places and opting to ignore others altogether. All of this being said, I think that the film’s greatest failure is in its portrayal of mental illness. Supposedly an examination of the complex issues and influence of grief and trauma, The Blazing World navigates them with very little grace and, at times, I would even say borders on offensive. It plays heavily into the trope of the individual driven to a psychotic state by a traumatic experience, but does little else to actually pick apart that hugely complex and sensitive issue besides placing the character in a conveniently romanticized and simplified story. The supposed exploration of trauma throughout the film felt more like a cheap prop contrasted against the ambitious visuals. By the end, these issues are neatly resolved in a way that feels completely inauthentic and even insulting to those who have experienced anything like them in real life.

I went into The Blazing World with my expectations high, and even throughout the film, when I could see little in the way of it being able to redeem itself, stuck around for some sort of miracle, but instead it only continued to crash and burn.

-G.

#sundance #sundance 2021

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connorrenwick · 5 years ago

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Binu Binu’s Soaps Combine Korean Bathhouse Culture with Modern Design

The following post is brought to you by Squarespace. Our partners are hand picked by the Design Milk team because they represent the best in design.

In a day and age when looking after one’s mind and body is the ultimate in self care, Binu Binu is a brand of modern soaps inspired by the age old ritual of the Korean public bath. Like the spaces themselves, these soaps are based on the idea of daily ritual, intergenerational bonding, and the infamous Korean scrub treatment “Seshin,” an incredibly vigorous exfoliating treatment found at the baths. “Binu” means soap in Korean, and was chosen for its simplicity as well as the fact that it’s not an immediately recognizable word or associated with anything in the English language.

Binu Binu founder Karen Kim used Squarespace when launching their website to help create a beautiful online presence right from the start. The clean lines of their templates were in line with the brand she was beginning to form, and the other services the all-in-one platform offers would help build her business as it grew. We talked to her about Squarespace, Korean bathhouse culture, and why you might want to pick up one of their Scrub Towels!

Photo by Binu Binu

Up until starting Binu Binu, Kim had been working in New York’s fashion industry with a focus on product development, editorial, and buying. Doing so gave her the opportunity to come to know so many brands and designers with fascinating stories who had created their own creative worlds, and it got her thinking.

“I got to the point where I just felt that it was the right time to create my own products and put them out there, as a way to share my vision with others. I think I always had an obsession with soap. One of my earliest childhood memories is of being scrubbed to the bone by my grandmother, watching what I thought were bruises disappear with just a bar of soap and determination. I thought it was magic.” she said.

Photo by Vera Mishurina

“Later on, on a trip to Korea with my mother and aunts, we would visit the public bathhouses every day and I loved how it was contrary to North American spa culture – which seems focused on the self and the idea of luxury. The Korean bathhouse (“jjimjilbang”) was more about a communal, everyday wellness ritual that was social, intergenerational, and seemed to lack vanity and self-consciousness. I found that to be so refreshing and wanted to bring some of that mood to Binu Binu. To me, a bar of soap represents something universal, ancient, with the simple aim of becoming clean. So Binu Binu was born from the idea of a simplified soap and water routine (the opposite of the complicated 10-step skincare routines popular in K-beauty brands) as well as a celebration of Korean bathhouse culture,” Kim explained.

Photo by Lauren Shooster

Once she decided to follow her passion for soap and culture, Kim dove right into the process of figuring out just what she wanted Binu Binu’s soaps to represent.

“Each soap starts with a story, and the formulation and ingredients flow from there. A lot of the inspiration for the collection comes from strong female role models in Korean culture. For example, the Haenyeo Sea Women are sea divers on Jeju Island who dive tank-free for the catch of the day. Many are in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, and are still out there every day in the icy cold water. Because seafood is such a large part of the economy, Jeju is a matriarchal society led by these incredible women. Our Haenyeo Sea Woman Soap, an homage to these women, has sea salt, seaweed extract, refreshing peppermint essential oil and is a bluish grey color, like the water,” she shared.

Photo by Vera Mishurina

“While doing a deep dive into the history of Korean cleansing and purification rituals, I learned about Shamans in Korea, women who perform purification rituals to cleanse the mind and body prior to conducting ceremonies to heal you of whatever ails you. It’s a practice that persists even today. So we developed a Shaman Black Charcoal Soap, inspired by the use of charcoal in these purification ceremonies. It’s our most popular soap,” Kim said.

Photo by Lloyd Stevie \\\ Styling by Lauren Shooster

Kim makes all of the various soaps by hand in their Toronto studio using the cold press method, which involves combining lye with oils and letting the mixture harden and cure for four to six weeks, to best retain natural oils known to benefit skin. The base of every batch contains “boricha,” the well-known Korean roasted barley tea. Every 100% natural bar is fragrance-free and does not contain palm oils, synthetic detergents, artificial colorants, parabens, sulfates, or animal products. So you know this is a product you can feel good about purchasing and using in a multitude of ways.

Photo by Vera Mishurina

Of course Kim uses her own soaps, and has the other soap-related wares Binu Binu offers in her bathroom. Each product has been thoughtfully designed and put to the test to be both a functional and beautiful addition to your bathing space.

“I like to cycle through various soaps, whatever I’m in the mood for – lately it’s been our new Creamy Clay Complexion Soap. I absolutely love using clay in soap, as I find it adds a really nice richness to the lather as well as adding a beautiful color. The Hibiscus Clay Facial Soap is always a perennial favorite, since my skin can be somewhat dry the extra shea butter makes this really gentle and moisturizing,” she says of her favorites.

Photo by Vera Mishurina

Of her other go-tos, Kim said, “My other must-have is our Seshin Korean Scrub Mitt and Towel. I love to exfoliate and this is just such a satisfying way to do it, where the results are immediate. A Korean scrub at the jjimjilbang is an amazing eye-opening experience. You leave feeling cleaner-than-clean and wondering how you could have ever walked around with so much extra baggage, so to speak. I became obsessed with the little cheap and cheerful neon-colored striped scrub mitts they use, so I designed an elevated, neutral-toned version for the line so you can scrub at home in the bath or shower. The towel version is to reach your back if you don’t always have a friend present to scrub it for you.”

Photo by Lauren Shooster

When Binu Binu’s soaps are paired with their Marble Soap Dishes you can see just how well both complement one another. To create them Kim works closely with artisans who specialize in marble bath wares – everything from sinks to counters to full-on marble free-standing bath tubs. Together they design and develop the dishes, selecting the various stone varieties for each batch as they go.

“I love the combo of our Marble Soap Dishes with our soaps. Working with natural stones is endlessly fascinating, because each piece is truly unique and beautiful. The ones with swirl patterns that speak to me make their way into my own personal collection. I’m partial to the Blue Marble, a glossy teal with white and sepia tones that looks like the Earth from space, and the Green Onyx, which is translucent and almost ethereal – like it glows from within.”

Photo by Vera Mishurina

You can’t help but be struck by each bar’s gorgeous angles and almost monumental aesthetic. It turns out that their sculptural qualities are just what drew Kim specifically to bar soaps in the first place.

She said, “I knew that I wanted to create a shape that was pared down, with clean edges and no extraneous details, but also something archetypal and iconic that wasn’t commonplace. Our bars can stand upright like a column, and can also fit perfectly in the hand. By shifting from a more ubiquitous flat rectangle to a monolithic shape, it turns an everyday object into a little sculptural object for the bathroom.”

Photo by Lloyd Stevie \\\ Styling by Lauren Shooster

We’re crazy about everything Binu Binu creates, so we asked Kim what’s on the horizon for the brand in the foreseeable future and what she’s most excited about.

She answered, “So many new things! One that we are most excited about is our biodegradable soap case for travel. It’s inspired by vintage designer soap cases, but modernized – definitely not something you would find in a drug store aisle. I think being able to simplify a toiletry bag is important. Instead of traveling with a million little bottles, you can pack a beautiful, discreet case (bonus: since the soap is solid, it’s TSA approved). It launches in October, just in time for the busy holiday travel season. Moving forward further into the future, our focus is on gradually building a world of modern bathhouse-inspired products that are also beautiful objects in and of themselves.”

Photo by Lloyd Stevie \\\ Styling by Lauren Shooster

Like many first-time business owners, Kim was less intimidated by Squarespace than other available options, which was a main factor in choosing them for Binu Binu’s website. Their abilities matched well with her burgeoning brand’s needs and left room to grow as a business, even offering tools that might help along the way.

“When I first started my business, I was drawn to Squarespace because it enabled me to effortlessly create an e-commerce site that was simple, yet considered design and functionality. I found that I could customize as I go, which is important to any new business as its needs change. At first we started with the Galapagos template, and now we use the Pedro template. I appreciate the flexibility, ease, and clean design principles that Squarespace keeps in mind.”

Ready to get to work on your own site? Take the first step with a Squarespace website. Use coupon code DESIGNMILK at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.

via http://design-milk.com/

from WordPress https://connorrenwickblog.wordpress.com/2019/09/23/binu-binus-soaps-combine-korean-bathhouse-culture-with-modern-design/

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iyarpage · 6 years ago

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Design Your Website to Sell While You Work

Design work is very time consuming. But it’s not just the labor you put into building websites that takes time and concentration.

Because the projects you work on typically have a short shelf life, you’re constantly having to find new gigs, woo potential clients, and sign them onto your service — which is like another job in and of itself. So, when do you find time to look for more work when you’re so busy actually doing it?

You could set aside time on the weekends to work on drumming up new projects, but that’s the last thing you want to do. Imagine spending that time booking new business and then being too burned out to get started with any of them? That’s no good.

You could, of course, do it during the workweek. It would just require you to dedicate otherwise billable hours to non-billable work and cut into your business’s profitability.

Without hiring someone to handle sales for you, what’s the solution?

It’s your website.

Here are some things you can do to design a website that relieves you of at least some of the burden of finding and selling to new clients.

1. Design for Your Niche

One of the best things you can do as a web designer (or any creative freelancer, really) is to carve out a highly specific niche. For instance, you could design websites for:

Real estate agents

Female-owned businesses

Restaurants in your city

The more targeted your audience, the easier it will be to sell to them (and to build their websites).

I’m going to take this one step further as I don’t just think it’s enough to choose a niche to design for.

I think your own website should be reflective of your niche. More specifically, it should be designed to look like a website your client would want as their own. What better way to sell a prospect on a website than to show them that you know exactly how to build the solution they need?

The Modern Firm is an excellent example of this:

Visit the website and you’ll notice:

The company name sounds like it should be working for law firms.

The design is super buttoned-up — traditionally-structured, muted color palette, and minimalism at its best.

Copy is professional, honest, and straight to the point.

In other words, this website looks and sounds like one that its target clientele would want for themselves.

2. Answer Their Questions

Think about how much time you spend dealing with objections as you talk to prospective clients. That’s either because their expectations haven’t been set properly before meeting with you or they’re a bad fit.

If you use your website to answer those questions, though, you can significantly decrease the amount of time you spend on sales calls with prospects.

One way to do this is to explain in the simplest terms what your clients get. Here’s how I handle this for prospective copywriting clients:

I was frustrated that I had to explain over and over again to prospects what it meant to create optimized content. The question continued to come up on calls, so I decided to just provide the answer on my website.

I now no longer get questions about my services. Prospects hop on the phone with me and ask how much they have to pay to get started. It’s been a huge time-saver.

As a web designer, it might not be as simple as to say, “You’ll get a 10-page website, built using X theme, optimized for speed with caching, etc.” When it comes to websites, you’re just delivering too technical of a product.

So, for you, I’d suggest taking the same basic principle of “answer their questions”, but tackle them with an FAQs like Eternity does:

They’ve done such a great job of providing simple and straightforward answers to the kinds of questions I’m sure all of you get. Not only will this decrease the amount of time people have to spend with them on sales calls, but it’ll help weed out bad-fit clients.

3. Create a More Impressive Portfolio

There’s absolutely no question that your website needs to include an awesome portfolio of websites. Just make sure that any samples you include in your portfolio:

Are 100% something you’re proud to show off;

Are relevant to your target audience;

Are consistently designed.

Here’s what I mean:

Bluetext is in the business of creating digital campaigns (including web design) for clients. Although they build solutions for a couple dozen industries, they keep their portfolio well-organized, grouping sample work based on category.

For example, this is what their “Cybersecurity” portfolio looks like:

Notice how well put together this portfolio is — everything is clearly labeled, designed in a similar style, and is impressive to look at. It also helps clients in quickly see the potential for their specific business without the distraction of other types of websites getting in the way.

4. Establish Trust

As a web designer, you have to build trust with clients if you want them to pay top-dollar for your services. While you can certainly do that throughout the web design process, why wait? Use your website as a vehicle for establishing trust now.

One way to do this is with your portfolio.

Another way to do this is by including testimonials or, at the very least, logos from clients who are happy to connect their brand to yours. Interactive Strategies uses a dedicated banner on its home page to show off brands who’ve trusted them:

If you don’t have a client base with recognizable names, or you’re still working to amass an impressive list of clients, don’t worry. You can use other trust marks to establish trust now as Direction.com does:

Prospective clients can see all of their awards and certifications in one place — and it’s definitely something to marvel at.

5. Simplify Next Steps

If you’ve been doing this for long enough, I bet you can anticipate what prospective clients’ next steps are after they’ve visited your website.

For my business, I know that they’ll see my site and then reach out for pricing. However, I know that I can’t actually answer that question during a first phone call. I have to review their needs, business, industry, and a whole host of other details before I can provide a quote.

So, I give them two options:

Fill out a contact form if you have further questions;

Schedule a 15-minute call with me through Calendly.

There’s just one caveat to the phone call though. I don’t get on the phone with anyone until they fill out my questionnaire (which their “Thank You” email sends to them). It asks them everything I need to know to provide them with a quote.

That way, when I do get on the phone, I’m fully prepared to talk about my process, explain final questions, and give them a number.

I would suggest building out a similar set of contact options (e.g. contact form and scheduler, chatbot and scheduler, chatbot and email, etc.), so you can spend less time going back-and-forth on the phone or over email and instead get them a quote and contract right away.

Design Your Website to Sell While You Work

Would you like to stop spending so much time on job boards, social media, and in search trying to find new clients? You already know how to build websites to help your clients sell their businesses, so why aren’t you doing the same for your own?

Add Realistic Chalk and Sketch Lettering Effects with Sketch’it – only $5!

Source p img {display:inline-block; margin-right:10px;} .alignleft {float:left;} p.showcase {clear:both;} body#browserfriendly p, body#podcast p, div#emailbody p{margin:0;} Design Your Website to Sell While You Work published first on https://medium.com/@koresol

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webbygraphic001 · 6 years ago

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Design Your Website to Sell While You Work

Design work is very time consuming. But it’s not just the labor you put into building websites that takes time and concentration.

You could, of course, do it during the workweek. It would just require you to dedicate otherwise billable hours to non-billable work and cut into your business’s profitability.

Without hiring someone to handle sales for you, what’s the solution?

It’s your website.

Here are some things you can do to design a website that relieves you of at least some of the burden of finding and selling to new clients.

1. Design for Your Niche

One of the best things you can do as a web designer (or any creative freelancer, really) is to carve out a highly specific niche. For instance, you could design websites for:

Real estate agents

Female-owned businesses

Restaurants in your city

The more targeted your audience, the easier it will be to sell to them (and to build their websites).

I’m going to take this one step further as I don’t just think it’s enough to choose a niche to design for.

The Modern Firm is an excellent example of this:

Visit the website and you’ll notice:

The company name sounds like it should be working for law firms.

The design is super buttoned-up — traditionally-structured, muted color palette, and minimalism at its best.

Copy is professional, honest, and straight to the point.

In other words, this website looks and sounds like one that its target clientele would want for themselves.

2. Answer Their Questions

If you use your website to answer those questions, though, you can significantly decrease the amount of time you spend on sales calls with prospects.

One way to do this is to explain in the simplest terms what your clients get. Here’s how I handle this for prospective copywriting clients:

I now no longer get questions about my services. Prospects hop on the phone with me and ask how much they have to pay to get started. It’s been a huge time-saver.

So, for you, I’d suggest taking the same basic principle of “answer their questions”, but tackle them with an FAQs like Eternity does:

3. Create a More Impressive Portfolio

There’s absolutely no question that your website needs to include an awesome portfolio of websites. Just make sure that any samples you include in your portfolio:

Are 100% something you’re proud to show off;

Are relevant to your target audience;

Are consistently designed.

Here’s what I mean:

For example, this is what their “Cybersecurity” portfolio looks like:

4. Establish Trust

One way to do this is with your portfolio.

Prospective clients can see all of their awards and certifications in one place — and it’s definitely something to marvel at.

5. Simplify Next Steps

If you’ve been doing this for long enough, I bet you can anticipate what prospective clients’ next steps are after they’ve visited your website.

So, I give them two options:

Fill out a contact form if you have further questions;

Schedule a 15-minute call with me through Calendly.

That way, when I do get on the phone, I’m fully prepared to talk about my process, explain final questions, and give them a number.

Design Your Website to Sell While You Work

Add Realistic Chalk and Sketch Lettering Effects with Sketch’it – only $5!

Source from Webdesigner Depot http://bit.ly/2LgBzPU from Blogger http://bit.ly/2VxH40s

#Blogger

0 notes

constructionsworkr3053 · 7 years ago

Text

9 Fundamental UX Principles That Will Boost Your Conversions

Have you ever gotten mad at a website because you couldn’t get to where you wanted to go?

What did you do? You probably left, never to return.

Now flip the script. You’re in charge of improving the UX (User Experience) of your company’s website. You are amped.

You have been burned too many times by poor website usability, and you’re ready to make your website the most user-friendly site in all of the internets!

You sit down at your computer, pull up the site and take a nice big swig of coffee.

… Shit, now what?

Where do you start? How do you know exactly where the issues and opportunities exist?

This post is for you and anyone who is in charge of improving the UX of a website, app, or anything that human beings use.

These 9 principles are derived from pioneers of User Experience; Jakob Nielsen, Jill Gerhardt-Powal, Susan Weinschenk and Dean Barker. You might not know their names, but these individuals helped shape the landscape for what’s more popularly known as “UX” today.

Jakob Nielsen

We took their highly technical principles and simplified them, for you.

Things that are good to know before performing a UX review:

Business goals (KPIs)

Voice and tone/brand guidelines

High impact pages (pages with most visits or conversion assists) – engagement metrics, heatmaps.

Personas

User goals (through each phase of the buyer’s journey)

Most common device (mobile vs desktop)

Most common contexts (channel/source of visit, user environment, etc.)

Competitors (specifically the experience they offer)

Don’t get overwhelmed though. For a UX review, you don’t need to memorize these things. Just become familiar with them.

This base knowledge needs to marinate in your mind as you put yourself into the shoes of your users and go through their experience.

9 Fundamental UX Principles That Will Boost Your Conversions

*FYI: These 9 principles are in no particular order.

Table of Contents

1. Assess Current State

At any point in each experience, a user needs to easily understand:

1. Where they are 2. Where they were 3. Where they can go

When you navigate anywhere (physically or mentally), your brain desires the understanding of where you currently are, where you were before, and where you can go.

This is especially important when navigating a website or app for the first time.

There is no clear map laid out for visitors, so it’s your job to make sure that they always understand their current state.

How Companies Get it Wrong

While the “where you are” rule sounds simple to accomplish, you would be surprised on how often designers fail to follow this rule.

In headlines, it’s tempting to put something clever to try and impress the user with puns or witty statements.

Don’t label your case study page “Art in process” or “Masters of our universe.” Just be straight with your user!

Even the best can get this wrong. Check out the “features” page on Evernote’s website.

www.evernote.com

To get to this page, we clicked on “Features.”

The site does a good job with the green underline in the navigation to help a user confirm where they currently are.

But the headline copy and URL address tell us that we’ve entered the “business plan” section.

So where are we? Are we in the features section or the business plan section?

It doesn’t matter at this point. Evernote has already caused friction in our experience.

How To Get it Right

Using breadcrumbs on your website is an easy way to help satisfy this principle. Take Best Buy for example.

www.bestbuy.com

As highlighted above, Best Buy nails all three rules for this principle.

They utilize breadcrumbs to tell us where we were and the path we took to get to our current state.

It also clearly tells us where we are, with a bold clear headline “PS4 Games.”

They then hit a home run with the third part of this principle, where we can go from here by clearly laying out our options.

The easiest way to apply this principle is to ask these three questions at every point of your UX assessment.

2. Use symbols, language, and imagery that match the user’s real world

The experience should speak the users’ language with words, phrases, imagery, and concepts familiar to the user. Avoid terms that are too complex or too vague.

A common instance of this principle is the use of icons.

Nick Babich does a great job breaking down the best way to go about choosing icons for your design.

“A user’s understanding of an icon is based on previous experience. If you decide to include icons in your interface, research first. Familiarize yourself with icons used by your competitors and with icons commonly used on the platforms you’re targeting (i.e. system icons), because those will be most recognizable to your users.” – Icons As Part Of A Great User Experience, Smashing Magazine

If there’s any chance your icons aren’t 100% clear, pair them with text to help define the icons’ identity, as illustrated below.

https://ift.tt/2evMboA

Another way to apply this principle is to follow units of measurement that are recognizable and important to your user.

For example, imagine you provide a cloud hosting platform.

You have a promotion going on for $20 off when a user signs up from a specific landing page.

$20 Off

But when you think about it, $20 means a lot of different things to different people.

In this case, dollars don’t explain the actual value a user gets. A user doesn’t understand what $20 translates to in reference to your offering without doing some further research.

Instead, you should define what $20 means in relation to what they know and care about.

Let’s say that $20 equals the monthly cost of using this cloud hosting platform.

1 Month Free

You have now saved your user the effort of equating what $20 gets them, and they can understand the value of the deal right away.

Always double-check what you are describing versus what the user can immediately comprehend.

Refer back to your persona and competitor research for this principle. This is a great opportunity to come up with ideas of what to ask during your user research phase.

3. Each experience provides a logical next step in the user’s journey

Ask yourself, “Does each step lead users to a logical next step?” Ensure that there are no “dead ends,” so a user never feels trapped or lost.

Look out for and fix dead ends

Not all experiences have the convenience of a “back” button like websites have. Although, it should be a goal for websites that users will never need to use it.

Do not push users to a next step that you want them to take. You should provide the next step that is most logical based off of the user’s needs.

A very common mistake made here is when you are using your website to try and push users down the sales funnel.

A lot of sites have the bottom-of-funnel CTA on every page or in every region.

Take Wix for example. They have their “Get Started” CTA 8 times on their homepage alone.

www.wix.com

All 8 of the red circles identify the “Get Started” CTA that Wix throws at their users in every single region (sometimes twice within the same region!).

In reality, if a user didn’t choose to “Get Started” right away, they are looking for more information before they make that decision.

The answers to their questions won’t be miraculously answered within a paragraph on the homepage. On top of that, users develop a “banner blindness” to redundant CTAs.

So in Wix’s case, this strategy backfires twofold.

What you should do here is provide one CTA per region (which is still pushing it) that brings the user to a more in-depth informational page relevant to the region that they are viewing.

Your CTAs should also be clear. Once a user clicks on a CTA, they should know what is going to come next. “Get Started” is vague, and doesn’t tell the user what will exactly happen when they click on the button.

Here’s a great example of providing logical next steps on your website and giving your users clear expectations from Zendesk.

www.zendesk.com

Looking at their customers? Check out their case studies! Made it to the bottom of the homepage? You must be interested. Sign up for a demo!

4. Ensure consistency in the language, tone, and design

Use recognizable design and language that are consistent throughout the experience.

Ensure that your visual design has consistency throughout the site. Even subtle differences, such as CTA treatments or font type, can cause a user’s brain to experience friction.

If you speak in the 2nd person, keep it that way throughout the site. If you use icons or labels, make sure they receive the same treatment throughout the site so users can recognize and find them easily.

A very common mistake that websites overlook is the look and feel of the homepage compared to the blog.

Look at GoToMeeting for example. On the left is their homepage. To the right, just one click away is their blog.

www.gotomeeting.com

Now, this game is fun. Can you spot out all the differences in the blog design compared to the homepage?

There are two major differences that can be a potential user experience drawback: The navigation completely changed, and the website now lives in this box surrounded by an eerie gray background.

Why is this bad? Because it’s causing a user to momentarily question where they are. And the last thing you want is to have the user question themselves during their experience because one question of doubt usually leads to another.

“Am I on the same site? Why am I here again? How do I get back? Should I just look somewhere else?”

The goal of UX is to give users a smooth, predictable ride while navigating the world you’ve created for them. As soon as that ride seems like it’s off-course, people will start to doubt their decision to be there in the first place.

Now, most of this is subconscious. No one will ever say “wow I love the consistency of this design!”

But they WILL call you out if consistency is lacking. That reason alone is enough for you to pay special attention to the detail of the experience you are creating.

Your design should also follow a similar format/heuristic that your users are used to seeing.

Examples: Having your hamburger menu on the top right for mobile, having your logo send a user back to the homepage, or finding a form on the contact page.

Don’t get too ambitious if you want to try something new. A very common mistake here, that we’ve all experienced, is the design of “Mens” and “Womens” bathroom icon.

https://ift.tt/2I4OeT0

It takes a second glance to figure it out, and it’s definitely not an ideal scenario to stumble into the wrong bathroom if you’re in a rush!

The same rules apply to specific industries.

Certain industries have a general template that users are used to seeing. For example, restaurant websites should have the menu readily available from the homepage. Theatre websites give users easy access to showtimes and ticketing schedules.

Also, think about online booking websites. They usually have a search/filter function on the homepage so users can immediately start looking for accommodations.

www.airbnb.com/ - Immediate access to start searching for your needs.

www.booking.com/ - Immediate access to start searching for your needs.

Do research on other websites in the industry you are evaluating. Make sure you aren’t changing the experience to the point where users can’t instinctually figure out what they can do.

5. Identify and eliminate friction

Eliminate mental calculations, estimations, comparisons, and unnecessary thinking. Keep your eye out for unnecessary elements or copy that might distract users from what they are trying to achieve.

Ensure that every word, image, or element serves a purpose and adds value. If there’s anything that causes friction, remove it.

Take this homepage design from FreshBooks for example.

www.freshbooks.com

While the copy does an adequate job communicating directly, the imagery here has a lot of visual friction.

Visual friction is simply anything on an image that makes a user think about something other than what you are trying to communicate. It takes their mindset on an unnecessary tangent.

www.freshbooks.com

Why is this croissant here? Does it have anything to do with what you sell? No. Does it even have anything to do with the message or feeling you are trying to evoke here? Nope.

Thanks to the croissant, you might think that this yellow bright stack is cheese by association. Nope. Post-it notes. Oddly tasty looking post-it notes.

This plant is practically smack dab in the middle of the page, and has a pretty high contrast. You might recognize this plant from someone’s desk in your office. But it has nothing to do with FreshBooks or their message.

Wow, books! Wait, there’s some small text on those books. You might be tempted to tilt your head or zoom in to see what book it is. Another visual friction point that adds no value.

Really? Terms of service agreement AND a security link on the HOMEPAGE? Is that really necessary to do at this point? In all likelihood, seeing those disclaimers probably increases the anxiety of users who think about filling out the form. It’s much more acceptable to see this type of treatment further down the funnel, but not for a one-field form on the homepage.

Not only do these elements fail to add value, they actually take value away from the other elements on the page by deviating the user’s attention.

Another example of friction is using abstract statements.

Instead, use concrete language that will help a user create a picture in their head.

See an example of how Dropbox misses the mark, and how they could fix it.

www.dropbox.com

This statement doesn’t..

https://ift.tt/2jgu3DB

#9 Fundamental UX Principles That Will Boost Your Conversions

0 notes

realtor10036 · 7 years ago

Text

9 Fundamental UX Principles That Will Boost Your Conversions

Have you ever gotten mad at a website because you couldn’t get to where you wanted to go?

What did you do? You probably left, never to return.

Now flip the script. You’re in charge of improving the UX (User Experience) of your company’s website. You are amped.

You have been burned too many times by poor website usability, and you’re ready to make your website the most user-friendly site in all of the internets!

You sit down at your computer, pull up the site and take a nice big swig of coffee.

… Shit, now what?

Where do you start? How do you know exactly where the issues and opportunities exist?

This post is for you and anyone who is in charge of improving the UX of a website, app, or anything that human beings use.

Jakob Nielsen

We took their highly technical principles and simplified them, for you.

Things that are good to know before performing a UX review:

Business goals (KPIs)

Voice and tone/brand guidelines

High impact pages (pages with most visits or conversion assists) – engagement metrics, heatmaps.

Personas

User goals (through each phase of the buyer’s journey)

Most common device (mobile vs desktop)

Most common contexts (channel/source of visit, user environment, etc.)

Competitors (specifically the experience they offer)

Don’t get overwhelmed though. For a UX review, you don’t need to memorize these things. Just become familiar with them.

This base knowledge needs to marinate in your mind as you put yourself into the shoes of your users and go through their experience.

9 Fundamental UX Principles That Will Boost Your Conversions

*FYI: These 9 principles are in no particular order.

Table of Contents

1. Assess Current State

At any point in each experience, a user needs to easily understand:

1. Where they are 2. Where they were 3. Where they can go

When you navigate anywhere (physically or mentally), your brain desires the understanding of where you currently are, where you were before, and where you can go.

This is especially important when navigating a website or app for the first time.

There is no clear map laid out for visitors, so it’s your job to make sure that they always understand their current state.

How Companies Get it Wrong

While the “where you are” rule sounds simple to accomplish, you would be surprised on how often designers fail to follow this rule.

In headlines, it’s tempting to put something clever to try and impress the user with puns or witty statements.

Don’t label your case study page “Art in process” or “Masters of our universe.” Just be straight with your user!

Even the best can get this wrong. Check out the “features” page on Evernote’s website.

www.evernote.com

To get to this page, we clicked on “Features.”

The site does a good job with the green underline in the navigation to help a user confirm where they currently are.

But the headline copy and URL address tell us that we’ve entered the “business plan” section.

So where are we? Are we in the features section or the business plan section?

It doesn’t matter at this point. Evernote has already caused friction in our experience.

How To Get it Right

Using breadcrumbs on your website is an easy way to help satisfy this principle. Take Best Buy for example.

www.bestbuy.com

As highlighted above, Best Buy nails all three rules for this principle.

They utilize breadcrumbs to tell us where we were and the path we took to get to our current state.

It also clearly tells us where we are, with a bold clear headline “PS4 Games.”

They then hit a home run with the third part of this principle, where we can go from here by clearly laying out our options.

The easiest way to apply this principle is to ask these three questions at every point of your UX assessment.

2. Use symbols, language, and imagery that match the user’s real world

The experience should speak the users’ language with words, phrases, imagery, and concepts familiar to the user. Avoid terms that are too complex or too vague.

A common instance of this principle is the use of icons.

Nick Babich does a great job breaking down the best way to go about choosing icons for your design.

If there’s any chance your icons aren’t 100% clear, pair them with text to help define the icons’ identity, as illustrated below.

https://ift.tt/2evMboA

Another way to apply this principle is to follow units of measurement that are recognizable and important to your user.

For example, imagine you provide a cloud hosting platform.

You have a promotion going on for $20 off when a user signs up from a specific landing page.

$20 Off

But when you think about it, $20 means a lot of different things to different people.

In this case, dollars don’t explain the actual value a user gets. A user doesn’t understand what $20 translates to in reference to your offering without doing some further research.

Instead, you should define what $20 means in relation to what they know and care about.

Let’s say that $20 equals the monthly cost of using this cloud hosting platform.

1 Month Free

You have now saved your user the effort of equating what $20 gets them, and they can understand the value of the deal right away.

Always double-check what you are describing versus what the user can immediately comprehend.

Refer back to your persona and competitor research for this principle. This is a great opportunity to come up with ideas of what to ask during your user research phase.

3. Each experience provides a logical next step in the user’s journey

Ask yourself, “Does each step lead users to a logical next step?” Ensure that there are no “dead ends,” so a user never feels trapped or lost.

Look out for and fix dead ends

Not all experiences have the convenience of a “back” button like websites have. Although, it should be a goal for websites that users will never need to use it.

Do not push users to a next step that you want them to take. You should provide the next step that is most logical based off of the user’s needs.

A very common mistake made here is when you are using your website to try and push users down the sales funnel.

A lot of sites have the bottom-of-funnel CTA on every page or in every region.

Take Wix for example. They have their “Get Started” CTA 8 times on their homepage alone.

www.wix.com

All 8 of the red circles identify the “Get Started” CTA that Wix throws at their users in every single region (sometimes twice within the same region!).

In reality, if a user didn’t choose to “Get Started” right away, they are looking for more information before they make that decision.

The answers to their questions won’t be miraculously answered within a paragraph on the homepage. On top of that, users develop a “banner blindness” to redundant CTAs.

So in Wix’s case, this strategy backfires twofold.

What you should do here is provide one CTA per region (which is still pushing it) that brings the user to a more in-depth informational page relevant to the region that they are viewing.

Here’s a great example of providing logical next steps on your website and giving your users clear expectations from Zendesk.

www.zendesk.com

Looking at their customers? Check out their case studies! Made it to the bottom of the homepage? You must be interested. Sign up for a demo!

4. Ensure consistency in the language, tone, and design

Use recognizable design and language that are consistent throughout the experience.

Ensure that your visual design has consistency throughout the site. Even subtle differences, such as CTA treatments or font type, can cause a user’s brain to experience friction.

A very common mistake that websites overlook is the look and feel of the homepage compared to the blog.

Look at GoToMeeting for example. On the left is their homepage. To the right, just one click away is their blog.