About the speaker:
Toby works at Moving brands, part of a 60 person team that work on different creative projects. He has worked there for nine years and started as a graphic designer and interactive design then pivoted into coding and open frame works to make ‘visual toys’ and do software development.
He wanted to start by saying that he wasn’t a game designer but he was a creative and these fields of game design and interactive design do overlap. So he hopes we take something productive from this talk and him sharing some of the process.
His Experience and work in industry: Moving brands were approached by bbc weather to expand on the idea of showing weather just because they take things a step further, not just weather icons on a app but a whole weather system shown in the background to give the user an accurate visualisation of the weather in the background of the app. this shows that small changes to the normal format goes a long way and shows how an Interactive style can go a long way.
This is how this Technology is being used now by other groups in these example its IOS 15 and Apple's weather app but you can still see the difference between the weather where it is raining in Winchester and raining in Southampton and the sun slightly bursts through the clouds in Southamptons background this just further helps the purpose of the app but doesn't take away from any of its existing features.
The second work of his that stood out was when he was working on a app to help out farmers and the crops they make be more efficiently grown. the key to this being made was research. toby went on to explain in a lot of projects your going to be working in themes and areas where you don't specialise in, this isn't bad it just means that there are people who are more informed in these fields and you can learn so much in a shorter time frame by talking or listening to these people if that's in person asking questions or watching a video or podcast they have done on this subject.
This is very relevant to our phase one work on learning about different themes. he also went on to say not just at University this should be part of your process in any project you undertake where there are people who are more specialised in that field. by practicing this now and make it a part of my process my work will come out more informed and therefore much more effective.
Also if companies that are already doing this see this is part of your process already do this will give you an 'IN' as they will like the time you take to get to know the projects you're working on and that this isn't a alien concept to you.
His take on play:
Challenge the idea of its only a game - Toby
If you can play and interact with something it becomes more engaging for the user, but just because its toy like means it isn’t serious. Some of the first PCs were used to make games because that pushed the hardware.
People need something to express in their everyday life and how can we take things from game design to make that happen.
My take aways from this talk:
Toby definitely had some good subjects to talk about and they are definitely relevant to our current steps in researching towards making a game and fleshing out our themes. as well as helping in our current projects I think this talk has given some great pointers towards how I handle work and research for future projects.
Also his talk definitely elaborates on the importance of the creative cycle of research and being well informed THEN jumping into making prototypes. This is definitely something I want to make sure I don't lose going further through this year and later in my career.