Week 3 started with a high enthusiasm (at least on my end) after our Tuesday Google hangout meeting. The group discussed the aim of the project in more depth and defined future milestones. Being a communication designer, I know how important it is to define the target audience early, so I initiated the conversation. The crucial point was to decide whether we are keeping the project within the boundaries of racial injustice (as initially proposed) or expanding it to the broader audience– anyone who believes that their sense of freedom is being compromised. The group agreed that the project should target a wider audience.

We delegated the tasks among us, and I took upon myself to kick start the web development process by:
1. Starting to think about the branding: Created a moodboard Google Slide where we can share visual research and inspirations, along with market research. Market research will help us understand what is already out there in terms of visual representations of activist, social and political campaigns.

2. Creating the website wireframes. I will work on creating early wireframes using the software called Axure, so next time the group meets we will have something tangible in front of us to discuss.

3. I had a conversation with a friend who is a full-stack developer about the best and leanest way to approach this project from the development perspective. He suggested using React for front-end, a JavaScript library for building the interface. For the back-end he proposed Google’s Firebase, apparently, the platform offers some free data storage– we will need to look into that. Additionally Google offers CMS that supports Firebase and it’s called Firelink (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Cw5ktNADBQ)

The next steps would be:

1. Talk about the website’s visual identity and what is the message and ‘tone of the voice’ that we would like to visually communicate.

2. Discuss the wireframes.

3. Conduct research about React and Firebase.

Digital Humanities Week

Unfortunately, I was not able to attend any of the workshops during the DH week. I am a single parent who is working full time and it is extremely difficult for me to plan any activity that is outside of my work/parent schedule. It would be wonderful if next DH week holds activities during the weekend or allow remote access.

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