Style, design & the left
Apr 1 2006
Yeah the daily bleed is one of the best examples of misguided individual, but then you can tell that from the web design!
admin edit - splie from Most influential individual thread
Mar 31 2006
#2
I mean the content isnt that great.
But yeah the form is balls, and yes to an extent it has to be form over content. We live in an age when information is waiting for you around every corner, and most media produced by the left looks like shit. We need to learn to make things look nice, otherwise no one is going to bother looking at it.
And why should they? If it looks like crap it might as well be crap a lot of the time!
Edit// look at this pic of a banner we got emailed today, and compare it to anything you see on IMCUk:
http://www.libcom.org/gallery/v/news/france-cpe/international/sweden/19_3.jpg.html
Mar 31 2006
#3
OK, I agree - there some questionable entries on the web site. But, they do represent some acts of anti-authoritarianism. Your argument only sucks up to narcissism, you're caught in the 'me-generation' paradigm. You've got to eschew that - capitalism will always find a way to individualise consumption!
rkn wrote:
I mean the content isnt that great.But yeah the form is balls, and yes to an extent it has to be form over content. We live in an age when information is waiting for you around every corner, and most media produced by the left looks like shit. We need to learn to make things look nice, otherwise no one is going to bother looking at it.
And why should they? If it looks like crap it might as well be crap a lot of the time!
Edit// look at this pic of a banner we got emailed today, and compare it to anything you see on IMCUk:
http://sweden.indymedia.org/usermedia/image/9/large/19_3.jpg
Mar 31 2006
#4
Anchorman wrote:
Your argument only sucks up to narcissism, you're caught in the 'me-generation' paradigm. You've got to eschew that - capitalism will always find a way to individualise consumption!
! No I'm not, im just a realist - why would anyone be interested in something which looks like crap? Unless they already have their mind set on following up with that website/paper/flier they arent going to bother.
You cant work in some sort of nether-realm outside capitalism because its "individualising consumption", if you think thats a bad thing then fair enough - but no one is going to listen to you because everyone else thinks it needs to look good!
With you i am starting to understand why the left always looks so shit. Its this kind of attitude which will make sure the left never reaches into popular conciousness and why no one can design a decent graphic for shit!
If searched google for "France CPE", they click on the first thing which comes up, which is a link to our site. Would they bother clicking through the site if it was slow, hard to navigate and not catching to the eye?
You have to grab people's attention as fast as possible, then you have to try and sustain it.
Mar 31 2006
#5
rkn wrote:
Edit// look at this pic of a banner we got emailed today, and compare it to anything you see on IMCUk:http://sweden.indymedia.org/usermedia/image/9/large/19_3.jpg
Swedish people are way cool though. That looks like an INC album cover.
Mar 31 2006
#6
John. wrote:
rkn wrote:
Edit// look at this pic of a banner we got emailed today, and compare it to anything you see on IMCUk:http://sweden.indymedia.org/usermedia/image/9/large/19_3.jpg
Swedish people are way cool though. That looks like an INC album cover.
John. you're so shallow you're deep.
Mar 31 2006
#7
Jef Costello wrote:
John. wrote:
rkn wrote:
Edit// look at this pic of a banner we got emailed today, and compare it to anything you see on IMCUk:http://sweden.indymedia.org/usermedia/image/9/large/19_3.jpg
Swedish people are way cool though. That looks like an INC album cover.
John. you're so shallow you're deep.
that kind of obvious irony is so modernist.
and john only thinks swedes look cool cos he looks like one.
I on the other hand apparently look like a portugese tramp! 
Mar 31 2006
#8
I am not a modernist, I'm a mediaevalist.
John. looks like a guy that doesn't wash his hair properly, nothing more, nothing less.
I've never seen you and I've never seen a portuguese tramp so I won't comment.
I did go out with a portuguese girl for a short time once, reckon I should have tried harder to sleep with her, but that really is irrelevant.
Mar 31 2006
#9
revol68 wrote:
and john only thinks swedes look cool cos he looks like one.
Actually I really like the kinda GDR/East German aesthetic, y'know? A girl at my other work's from East Germany and she looks way cool. Has the same hair as me though pretty much.
Quote:
I on the other hand apparently look like a portugese tramp!
Ah only with that fucked up Eurospin carrier bag 
(shit like this fella! 
)
Apr 1 2006
#10
John. wrote:
(shit like this fella!
oh my god
Apr 1 2006
#11
rkn wrote:
You have to grab people's attention as fast as possible, then you have to try and sustain it.
Sounds like marketing speak to me. Which is fine if you've got a commodity to push. You're actively engaged in the spectacle, comrade!
BTW1. The people here in Thailand are about to vote. Many thousands will spoil their voting papers because they consider any forthcoming government to be a bastard one. They did not need any fancy Java-enabled graphics to tell them this.
BTW2. How do you suggest we communicate with those on the other side of the digital divide? I suggest you hook some old 486 with a 20 MB hard drive and 8k RAM up to the net to discover for yourself how utterly frustrating it is to spend an age and a half waiting for those shit-hot graphics to load - only to discover the content is shit. This applies to 90% of what's on the net.
Apr 1 2006
#12
Everyone's actively engaged in the spectacle 
Quote:
BTW1. The people here in Thailand are about to vote. Many thousands will spoil their voting papers because they consider any forthcoming government to be a bastard one. They did not need any fancy Java-enabled graphics to tell them this.
Of course they dont. I never suggested they did. I wasnt arguing that good design is the most important part of all struggle. And btw i hate java.
Quote:
BTW2. How do you suggest we communicate with those on the other side of the digital divide?
I think if you scroll up I wasnt talking about digital media, i was talking about media as a whole. From websites, to print media, to graffiti, to radio.
And just fyi i detest flash and "shit-hot" graphics. Im into accessibility, clean cut design and user friendliness. This is what we try and push with libcom.org. I think we can agree that over design, which makes up a lage part of the net is utterly stupid. Good design however is not.
Apr 1 2006
#13
Anchorman wrote:
rkn wrote:
You have to grab people's attention as fast as possible, then you have to try and sustain it.
Sounds like marketing speak to me. Which is fine if you've got a commodity to push. You're actively engaged in the spectacle, comrade!
BTW1. The people here in Thailand are about to vote. Many thousands will spoil their voting papers because they consider any forthcoming government to be a bastard one. They did not need any fancy Java-enabled graphics to tell them this.
BTW2. How do you suggest we communicate with those on the other side of the digital divide? I suggest you hook some old 486 with a 20 MB hard drive and 8k RAM up to the net to discover for yourself how utterly frustrating it is to spend an age and a half waiting for those shit-hot graphics to load - only to discover the content is shit. This applies to 90% of what's on the net.
A text-only version of libcom might be a good idea, but I'm not sure that it would get that much use.
rkn is approaching marketing speak, because he is trying to market something. The example of libcom news is important. If someone googles a news story that is on the edge of the mainstream they are merely looking for a commodity and choosing us. But if after having read the stories their attention is grabbed by a link or they just start to wander around the site we may manage to interest someone in libertarian communism when all they really wanted originally was to know a bit more about a particular news story.
Apr 1 2006
#14
Jef Costello wrote:
A text-only version of libcom might be a good idea, but I'm not sure that it would get that much use.
If someone wanted to make one that would be amazing. But i dont have time (I have thought about it tho, and tried to figure print-firendly pages). I look at our stats which is heavily weighted towards faster connections, and high end browsers. This is reflective of our target community in the UK. So this is what i end up designing for with limited resources i have.
Apr 1 2006
#15
rkn wrote:
Jef Costello wrote:
A text-only version of libcom might be a good idea, but I'm not sure that it would get that much use.
If someone wanted to make one that would be amazing. But i dont have time (I have thought about it tho, and tried to figure print-firendly pages). I look at our stats which is heavily weighted towards faster connections, and high end browsers. This is reflective of our target community in the UK. So this is what i end up designing for with limited resources i have.
That makes perfect sense.
Apr 1 2006
#16
rkn wrote:
A text-only version of libcom might be a good idea, but I'm not sure that it would get that much use.
I look at our stats which is heavily weighted towards faster connections, and high end browsers. This is reflective of our target community in the UK. So this is what i end up designing for with limited resources i have.
I totally agree, it just wouldn't be worth the effort. Except for one or maybe two uni type egg-heads, people over here in Thailand just wouldn't know anarchism if they tripped over it. And I would venture to say that you would discover that is the case with the majority of the worlds population.( But, I hasten to add, every day I see something that has the potential.)
Let's just face it. The philosophy of anarchism, as a political movement defining itself as such, is confined to an absolutely tiny fraction of the -SPGB version - working class. This working class has the economic freedom to be able to afford 'faster connections, and high end browsers'. That's all there is to it. A club of like-minded working-class individuals who are relatively well off . (And extremely well-off in relation to the world's majority) . As the guardians of anarchism, I would suggest that collectively you all do a damned good job. But, in terms of spreading this to a wider, much impoverished population, even within your own borders, the results of your efforts are, frankly, dismal. Can it be that the discourse you are attempting to have outside of the club is falling upon deaf ears?
BTW None of this is intended to depreciate your efforts. This site is great!
Apr 1 2006
#17
OK, I'm a bit off tangent in the above. May I suggest, therefore, that you do not exceed your designing efforts beyond this point -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$100_laptop
To think that the kids of the impoverished nations might surf (and not crawl) to this site...
Anyway, it's 00:35, I'm pissed and I'm going to bed.
Apr 1 2006
#18
To me the picture that was posted,
http://sweden.indymedia.org/usermedia/image/9/large/19_3.jpg
looks like Kurdish nationalists demonstrating at a funeral earlier in the week in Diyarbakır at which two people were shot dead. Of course it could be in Sweden, but the PKK flags, and the Turkish writing on the water tank in the background make me feel it isn't.
Dev
Apr 1 2006
#19
Devrim wrote:
To me the picture that was posted,http://sweden.indymedia.org/usermedia/image/9/large/19_3.jpg
looks like Kurdish nationalists demonstrating at a funeral earlier in the week in Diyarbakır at which two people were shot dead. Of course it could be in Sweden, but the PKK flags, and the Turkish writing on the water tank in the background make me feel it isn't.
Dev
I don;t know how indymedia works over there but I think they've recycled the url because it wasn't that picture earlier.
Apr 1 2006
#20
I believe this is the one rkn meant:
http://www.libcom.org/gallery/v/news/france-cpe/international/sweden/19_3.jpg.html
Now in here: http://www.libcom.org/gallery/v/news/france-cpe/international/
Apr 2 2006
#21
Anchorman wrote:
people over here in Thailand just wouldn't know anarchism if they tripped over it. And I would venture to say that you would discover that is the case with the majority of the worlds population.
Yeah but i think that depends on how you approach it. I doubt many know the theory behind it, but people are always enacting the basic fundamental principles of working togther. As you say the potential is there.
Re: "falling on deaf ears" - yeah I dont think anyone denies this. I think you are mixing stuff up tho. IMO its impossible to approach anarchism the same way cross-culturally, becauese it means different things to different people in different situations. Everyone does what they can, for example - at the moment people involved with libcom.org are interested in seeing how we can affect people defining themselves as social anarchists in the UK. Hence this project.
Yes, spreading to a wider audience is a hell of a long way off. But best to start somewhere and be confident about it than try and do everything at once.
Quote:
BTW None of this is intended to depreciate your efforts. This site is great!
Thanks for the compliments, and constructive criticism. 
Re: 100$ laptop, again, this isnt our target audience. So its not going to happen!
Devrim - yeah as others have said, i guess IMC Sweden change their links, the correct one is the one Catch posted.
Apr 2 2006
#22
Targetting people who can't afford broadband is what Freedom newspaper is for .
Apr 2 2006
#23
rkn wrote:
Re: 100$ laptop, again, this isnt our target audience. So its not going to happen!
That $100 laptop looks alright though.
We don't use flash or video, and pictures are used fairly sparingly. Anyone with a slow connection would do well to turn pictures off in their web-browser anyway.
More to the point is whether the 'children of the impoverished nations" could read the site whatever the format. Our visitors are only going to be people with a degree of fluency in English unless someone translates the site into different languages.
Having said that - someone is currently summarising our France coverage in Farsi: http://newleft.blogfa.com/
and in Swedish: http://bakomrubrikerna.blogspot.com/
Primarily though, since people prepared to do that are very rare indeed, it's going to be Anglophone people who read the site, primarily in the UK for some sections. In terms of the content we have, it makes sense to concentrate on the UK first since that's where we are, then
news and material in English from elsewhere - again aimed at that audience. We reach an almost miniscule percentage of anglophone people with web access, and are stretched covering events in Europe let alone elsewhere - I don't see any possibility of us ever covering news from Thailand in Thai - unless someone came forward to do that. Hasn't happened.
Apr 3 2006
#24
Catch wrote:
More to the point is whether the 'children of the impoverished nations" could read the site whatever the format. Our visitors are only going to be people with a degree of fluency in English unless someone translates the site into different languages.
Not necessarily! In many of these countries English instruction is a part of the cirruculum. Getting the anarchist philosophy across in very basic English would not be an impossible thing to do. All you do is make the subject into an English course consisting of a number of lessons. (But, of course, the type which is student-centred). Admittedly, given the fully documented character of many of the regimes in the Asian region and beyond, doing so at the 'chalk-face' per se might prove to be dangerous for the teacher. But digitally, and keeping in mind the technical parameters of the '$100 laptop', such a project then becomes very do-able. At the moment I'm working on an 'ordinary English' digital project. But if anyone individually or collectively wished to collaborate on a specifically anarchist project, for sure I would find the time.
I would suggest using this free software as a framework:
ps I understand that the Open University is using it or about to use it to deliver their course content.
Apr 3 2006
#25
Anchorman wrote:
I would suggest using this free software as a framework:
ps I understand that the Open University is using it or about to use it to deliver their course content.
yes, they are investing £5 million in moving all their content to moodle and enhancing it.
But even without OU Moodle has a stable presence especially in further and adult education.
Anyways, we (or mainly .flux) are looking into using Moodle for the www.selfed.org.uk courses. This is a laborous project, but first we have to see how feasible it is. Currently the material is high quality but in a PDF format, to get it to moodle would be an interesting experiment...
Apr 3 2006
#26
JDMF wrote:
Currently the material is high quality but in a PDF format, to get it to moodle would be an interesting experiment...
Have a look at 'CookingUpASCORM.zip' - found at the moodle SCORM exchange.
This document looks very much like pdf format. SCORM is something I'm only just getting to grips with myself so I shan't be able to help you out... still you might get a few helpful ideas.
Apr 3 2006
#27
I'm a big fan of Moodle and used it a fair bit in my previous job. I think it'd be a great experiment to get the selfed course into a Moodle infrastructure.
SCORM- been using Reload to package learning objects that I've created to be deployed in Moodle, and I know a bit about the theory but I'm by no means an expert.
Do you work in education?
Apr 3 2006
#28
.flux wrote:
I'm a big fan of Moodle and used it a fair bit in my previous job.
The more I learn about and use moodle the more I become convinced.
.flux wrote:
Do you work in education?
Yes, but presently not at the chalk-face. (The kids here have a three-month break from school).
Apr 5 2006
#29
Hmm, a huge untapped potential of people who are seeking a philosophical basis - and support - for their feelings of anti-authoriitarianism and .... ho, hum I can't be bothered. In a previous post I misalligned rkn with narcissism - I withdraw that remark because I know that he's made a contribution. As for the rest of you fucking dilettante speculatist-loving armchair 'anarchists', well, I just have to reserve my opinion.
Anchorman wrote:
Catch wrote:
More to the point is whether the 'children of the impoverished nations" could read the site whatever the format. Our visitors are only going to be people with a degree of fluency in English unless someone translates the site into different languages.
Not necessarily! In many of these countries English instruction is a part of the cirruculum. Getting the anarchist philosophy across in very basic English would not be an impossible thing to do.... But if anyone individually or collectively wished to collaborate on a specifically anarchist project, for sure I would find the time.
Form over content? Mythinks you need to expand your horizons.