control over their work

So another problem I am going to attempt to face is the designers control over their work. Many times they will release what they have done and be shot down or asked to rework and in many times completely redo what is needed. The issue with this is many times business owners may not realize what is the best design. This will be a difficult issue to tackle because ultimately it is the business owners right to go with what they want. What I may try to do to handle this is devote a section to critiques. This section would allow both sides to post the work created or created for them and have other designers make critiques on the work and have other business owners make comments that may help as well. I think this will really bring together the community feel and make people want to help each other more. This will also give designers the chance for others in their field to stand behind their work as good design to help the business owners understand. This is just a start because this may end up being the most important or new detail of the site setting it apart from other similar services.

Similar existing sites

So I found a similar site but with a different feel.

http://www.buyerzone.com/internet/site_design/qz_questions_678.jhtml

This site is entirely about already existing design firms and matching new and existing businesses with what they need.

What is different about what I'm doing is that instead of giving a list of bubbled questions to fill out and be sorted and sent on your way, I'm trying to create a community for discussion and mutual benefit for both parties involved. Also the biggest difference is my site is going to focus more on the designer. The only sites I could find like the link above and other similar services were for design firms, not for the college age, unemployed, or casual designer.

The designer

One thing that was mentioned was to empower the designer. How do I make sure that the designers are not getting used as slave labor in this project.

My first thought to avoid this is to have several sections instead of just two main ones (the help offered and the help needed) this will be expanded to many sections but my thoughts now are for at least 4. On the business owner side there will be a Professional Help needed section for current established business owners to look for hired work. The second section would be for more loose organizations that are not in need of a designer but would be interested a logo or website if offered. This 2nd free hire section is to help achieve my original intent of being an outlet for designers to get started or get their foot in the door or just see if online design is for them. The other side of the site would have two sections for the desginers to match the business side. One section for established designers looking for paying work and another for new designers or people interested only in developing or expanding their portfolio.

I think this distinction will not only attract more people to the site but also a wider range of experience and need.

building the site...

So I have made some simple websites before and have a bit experience with creating them but I am currently rusty. To create a community like this I'm going to first need to cover the basics again and then go a little deeper to make this come out nice. I don't think these 3 links deserve their own post so I'm just grouping them together for a small reference as to where I'm going to be relearning the technical side of creating a site.

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/

http://www.w3schools.com/

http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/

Im pretty sure I'll be looking at a lot more than just these three but they are definately a good start.

My Project, an Explanation

I think something important that I need on my blog is a good explanation of what I intend to do.

I plan on creating an online community meant for young business people and young online designers. The goal is to make a place available for both of these groups to find each other and then accomplish both their goals which I believe may be hard to do when you are getting started.

The idea is a young business owner or maybe its just an intramural sports team leader or a campus organization president, or anything really needs a logo or a website made, or wants to learn to do it on their own. What they would do is make a post in the looking for help section. Then a young freelance designer browses the help wanted section and if he finds something he can or would like to do he contacts the person who made the post

This can also work the opposite way. Freelance designer can post their qualifications or some of their work to the help offering section and the business owners can browse through there to get in touch with someone who can help them.

The main initial intention is to create a way for less established artists and college students studying design to get a foot in the door and get some real world projects for a portfolio they can show to future employers or possibly even get them started before creating their own design firms.

What is New Media - Manovich

Lev Manovich's definition that new media is based around the computerization of the globe also fits in with my capstone. With my capstone bringing people together online for a chance to be mutually beneficial to each other all from their keyboard, I feel that my capstone synches pretty well with his definition but mostly because it fits the vehicle that he says is the the main part of new media. I think my project fits best with the transcoding principle in that it will have a computer layer as the vehicle (being the site that will be created as a meeting center) and a cultural level where interactions occur. I think least like my capstone is the automation principle because my community will be entirely user based and any creation or interaction will come from the designers or the business owners. I'm not sure how I could integrate Lev's principles into my capstone better so I will need to spend more time on that and see what I come up with.
I certainly agree with Lev Manovich's definition and I read a lot of discussion of how it effects culture but I dont see as much as I would like to see of how culture effects his version of new media and how they play off each other and continue to grow.

What is New Media - Crosbie

As far as Crosbies definition of new media. I believe my capstone fits in. My cap stone which brings many artists and young business owners together and lets them at the same time look for each other in mass ways and in one on one situations. This seems to fit in with the many to many communications ideal of the new communications medium.
I agree with Crosbie's definition because it's important to distinguish between the 3 communications media and the vehicles that we use to navigate these media. Many to many is the new medium of communications, the internet is not new media its a path, some computer games, photoshop, http, and many other things we may consider new media are actually new media vehicles.