#me when a simple design exists and I complicate everything in a redesign

[coenubiaseraph]

All ancients re-designs + their weapons. Working on this took way too long, man. I had to get the anatomy accurate for everyone too for a separate ref sheet. But they're finally done.

[aureliacetinn]

gerodi la forge differently designed

(image desiption

Gerodi la forge without vizor eyes unfocused going in slightly different direction, wearing his yellow uniform standing stoic but proud, the spectrum the vizor lets him see from (or should only read thread as to why I think that) it refracting of his face as the effects  surrounded him a lil like he being beamed up to a ship.)

Embrace the spectrum of blind/V.I eyes artists!, embrace the nuance of disabilities people!

Gerodi la forge is a complicated representation for the blind/chronic pain  community though probably more positive than most but still falling under the technology ruining the nuance of disability.

So I wanted to draw him and show a more accurate(imo) portrayal of his eyes without the visor to 1 cuz white clear eyes trope annoys me

2 to not want to hide blind person eyes as media often tends to do (minus sunglasses needed for blind actor due to sensitivities)

3 cuz they cause pain and so he should have them off more often.

to note a lot of what im going to say is written way better an documented better by janet jay a lot of my sources are from here amazing piece on gerodi you should read: https://www.janetjay.com/what-star-trek-got-wrong-about-geordis-disabilities/ also if you in blind community are fine with his eyes portrayed as more cataract, that’s valid too.

So gerodi la forge for me as a avid star trek fan was important, hey I can exist if he can he not been erased!  Buuuuuuuut,

 it did urk me that 1 he was kinda a lil nerdy creep trope that never got a gf which levar burton himself has called out as racism from the shows writers (sources at bottom of thread) id also argue ableism also and many able bodied people treat disabled people as sexless.

 but also that he never got to be disabled really, he suffered from chronic pain form the vizor but kept choosing to not take pain pills or treatment, which you know that’s some inner ableism right there I did to myself as a teen, and I kinda think gerodi reinforced it a lil in me,

“look where he is, he deals with the pain he never shows it”

Not a great message really, gerodi never is allowed to show the struggle they choose that the vizor existing was enough, and yes we got that amasing ep where he didn’t want to be fixed, but that would then be countered by never showing the struggle. Women at warp did a great ep where on disability karrisa mehr calling gerodi a disabled version of a “manic pixie dream girl” feels very apt.

Never allowed to complain just be quirky gerodi.

And on to the vizor

The vizor is complicated , it apparently let him  see much of the EM spectrum", ranging from simple heat and infrared through radio waves” now I personally am all for mobility aids that have cool attachments but it’s a delicate balance of unique features and fixing and or making them more powerful than able bodied colleague-cuz thats fixing, and I feel gerodi with how show wrote it and portrayed him it was a magic fix more than an aid, why I chose to only show the thermal spectrum in image, instead of how it apparently can see everything more than human eyes can anyway which yeh defeat aid purpose.

image of vizor silver sem ring over eye with gold lines across not fullyblcokign vision 0

and it gave him chronic pain, they choose this as a balancer, okay…but then never portrayed it just did to show how gerodi overcame his disabilities and gets on with it like a good soldier. So yeh im mixed on it. They made great use in ep when it was hacked by cardassians this is the cool thing you can do with mobility aids (unless you just destroy them, fuck you then) and that was interesting for the time, but um then in he insolence of office the ebook gerodi forced to have his vizor REMOVED so he can stay in star fleet as its now a security risk- NOT OKAy you could have just had a redesign or a arc of gerodi having to fight for it if you must but no , brain surgery remove this part of you!!

(gif desicription men seeing tea they drink is funky to show how gross what they did to gerodi waas)

so yeh my ending take is gerodi is complicated overall that’s still a positive over most disabled rep in sci-fi but many mistakes were made and some part of gerodi was harmful and picard sure as hell didn’t address that. They show his eyes now but its still the white cloudy trope and knowing its for awful reasons kidna ruins that. So I hope my art here just shows his potential and blind eyes diversity, but opens up discussions in not fixing and overcoming can be toxic and that

pain is part of a disability its part of the rep and it sucks

this is very important to remember when depicting disability that there’s nuance guys.

Thank you

Levar burton on gerodi: https://boundingintocomics.com/2021/12/15/star-trek-the-next-generation-star-levar-burton-says-geordi-laforge-never-finding-love-was-racist-those-white-men-who-wrote-the-show-had-an-unconscious-bias-that-was-on-display-to-me-and-to/

[fz-works]

Week #6 DES 303

The Experience: Experiment #2

Reiterating on the previous week's plan, experiment #2 will involve sustainability and product design. The idea was to provide cheap laser-cut wooden products to replace their plastic counterparts.

I decided to make a coat hanger. I saw one in my room and thought it was as good as anything else.

For this experiment, the most critical success criteria are:

Usability similar to their plastic counterpart.

Minimal material use. Thus, lower waste and lower cost.

As a bonus point, I wanted to address the issue of stretching your clothes to put them on the hanger. This is mainly for novelty and incentivises less environmentally conscious consumers to try a new product like this.

Elegant and simple solutions exist to solve this problem, as seen below. However, simply copying the design won't work, as most wood does not have the same strength as PPE and laser cutting a non-tessellating shape like that would be wasteful.

A Muji coat hanger designed with a slot for easy access. Retrieved from MUJI Polypropylene Laundry Hanger

Some quick hallucination gave me the following idea that can be folded and has a uniform & compact cutting area to produce.

Initial idea sketch

Putting the idea into Fusion took some time, but a somewhat tangible state was reached eventually.

The process of slowly building up the assembly in Fusion

After modelling everything in actual proportion, I remembered that parts, in real life, do, in fact, move around if they are not fixed in place. In other words, this thing would be a nightmare to assemble when all fixed up.

All the small things I did not consider now become obvious

This calls for a redesign. Research revealed an interesting 3D printable design that folds with a fascinating mechanism: EZPZ Hanger // Folding Clothes Hanger - 3D model by Make Anything on Thangs.

Folding coat hanger by Make Anything. Retrieved from Thangs

This time, I decided not to CAD it until I knew it would work, so a paper prototype was constructed.

Paper prototype exploring a laser-cut version of the design.

It was immediately apparent that the "neck" area of the design would need to be quite large and complicated to fit into the cutting area among other components neatly. The same is true for the arm. However, if appropriately designed, it could be possible to tessellate a pair of them into a rectangle in a yin-yang-esque pattern. This was explored further in a paper prototype. While I was playing around, I accidentally discovered a totally different design that was much more compact:

Paper prototype of a new potential design.

Instead of trying to cater for wardrobe rods with undetermined diameters, this design would clip onto clothing lines or a standardised wooden rail that could be easily installed. Under the weight of the clothing, the clamp will hold the rail/wire harder, but once removed, it would easily fold in on itself, releasing the item easily. As such, a CAD model was created:

Process of creating the new design in Fusion. Notice that one arm is double-layered to avoid a twisting motion when the clamp closes on the rail.

The laser-cut prototype came out exactly like the model:

Final prototype

Since the design was made from the ground up with the manufacturing technique in mind. The cut area can be sectioned off from the material as a uniform rectangle with minimal waste:

A compact cut result consisting of a pair of arms and a few clips

Some quick calculation reveals that the material cost for this design is acceptable even at a retail price.

Cut area for each pair: 300mm * 70mm

Poplar Plywood: $40 for a 2400 mm*1200 mm 3mm panel

floor(2400/300)*floor(1200/70)* 2/3 = 90 (floored) [*2/3 since due to the double-layered arm, each 3 pairs of cuts can make 2 complete hangers]

Material cost for each: ~= $0.45

Functionally, the coat hanger performed exactly as intended:

The hanger's holding and folding function both work as intended

In the crit session, this solution gained a very positive reception. In fact, the only concern brought up by the peers was the burnt smell from the laser cutting process, since the prototype was only cut out an hour prior. This concluded the work for the week.

Reflection on Action

It was genuinely annoying to discover that the first design I spent hours CADing wouldn't work. Even though the idea seemed sound in my head and looked good in Fusion, I failed to think of all the little physical details that rendered it unusable. Without something physical or even a simple digital simulation to interact with, it's incredibly easy to overlook minor but critical issues. While powerful, CAD is also time-consuming, and investing that much time before knowing whether something is viable felt inefficient in hindsight.

This misstep made me appreciate how useful hands-on prototyping can be, for validation AND for generating ideas I wouldn’t have come up with otherwise. Playing with paper parts helped me anchor the idea more solidly in reality and stumble upon a better design. Next time, starting with a quick and rough prototype, even on paper, might be a better use of time than jumping straight into CAD. Physically manipulating a concept proved more informative than staring at a digital one or perfecting a non-existent one in your head.

Theory

Wood almost instinctively came as the alternative when considering a plastic replacement. With the material used being the centre piece of the product, it creates a set of unique constraints and challenges. One designer that came to mind is David Truebridge, a NZ designer, whose design revolves heavily around the material, which happens to be wood. In his blog post, Wood, there were a few fascinating critiques of common perceptions of wooden products. It is reassuring to see a shared understanding of the significant limitation of wood manufacturing: unrecyclable off-cuts, which highlights the value of design effort put into ensuring minimal waste. In the blog, he questioned wood's supposed minimal environmental impact and criticised blindly claiming a product "eco-friendly" solely based on its material use, especially in a mass manufacturing setting.

Navicula by David Truebridge. Retrieved from Navicula – David Trubridge

This leads to an interesting discussion about a relatively new opportunity that emerging technology creates, we no longer have to rely solely on economies of scale and factories to manufacture goods. One of the key characteristics of Industry 4.0 is decentralisation, in this case, for manufacturing. I used a laser cutter as a rapid prototyping tool. Although trivial to us design students, it represents an automation capability that could produce the same product anywhere, using local materials, tailored to anyone. This is discussed in much more detail in Distributed manufacturing: scope, challenges and opportunities. I think this is all very interesting; thus, there is much potential to explore and expand upon the experiment on a deeper and larger scale.

Preparation

As all goals for this experiment were achieved, I conclude that experiment #2 was successful and complete.

As a continuation, further explorations could be done on how the distributed manufacturing & wooden product theme might be applied to something more complex and technological, e.g. Iot devices, electronics, and how people would approach such products.

For next week, I plan to do something physical with electronics, at least:

Explore the capabilities of an ESP32 development board I have

Perhaps see how that could interact with LLM applications from experiment #1.

[sonicfanj]

-WHAT I THINK ABOUT WHILE WRITING AMY ROSE-

Amy Rose

A name that is rife with controversy and summons up the worst of Sonic fans, both for and against her. When watching these fights, I frequently notice that in a lot of cases neither party understands who she actually is. Am I any better? Arguable.

My name is Joshua Tarwater, a Sonic The Hedgehog™ fan since 1991, and an Amy Rose fan since 1993. Since about 2015 I went from just being a fan of Amy to a dedicated character researcher. There was a lot to learn as well and I eventually came to an understanding of her character that aligned with how her creator, Hoshino Kazuyuki-san described designing her to begin with. This study of her character and learning about and understanding her motivations also led me to rather infamously come to dislike the Piko Piko Hammer and the direction it took Amy’s character in. This stance left me ostracized and ridiculed in several Sonic fan circles, and especially by Amy fans. Yet, when Hoshino-san was announced as creative director for Sonic Mania™ and had spoken about the difficulties of having to put himself back in the mind set from the early 90s, it gave me hope of seeing Amy explored in a time period from before she received the Piko Piko Hammer. Ultimately that did not come to pass, but the discussions and arguments I had around that idea led me to redesign Amy Rose, take back her original nickname, Rosy the Rascal, and eventually led me to writing fan fiction to explore Amy’s character and allow my take on her to have a world to run in. And thus, for this paper/essay I would like to talk about what I think about when writing Rosy/Amy. She appears at first glance to be a simple character. Sonic Lite or Girl Sonic even. However, in this paper/essay I hope to demonstrate otherwise as I take you from her character concept, foundation, and structure through how she is a bad character, the importance of her two distinct karmic cycles and how they are important to making her a good and sympathetic character. Along the way I will delve into how she has been used as a bad character and as a good character. Break down her narrative roles and how she plays to them and how she should. Explore how her Piko Piko Hammer detracts from her motivation and goals. Finally, and ultimately, what my goals are in the exploration of her character, her role as Sonic’s principal and singular love interest, an aspect of her character that defines her and Sonic, and her position as the lead heroine of the Sonic The Hedgehog™ IP and. Now, please join me as I begin.

-WHY IS AMY ROSE/ROSY THE RASCAL-

To begin, I have to approach the basic question of “Who is Amy Rose?” differently. It is typically a question asked from the viewpoint of the consumer and most answers to it are meant to sell the idea of her character. Conversely, I can’t ask the question “what role do I need a character for?” as I am not the originator of or working in an official capacity on the Sonic The Hedgehog™ IP. As such, to even begin to attempt to use Amy in my works I have to ask a slightly different yet similar question to “what role do I need a character for?” which is “why is this character?” It will tell me almost everything about Amy and her role should I receive an adequate answer. Fortunately, such an answer was provided by Hoshino Kazuyuki-san in 2013 at the Sonic Boom Fan Convention where he talks about Amy extensively. The important details however are that she exists because the series needed a girl and Sonic a girlfriend. Her why and the complication of the why respectively. A good answer, but one that ultimately sets Amy up to be a bad character.

-AMY ROSE IS A BAD CHARACTER FROM CONCEPT-

Unfortunately, the title of this segment is not meant to be click bait as it is actually extremely important to look at Amy as a bad character before I can even begin writing her as it will help me avoid the pitfalls of her character as well better see what ideas can be harmful to her character type. Which is itself a problem.

Girl/Girlfriend

Perhaps the most demeaning and harmful of character tropes is when a character simply exists to be an accessory to a male lead. It strips them of any agency and by just being a girl they become shorthand for misogynistic bigotry. That it is the very idea that Amy is founded upon means just getting started with writing her character one has to ask the questions “what is a girl?” and what does that mean in the setting and story. The problem with those questions and others that stem from them is that girl is synonymous with human being. Trying to boil down a female character to just an abstract defeats the idea of using a character at all. However, Amy has had several instances of her character being observed as just “girl” over the years. Whether one agrees or disagrees with those observations is irrelevant; it can and has happened making Amy a cheap and unpleasant character for those who have observed it. When combined with her being Sonic’s “girlfriend” in concept as well, she is reduced to simply being arm candy that demeans woman and young girls while showing boys that girls are just annoying accessories to be avoided. While horribly untrue, it is a part of Amy’s reputation and can be traced back to the answer to “Why is Amy Rose?” But is there good that can come out of it?

-AMY’S FOUNDATION-

While easy to dwell on the negative connotations of Amy being created to fill the need of “girl/girlfriend” there is a very important positive that stems from it; it means the Sonic The Hedgehog™ IP is a place meant not just for the 8-11yo boys of the target demographic, but also girls. That Amy can and has opened an avenue for girls into the series is a feat not to be casually brushed aside. And having established that there is a positive to an otherwise harmful role, it is possible to now look at her character construction and what it says about her use and how she should be used.

Knowing the “why” for Amy Rose, it is now possible to look at what type of character has been constructed to fill that need and what other roles she fills out. For that we can begin with her foundation, the character trope upon which her structure is built upon. Perhaps, too much chagrin, Amy’s foundation is one that can be viewed negatively once again, though there are positives to it.

The Genki Girl.

A simple trope frequently found in Japanese animation. A hyperactive and perpetually cheerful and optimistic sort whose energy frequently overwhelms and annoys other characters in the fiction. They are frequently used as comic relief, a role that Amy has been placed in frequently much to the detriment of her character and reputation. That she is said to have aspects of women that Hoshino-san finds attractive only compounds this treatment of the first and lead female character of the game franchise. Further considering the main non-comical use of the Genki Girl trope is to show her serious or to “break the Genki Girl” to demonstrate that a situation has gotten dire or desperate. However, even “breaking the Genki Girl” can be used as simple comedy within a rubber banding status quo, of which the Sonic The Hedgehog™ IP possesses. It is perhaps also where the idea for Amy’s temper came from. That however, will be covered in a future segment. For now, the focus will remain on the Genki Girl trope as Amy’s foundation and the positives that it allows. Positives that are lost if this foundation is removed.

To understand the positives of Amy having a Genki Girl foundation it is important to again put forth a question of why? “Why a Genki Girl for her foundation?” While Hoshino-san again provided an answer, and it defines her character, it does not hurt to step back and look at other characters for a moment to answer or provide hypothetical answers to similar questions for them. Why does Tails have his namesake? To keep up with Sonic, even from off screen in gameplay. Why can Knuckles keep up with Sonic? As a game antagonist and guardian of the Master Emerald his role requires it. Shadow is a reflection to study a more pragmatic take on Sonic so he must keep up. Rouge is Shadow’s partner and used as Knuckles counterpoint. The Chaotix had a gameplay necessity. Silver and Blaze are counterparts in story and/or gameplay. The list goes on.

Looking at the others it is seen that they revolve around Sonic for their reasoning, something used as a negative for Amy. Having taken a look at how the entire cast revolves around Sonic however, it becomes much less problematic for Amy to do the same, especially in light of her being Sonic’s girlfriend. And this now brings us back to Hoshino-san’s words. That he wanted to subvert the traditional Mickey and Minnie type of couple as it did not match Sonic’s character. That Sonic is a character always looking forward to his next adventure or challenge, he will never look back. As Amy is a character who was designed without a gameplay idea rather than a story idea, she finds herself behind him. That she lacks the traditional position of Minnie Mouse to Mickey puts her at another disadvantage; she must be assertive and assert that she is Sonic’s girlfriend even when he runs off and leaves her behind. It is at this point however that her having a Genki Girl foundation finally proves its merit and completes what Hoshino-san said about her character. She is a character who must be cheerful, who must be optimistic, who must be energetic so that she can perpetually follow the boyfriend who will never look back at her without becoming discouraged. It makes her an impossible character who can only exist in fiction. However, the consumer may forget the line between fiction and reality and thus the seeming toxicity of the relationship must be addressed.

-THE CAT AND MOUSE GAME-

The general idea of the Sonic and Amy romantic relationship, colloquially SonAmy, is the idea that Amy pursuits Sonic’s on his adventures, possessing a Genki Girl foundation so as not to be discouraged while Sonic never reveals if he likes her or not. At most Sonic is allowed to hint that he does. Without ever confirming it however, and taking into account that most consumers of the Sonic The Hedgehog™ IP will not possess knowledge of Hoshino-san’s intentions, Amy will be left to look as though she is chasing a vain dream and Sonic himself will be left looking cruel in how he plays with Amy’s heart and emotions. This is compounded further when Amy’s temper is brought in and simple gags about her being frustrated by Sonic can be read as her being obsessive and controlling. It is a place that the belief that Amy wants to tie Sonic down can come from.

Even if one can see one of Amy’s character messages being to never give up on your dreams and to always give your all in their pursuit, one of the strengths of her having a Genki Girl foundation, this is still a bad look for both characters and perpetrates the visual of Amy being a bad character and an awful love interest for Sonic. What is meant as a simple and playful relationship is twisted out of context by their individual personalities and engagement in their relationship. Thus, though it compromises Amy’s ability taken at face value, a trait common in well-designed characters but not necessarily beneficial from a marketing stance, a much deeper look into her character is needed to understand her and her romance with Sonic.

-AMY’S CHARACTER STRUCTURE-

Having looked at Amy’s raison d’etre and the potential problems that come from that, in addition to the problems of her having a Genki Girl foundation or just being one and the ease of which her romantic relationship with Sonic can be viewed as toxic, looking at her character structure can help unify the good which is actually taking place behind the surface that many will not see through. An easy place to start is drawing comparisons with Sonic. It is already known that Amy is designed in such a way as to follow him everywhere, but how far do their similarities go? The aforementioned insults against Amy from the beginning of the document, especially Girl Sonic, tell us quite a bit actually.

To begin getting an idea for Amy’s character structure certain assumptions will be made at this point more so than prior to this point. Notably, by choosing to recognize Amy as a Sonic clone a lot of her actions throughout her history in the games and direct supplemental materials such as instruction manuals will be viewed through a heavy Sonic filter. Further, Amy’s use of the Japanese honorific “-sama” in the Japanese game manual for Sonic Drift will be read as both a sign of her infatuation with him early in their relationship and also as a form of reverence for who he is and what he does. The necessity for both perspectives rest in the need to view Amy both positively and negatively so as to be able to address concerns with her character as they arise. Most notably, “-sama” being used to imply infatuation and obsession rather than respect and reverence.

While most outside of Japan will never be aware of Amy having once addressed Sonic as Sonic-sama before Sonic Adventure, the franchise being a Japanese creation primarily controlled and written by Japanese individuals informs of the possibility that the obsessive interpretation could have made it into Amy’s characterization in any number of games. Some of Amy’s worse behavior in Sonic X, Sonic Heroes, Sonic Battle, Sonic Rush, and Sonic Free Riders are fair examples of this toxic obsession and need for control appearing. However, while necessary to make note of it, this angle of obsession does not reflect Amy’s core structure, but rather a filter applied over it. This filter and others will be explored at a later point in the document, but for now can be put aside as the perspective of respect and reverence is actually what helps visualize Amy’s core structure and illustrates her similarities to Sonic as a character.

To begin, it should first be noted why Sonic as a character would be revered and respected from an in-universe perspective. Modern media with a lack of cohesive narrative and representation makes it difficult to see, but Sonic once did have established in-universe lore. As Amy was conceived as a character within a year of Sonic it can be assumed that she was shaped by this lore. At this point, the most important part being that Sonic was introduced as “The Most Famous Hedgehog in the World.” From the available information on Sonic from scattered interviews with his creators, it can be pieced together that he is an Age of Adventure style character like Indiana Jones. It is known from interviews with Naka Yuji-san that Sonic is from Christmas Island, a mysterious island full of strange robots and creatures. It is also known that Sonic seeking adventure took his plane and left in search of it. What this says is that Sonic’s reputation as the most famous hedgehog in the world is only partly due to his clashes with IP villain, Dr. Eggman. It is in fact due to him being an adventurer. While evidence to this point can be found all over the IP, it is not needed to now take a look at Amy as an adventurer herself who looks up to Sonic.

To understand Amy as an adventurer it is first necessary to throw out preconceived notions such as her being the everyday person like the average consumer. While Amy like Tails is a character that young girls (boys for Tails) can project onto and be relatable, she like Tails is anything but so normal. While her character was experimented with in the manga that preceded her game series debut, it is what the Japanese game manual for Sonic CD states that sets the idea of Amy being an adventurer. Most notably that her cards tell her to head to Never Lake for a destined encounter. An encounter she hopes to be Sonic. Combined with her love for mystical things and fortune telling and a picture that tells us a bit about Amy starts to form. She is also described as tomboyish here, informing to the idea that she enjoys partaking in boyish activities despite her classically girly demeanor and presentation. That she already knows Sonic also speaks to his reputation, but it is that she is interested at all, no less that she hopes to meet him that speaks to her character. As famous as Sonic is, he is known for adventuring and stopping Dr. Eggman where the menace arises. While this could be dismissed as her simply being starstruck, there is enough evidence in Sonic CD and after to speak otherwise. From after, Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 both establish Amy as a go-getter who seeks excitement from the adventures she has with Sonic and hates to be left behind by the others. In Sonic CD Amy shows little concern for the danger of traveling to Never Lake alone, no less onto Little Planet despite the only in game way shown being the chain Eggman has tied the planet down with. Danger and excitement are her friends, just like they are for Sonic. And if this is still difficult to see then it is time to look at how her nickname helps define her character.

Rosy The Rascal

To a lot of consumers of the Sonic The Hedgehog™ IP, this name is relatively unknown or affiliated with the Archie Comics™ series and a character from an alternate dimension also known as Anti Amy. Naturally, a character like that is a gross misrepresentation of the character of Amy Rose, but dialogue from within the script with them being deemed indistinguishable leads to many familiar with them to conflate ideas meant to be wrong to begin with over Amy. However, like most Sonic characters, the name is actually meant to tell us about Amy and who she is, not to be used to slander her character as it has in some circles for years. Rosy The Rascal is only half of Amy’s name as her more known moniker of Amy Rose also holds quite a bit of meaning. Amy being a derivative of the French Amelia which can mean beloved, and Rose harkening to the flower specifically related to romance. While some look to the Rose as speaking to Amy’s thorns or temper, things she did not have when she was created, a more accurate reading of Amy’s name would be beloved flower of love/romance. As she exists to be both a girl for the IP and Sonic’s girlfriend, this alone says quite a bit about their actual relationship. However, it speaks to her role as one loved by Sonic and not who she is. That is where Rosy The Rascal comes in. Rosy representing her foundation as a cheerful, optimistic, and energetic character, with Rascal telling us that she gets into and causes trouble for her own amusement, or perhaps the good of others as demonstrated in Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes, and Sonic The Hedgehog (2006). It also tells us that she is cheeky like Sonic himself. Not formal, but playful and charmingly irreverent. This meaning of her name tells us that she does follow a similar lifestyle to Sonic, seeking out adventure both for herself and in helping those around her. It also roots back to her optimism as Sonic’s love for adventure roots back to his confidence. But there are more similarities beyond just what Amy’s name reveals. A shared strong sense of justice. A drastic personality change when truly angered, and not just the comedic temper Amy receives in X. Finding helping people a great excuse for an adventure, a strong desire to help others, and a strong distaste for injustice. They are also both characters who follow their own hearts, letting no one tell them how to otherwise live their lives. Despite this sense of initiative and independence that Amy shares with Sonic, there are plenty who fail to see Amy’s independence and powerful drive and initiative. In fact, despite her similarities to Sonic himself and how she is practically a clone of him structure wise, most people fail to recognize Amy as indeed being “Girl Sonic.” To understand why will require a look beyond Amy’s character structure.

-A FILTER OF CHILDISHNESS-

At this point it has been revealed, if not thoroughly, that Amy shares the same character structure as Sonic. Yet she comes across extremely different at a casual glance. While it may be tempting to attribute this to her foundation being a Genki Girl, all that actually does at this point is drive her structure to extremes. The energy, optimism, and good cheer of the Genki Girl simply travels through every aspect of her character and overflows. The actual differences between Amy and Sonic lies further out in Amy’s outer layers. The wrapping that tells the consumer who she is. This is also a place of great danger to her character as in these outer layers it is easiest to manipulate her character for good or ill.

Perhaps the most blatant of Amy’s outer layers is her “girl” layer. From her dresses and hairband to the frequent panty shots, it is constantly shoved down the throat of the consumer that she is the “girl” of the Sonic franchise. This can come across as both obnoxious and unsettling at a casual glance. This naturally translates back onto perception of her character, and it becomes little surprise that there are those who are uncomfortable with her character. Combine that with her Genki Girl foundation driving through everything and it takes what is meant to be playful and innocent into territories that reflect on the integrity of her use in the franchise and her fans. As for how it is known that it is intended to be innocent, the answer lies in the filter between her foundation and structure with what lies beyond it. Her childishness.

Possibly one of Amy’s most misrepresented in modern times and most misunderstood traits, Amy’s childishness has been used as the basis to drive an age argument in shipping discourse, outright removed, or used to detach her physical age from her mental age among other failures to make proper use of it. Sadly, it is at once a simple trait of her character but also a very important one. Though generally ignored or misunderstood, the role of this character trait is to absorb and focus her Genki Girl foundation. As her foundation overflows and carries all of her traits from her structure and through her outer layers, her childishness gives form to her enthusiasm, naivete, and innocence, allowing for the sense of wonder, joy, and rascally carefree demeanor that allows her to chase her dream. In other words, it is the filter of her character that carries her foundation and structure into her outer layers, or surface personality facets. It is also a diffuser of her focus and allows her to get easily distracted but also so no singular facet receives too much focus and imbalances her character. It is what keeps her character genuine and honest, blunt and direct, but also truly caring. However, as stated above, it will also be left out more often than not leading to flanderization of her various surface facets. As a lot of consumers, and even writers, fail to take note of Amy’s foundation and structure, it is little surprise that her childishness also goes unobserved, despite its importance. leaving focus solely on her surface level personality facets. As stated at the start of this section, it is in this surface level reading where Amy is most distinct from Sonic, but that it is also a place of great danger.

-WHAT MAKES AMY A BAD CHARACTER-

When writing Amy, it is very important to consider the titular question of this section. At this point though it may be difficult to see it, however. Or perhaps it may seem ignored from the viewpoint of someone who dislikes Amy. But that is because this document has not yet explored how most people interact with Amy’s character. Her surface level personality facets. The thing is, while extremely important in defining Amy from Sonic, for a lot they are all that is ever seen. So much so, that Amy’s foundation, structure, and childishness can all be removed, and consumers will fail to notice the absence of “Amy” in Amy. Perhaps the most well-known and beloved example is the Amy from the Sonic BOOM! sub-branch of the IP. Relatively beloved for her surface personality facets; independent, strong willed, badass, ungenuine in her love for Sonic and more. She is described by many as the ideal version of Amy Rose. The question is though, can she be called Amy at all? She does not have a Genki Girl foundation, nor does she share a character structure with Sonic, and she is above all not possessed of Amy’s childishness, its absence typically resulting in BOOM! Amy being praised for her maturity. But this means then that Amy herself is absent from BOOM! Amy, yet she is still recognized as Amy. It is at this point that it becomes possible to see what makes Amy a bad character; her reliance on surface level recognition.

At this point it can be asked how early this starts and the answer is perhaps surprising. Amy’s most well-known trait, her love of love and general air of romantic daydreams is actually not a trait originally belonging to Amy. It is actually one from Sonic’s concept phase girlfriend, a character named Madonna. Added to Amy by Sonic co-creator and designer Ohshima Naoto-san, it was not the only trait added to her. Lead creator of Amy Hoshino Kazuyuki-san shaped her character after traits he found attractive in women on top of the necessities of her already existing structure. At first this projection is fine, but with time it starts to increase out of control. The kindness Amy is known for was added come Sonic Adventure, her obsessiveness and temper, Sonic X and Heroes. Her maturity Sonic BOOM! with IDW adding in large organization leadership skills. On their own these growing projections are fine as different writers typically add their own spin on long running characters to leave their own mark.

The problem more comes in the traits that come from 3rd party sources and beyond. Archie Comics™ making her an entitled brat and Fleetway Comics™ a weapon wielding badass to start. Harmless on their own bar that they influence fan perception and in turn official presentation. Both of the above examples can be found manifesting in Sonic X up to Sonic BOOM! and after. Sonic BOOM! in particular however fully manifests the problem with the case of which Amy is projected upon, with the most common complaint against its version of Amy being that she has no personality and is simply whatever the writers wanted for any given script. The reason for this however is due to these surface personality facets being written usually as the primarily focused on trait of the current writer resulting in inconsistent characterization as she is written by one writer after another with almost none ever looking underneath the surface. This in turn leads consumers to see her as a catch all character and also project onto her resulting in her being a bad character as a matter of her character never being used clearly or seen due to it being buried under countless projections and not what her actual character is. However, despite this problem there has been a consistent aspect of her character that has been used to keep her sympathetic and helps balance the absorbed facets of her surface personalities.

-AMY’S KARMIC CYCLES-

Of all of Amy’s negative surface level personality facets the most harmful is her entitlement. Though easily blamable on Archie as like above, examples exist as early as her videogame debut in Sonic CD and further seen in Sonic The Fighters/Sonic Championship. However, as nasty as the Archie Comics™ could play up Amy’s entitlement in a toxic way, it does set the stage for how Amy should be written independent of her narrative roles. This is more so practiced in the games than anywhere else within the confines of the IP and is more noticeable before the Piko Piko Hammer became a major component of her identity.

What most keeps Amy sympathetic is not her kindness and role as Team Sonic’s moral compass and heart, roles she shares with Sonic, but rather that she suffers greatly from karma. Using a narrative karmic cycle, some of Amy’s more grating traits can be countered, putting Amy in her place, and not enabling her entitlement. However, due to Amy’s Genki Girl foundation and the positive and cheerful approach this gives her, she cannot function with only one karmic cycle and instead needs two. One that punishes her for acting entitled and returns her to her foundation, and one that makes her suffer before something good can happen to her both to prevent her from being a writer’s pet and to show the strength of her foundation.

The first of these karmic cycles is more involved, but is arguably more necessary when allowing for projected surface level personality facets to dictate Amy’s character as the entitlement of her Genki Girl foundation, pursuit of a life of adventure and excitement, and filter of childishness will run out of control. This becomes heavily prevalent in Sonic BOOM!, Sonic Heroes, and the Archie Comics™, with Sonic BOOM! more often than not using a karmic cycle to keep her in check. To wit though, the first karmic cycle starts at Amy’s foundation, the overly energetic and cheerful girl who lets nothing get her down and never gives up. As obstacles appear in the path of her current pursuit however her belief that she has the right to what she pursues begins to manifest. This can be traced to her interest in the mystical as well as fortunes and belief in destiny as it enables her coming entitlement. Entitlement that is strengthened with each new set back and eventually manifesting in a tantrum or fit/threat of violence. At this point she starts to look very unhinged and not anything at all like the character beyond her surface level personality facets. It is here that many believe that Amy’s true character lies as it arises time after time again. And it is an unpleasant character. Someone nasty and neither entertaining nor endearing. It is little wonder that there are many who do not believe she has the right to fulfill the role she was created for; being Sonic’s girlfriend. Perhaps the strongest example of the entitled monster is Amy’s appearance in Sonic Free Riders, a far cry from the genuine girl who loves Sonic and his way of life and just wants to join him in enjoying it.

Fortunately, the first of the Karmic cycles that Amy follows can still salvage her character if actively used. For as she goes from her stage of entitlement to lashing out, something significantly negative happening to her will knock her down and force her to stop. As long as that is a full stop and the situation is severe enough, Amy will be forced to return to her foundation as it is the Genki Girl that she is built on that will allow her to get back up, laugh at herself, and start over with a fresh, optimistic, and cheerful demeanor. This first cycle of foundation → entitlement → outburst → karmic response → foundation, allows Amy to be a brat, but puts her in her place so as not to annoy the consumer and be shown to always return to who she is supposed to be.

A good example of this working is in Sonic Adventure at the beginning of Amy’s story where she begins cheerful enough before lamenting about her boredom and missing Sonic and his lifestyle and then being “triggered” when a bird collides with her. Her outburst is nigh immediately countered with karma when E-100 Zero appears endangering her, forcing her to flee before reaching her cheerful, energetic, and optimistic self, aiming to protect the bird, and being put in player control. From the start of her adventure her entire narrative structure is shown in her first karmic cycle, and she is put in the hands of the player back at her foundation. It is repeated throughout her story with her second karmic cycle presenting itself at the end of her story.

The second karmic cycle Amy follows is much less involved, but not any less important. Only a two-step loop, or even more akin to a yo-yo, this secondary cycle dictates when “good” things can happen to Amy and is a necessity for a Genki Girl character, both maintaining their comic relief role as well as showing varying degrees of the seriousness of any situation. Potentially it can even set up the “break the Genki Girl” narrative trope to fully sell a dire situation, though it is uncharacteristic of Amy and not needed for her. However, the idea is.

For a “good” thing to happen to a character like Amy outside of the events of her first karmic cycle, something negative must happen to her first. The greater the eventual good, the more severe the initiating negative. This serves to justify the eventual good as well as showing the strength of Amy’s foundation as her Genki Girl base drives her never give up attitude and allows her the ability to be the mood maker who keeps everyone’s spirits high.

Maybe the best example in her story from Sonic Adventure is her boss battle. While skirting her first karmic cycle as Amy refuses to give up for the sake of the bird, everything seems to be going well until E-100 Zero appears and hurts the bird. In a shocking shift of personality like Sonic as she becomes legitimately angered, Amy turns to violence to put a stop to her aggressor. As these two events happen, harm coming to the bird, and Amy choosing violence, she is wrapped in a series of bad events that she did not bring onto herself. At the end of it though, as she returns to her Genki Girl foundation, the good that comes is the realization that like Sonic she can fight, and she can protect those around her. She is one step closer to her dream of traveling with Sonic and can begin to earn his respect as the first step towards getting there. It’s a huge positive, but the negatives are not so small. She has embraced violence as a means to an end, and her desire to help led to someone getting hurt and possibly worse. So, that she is able to see the good she can bring with her efforts if she turns violent potential into something constructive and beneficial is a fair reward. Even being able to move a tiny bit closer to Sonic is fair.

However, it is also fine if she receives no reward for negative happenings to her person as possessing a Genki Girl foundation provides her a role as comedy relief, and it also is shown to be stronger and stronger in the best light. Not giving up and giving others the strength and motivation to not give up either. Negative occurrences to Amy’s person actually are for the best narratively and for her. It also fits nicely with her various roles within the Sonic The Hedgehog ™ IP.

-AMY’S NARRATIVE ROLES-

By this point, this essay/paper has addressed or mentioned several of Amy’s roles. The Girl. The Girlfriend. The Comic Relief. The Mood Maker. The Heart. Etcetera.

When looked at like this the original questions this work looked at, who, what, why is Amy Rose in addition to what roles need to have a character made for them start to become a lot clearer. Amy does a lot, an awful lot. But the reason she does not really leave an impact to the casual consumer is that her roles are either undefined and or easily perceivable as negative, the girl/girlfriend, or are covered by other characters, Sonic for the mood maker and heart as well as everyone for comic relief. It is little surprise however that she shares roles with Sonic as she is the female lead of the series and should share traits with Sonic for IP consistency in product. Her typical backseat/side character use however makes it difficult to notice at all as mentioned above and can be lost completely behind projected and flanderized traits such as her temper or obsessiveness. It is again why it is important for writers to remember her plethora of roles and to make use of them. To quickly list the important ones, they are –

-Female Lead

-Girl

-Series Lead’s Love Interest

-Comic Relief

-Mood Maker

-Team Heart

-Moral Compass

-Instigator

-Tagalong

For a supposedly simple character with nothing to her but several interchangeable surface level personality facets, Amy has a tremendous number of roles. Not surprising in light of the reasons behind her creation. They are however on their own nothing special and shared by several other characters, her most unique one being Sonic’s love interest. If one considers writing her from surface level personality facets and projections of the consumer and writers from around the globe, she really isn’t anything special. When writing her from her Genki Girl foundation, through her shared with Sonic structure, filter of childishness, and karmic cycles, suddenly all of these roles start making more sense.

Female Lead shows that the series is more than just for boys and that a girl with a powerful and positive force of personality can lead it. Girl shows that traditional feminine values and societal expectations can be embraced and a strength speaking to the right for everyone to be themselves. Series Lead’s Love Interest shows that love can be a powerful force of motivation and independence, as well as an avenue to embrace one’s vulnerabilities and make them a strength. Comic Relief when taken with the rascal of Amy’s nickname shows it’s okay to go a little overboard and have fun, especially when balanced with her karmic cycles. Mood Maker naturally shows that if you have the energy, good cheer, and optimism that giving it everything to help should never be taken as wrong as long as the recipient of the aid is listened to, and their problems treated with care and respect. Team Heart is strengthened by Mood Maker and due to Amy’s energy provides the balance to Sonic’s cool confidence. Moral Compass is served by Amy’s karmic cycles constantly forcing her to see where she is wrong making it easy for her to see where others are wrong and lead them to the right way forward through her energy and Mood Maker role. Instigator becomes clear through her rascally energy, shared sense of justice with Sonic, and love of adventure leading her to get into or drag others into adventures. Tagalong lastly shows that she refuses to ever be left behind and will always be a part of the adventure, whether making it more exciting or highlighting how great it and everyone involved are.

Taking all her roles into account, her character construction from her foundation to her filter of childishness, and her character concept, it becomes clear that Amy is a character meant to be written from her concept and foundation up. That she is typically written from surface level personality facets down is a disservice to her character and generally bad writing. As such, it is easy to understand why she is so misunderstood and easy to see as a bad character. After all, most good characters will typically be written from their concept up, who they are underneath the surface façade driving everything about them, rarely to never written from the façade down. And when it does happen, it is all the way down and through every aspect of the character’s inner workings. Not just to what supports the projection of the current writer or consumer. That said, there is an aspect of Amy’ character that serves as an antenna for projection and the foundation for many traits that are not rooted in Amy’s core construction. To not acknowledge it and its influence, no less how it is perhaps as iconic if not more so within Amy fan circles than Amy herself is folly.

-THE PIKO PIKO HAMMER-

For a lot of consumers, the Piko Piko Hammer is Amy’s go to weapon. What defines her like Tails and Knuckles’ namesakes. Makes her unique and allows her to stand out. Her main gameplay feature and her character image. To these consumers, a great deal of Amy fans specifically, she is inseparable from the Piko Piko Hammer. So much so that when presented with perception problems these individuals will defend these negatives in defense of the Piko Piko Hammer making Amy “unique.” To be fair however, it makes Amy less unique and simply makes her either another cartoon hammer girl, or contradictorily to her character nature as a Genki Girl and rascal, it turns her into an angry straight man.

As the Piko Piko Hammer has quite the effect on perception of Amy, it would be best to understand what it is and where it came from. To begin, does it have an origin? Fortunately, yes, but it requires a bit of understanding of Japanese entertainment to find its origins. Though for this essay/paper a quick summation should suffice.

Though, despite sharing the name of the Japanese toy hammer it is based on, Amy’s has only resembled it when paired with her pre–Sonic Adventure design, otherwise being its own thing. The name likely sticking due to still making the characteristic sound for which the toy is named. The toy itself though not being a weapon but something designed to hit someone when they do something dumb or annoying. It is effectively a straight man’s tool to put the fool of a comedy duo in their place. Again, a strange thing to give Amy, even more so to turn into a legitimate weapon that is treated in a genuine way as such. This brings its own set of problems which will be addressed shortly. First though it should be looked at why Amy was ever given a weapon, toy or not, in the first place. This answer lies in its first appearance and rather uniquely ties into her character construction.

Sonic The Fighters/Sonic Championship

The team at SEGA game studio AM2 had an idea to make a Sonic The Hedgehog™ IP fighting game and upon getting Naka Yuji-san’s permission began making it, using the cast of the games and some unique characters to round out the roster. With that done they worked out how they would work in a fighting game. To prevent showing a girl like Amy uncharacteristically punching people, but wanting to keep her tomboyish aspects in, they opted to give her a Piko Piko Hammer. When looking at her in game animations she is presented as joyously swinging it with her whole demeanor coming across as though she is simply playing and having an absolute blast. This switches in an instant however when she becomes the one struck, her demeanor changing instantly to being very upset and bratty in her defeat screen. Her rascally nature, childish filter, and 1st karmic cycle are all seen in full display while the tomboy idea of a girly-girl fighting with the boys does not break her “girl” image. In this case the Piko Piko Hammer played well to Amy’s character construction. But it is the only example.

Going forward from here it loses its toy imagery as it is redesigned to specifically serve as Amy’s weapon. Already the idea of a childish character playing is lost and the idea she needs a weapon starts a shift from Genki Girl optimism to the idea that she needs to protect herself. It still has not spiraled out of control yet however in disrupting Amy’s character construction as its primary use is to let her jump higher and has no bearing on the story, even being completely absent in the next game story. In fact, outside of spin-off games, the Piko Piko Hammer rarely ever appears outside of gameplay. To understand where it’s impact and warping of her character to the point that in the Sonic BOOM! branch of the Sonic The Hedgehog™ IP, Amy can be described as unique only through it even in universe, it is necessary to look at alternate media. Specifically, two examples, one Western and one Japanese.

The Archie Comics™ and Sonic X

To understand why the Archie Comics™ are partly responsible, the setting of the comics must be remembered to be one of an ongoing war where the characters are required to be competent rebel and military soldiers rather than fun loving adventurers who happen to save the world. The dichotomy is fairly extreme but sets up the idea that the Piko Piko Hammer is Amy’s weapon so that she can join Sonic and the others in battle. Tying back to the idea that in Sonic Battle, Amy uses boxercise, an exercise routine based on a combat sport, and the idea that she is trying to impress Sonic through her combat prowess is born. She becomes the cute badass who is vastly more dangerous than she appears and her road to usurping Knuckles as the muscle of Team Sonic has begun to be paved. Yet, even with the Archie Comic’s tendency to play into the idea of Amy being a hidden powerhouse and even unhinged via parallels like Anti Amy, it mostly avoids the obsessiveness she is known for as well as some of the more unflattering aspects of her reputation. These rest instead in Sonic X.

Perhaps hard to see for some Amy fans, despite gaining a reputation for accepting anything Amy does, Sonic X begins the transition of Amy’s character to the point her character construction appears unneeded for her to be Amy. Instead of having a righteous anger like Sonic or childish brattiness born of her filter of childishness, Amy’s anger became a mixture of entitlement and straight man. The reasons for this shift are debatable, but a clear tool of this shift is the Piko Piko Hammer. As described at the beginning of this section, it is a toy used to hit someone for being foolish, the tool of a straight man. Further, the idea of it being made Amy’s “weapon” allowing her to fight alongside Sonic and the others permeates Sonic X to the point that it can be clearly seen in the difference between her gameplay stealth approach and the TV series combat approach. Amy’s rescue of Sonic on Prison Island is perhaps the greatest example of this shift. Where it starts to dismantle her character though is that like Sonic whom she shares a character structure with, Amy should be a genuine character. Thus, her “gag” of the straight man hitting things escalates to the idea that she can destroy robots with a swing of her hammer and her friends and even the villains begin to show fear at the appearance of the Piko Piko Hammer. What is meant to be a gag is played too genuinely and Amy starts to appear abusive and controlling. And while there are those who will argue against it, that it has been observed, including by Amy fans, it should not be ignored. Especially so since in Sonic X, Amy’s first karmic cycle is not only ignored, but for gags is chased off by Amy herself using the Piko Piko Hammer. At this point, Amy can enter the entitlement phase of her karmic cycle and never suffer the consequences resulting in her not returning to her character foundation. Stranger still, this is using a character who will be placed into the comic relief role frequently. Yet, this rascal and bringer of levity is instead now being used as an entitled straight man. The straight man role being one of the Piko Piko Hammer and not one of Amy’s.

And so, the Piko Piko Hammer has broken Amy’s karmic cycle, superimposed roles which are not her own onto her, and has changed her identity to that of Team Sonic’s muscle when Knuckles is not around. Even her role as an instigator of further adventure has been lost to the Piko Piko Hammer as it serves to anchor and tie her down. Further, as it became her weapon and the face of her character, its roles have come to supersede Amy’s own resulting in a case of revisionist history.

Before Sonic X, Amy’s declaration of growing into someone who Sonic could respect only really implied she would no longer need rescued and could fight for herself and help others just like Sonic. It could still be tied to her sharing Sonic’s character structure. However, after Sonic X and Sonic Battle, consumers began to believe that Amy’s path to earn Sonic’s respect was to become a master of combat. However, this would turn her more and more into Knuckles rather than staying similar to Sonic and true to her own adventurer’s spirit. Amy fans who support Sonic and Amy as a couple will argue against the reason this breaks Amy’s character. However, many consumers who choose to attack Amy as Sonic’s love interest still state that she desires to tie Sonic down. Amy and SonAmy fans claim this is untrue. Yet, as long as Amy continues growing as a master of the Piko Piko Hammer as a combat weapon, and Sonic continues running off in search of his next adventure and challenge without looking back, she actually grows further from him. Claiming she is simply trying to earn his respect so he’ll acknowledge her means he must stay still to see her strength and combat prowess in action, effectively tying Sonic down. Thus, now the Piko Piko Hammer is presenting Amy as ingenuine. Little surprise as Sonic X not only started the Piko Piko Hammer led character cover up, it also instilled a violent hammer enabled temper leading Amy to appear to have a hidden unhinged side. The very idea of her being genuine like Sonic himself whom she shares a character structure with becomes unsustainable. The Piko Piko Hammer for all extents and purposes has successfully turned Amy into a different character and removed the adventure loving rascal who enjoys Sonic’s way of life and chasing after him.

This alone shows major flaws in Amy as a character if she can be completely replaced by a toy hammer and the roles it carries. That it is defended by Amy fans and argued to be as important to her as the namesakes of other characters implies it is effectively the Piko Piko Hammer that they are fans of with the idea of being fans of SonAmy frequently rooted in anything else but who Amy is below all the projections and even characters placed on top of or in place of. It is almost hard to believe that they are Amy fans. Fortunately, there is a small window of hope in people recognizing Amy as Amy. So much so, that there are those among Amy fans who are more so unwitting Piko Piko Hammer fans who are agitated when people start dividing Amy up into three(3) characters; Modern Amy, BOOM! Amy, and

-CLASSIC AMY-

Returning to where this essay/paper started, much like SEGA has done with various alt media stories, who Amy actually is can be clearly found again. Before she became a great leader and warrior with the Piko Piko Hammer as her symbol, Amy was just an adventure loving girl who looked up to, idolized, and fell in love with Sonic and his way of life. She yearned for excitement and sought it where she could, her rascally antics and kindness allowing her to connect with many others and experience many adventures. Seeking to become a part of Sonic’s life and adventures she quietly made him into her rival and sought out in pursuit of him. This Amy, this character free of projections and the Piko Piko Hammer quickly became a fan favorite and showed that who she is can be successful. Even with Modern Amy this true Amy can come back as demonstrated in the first episode of the animated short series Team Sonic Racing: Over Drive. However, her existing reputation presents it from really sticking and she continues to be a character that is projected upon.

And so, the freedom for Amy to be Amy, to be explored from her concept through her character foundation and structure, filtered through her childishness, and contained by her karmic cycles exists almost solely in revivals of her “Classic” iteration. This freedom as well as that of fan fiction and works led to the Alternate Universe (AU) version of Amy using her Rosy The Rascal moniker and otherwise known as Ring Bond Amy or just Amy in white leotard.

-SONIC RING BOND & ITS REASON FOR BEING-

Amy is not unique within the Sonic The Hedgehog™ IP in being lost or experiencing unexplained changes. Her actual character is also far from the only thing left unaddressed or further explored. To that end the Sonic Ring Bond AU was founded to explore not just Amy’s original personality, but also other varying questions from the Sonic The Hedgehog™ IP. However, it is still itself little more than a background for exploration of Amy’s character and how she functions. To that end the aim is to write not from the top down as she so frequently is, but from the bottom up and without the majority of the projections upon her character or replacement characters like the Piko Piko Hammer.

These ideas first manifest in her appearance, which like “Classic Amy” return closer to her original game design. The ideas behind this are rooted in gameplay imagery to answer the question of what would Amy be like if she had Sonic’s gameplay with only a slight twist on it? This means that moving away from her dress would be a necessity. The problem behind this idea is that a dress is a definitive image of a main part of Amy’s core concept: girl. That said, it can be rather limiting to a girl to reduce her to the shape of her clothes. Inspired by real life happenings, this problem finds its solution from little girls who partake in dance or gymnastics and choose not to change after class. It also easily addresses the idea of giving Amy a garment that allows her to partake in the tumbling and acrobatics of Sonic and his way of moving while still holding onto “cute girl” imagery typical of Amy. By also taking inspiration from real young girls, it helps tie Amy to her childishness and the innocence and naivety that brings with it. Thus, for this redesign to sell her as athletic and acrobatic like Sonic yet still, innocent, childish, and girlish to tie her to her character construction and concept is a leotard.

The design for the AU purposefully mixing elements of her “Classic” and “Modern” designs to show that she does not need to change drastically to hold onto to who she is while allowing her to pursue her dream of partaking in Sonic’s life and adventures. It further aims to reclaim Amy’s original Rosy The Rascal nickname to describe her character straight from her name. Thus, it brings to the fore that the AU and ideas behind it and exploring Amy’s character is to reveal it fully and show that she is so much more than her surface level projections that have warped her character for years. However, as projections have been noted, key projections including the author’s own should be addressed.

-MADONNA’S LOVE-

At this point in the paper, despite several allusions to the various traits projected onto Amy and a huge one for the Sonic Ring Bong AU itself, they have never really been focused on. This is because most of these projections are specifically distinct to the individual writers and are only anchored to key points of Amy’s character structure that support them and not her whole. The exception is a point of derision and argument for those who are unfond of and even against the idea behind Amy’s creation; her over the top theme of love which she gets from Sonic concept girlfriend Madonna at the behest of Sonic co-creator and designer, Ohshima Naoto-san. This is easily then the most important of all projections onto Amy as it speaks to Sonic’s co-creator wanting Sonic’s girlfriend to have a personality like Madonna’s. That Madonna and her personality was also accepted by Naka Yuji-san says that a girl who is head over heels for Sonic is the ideal love interest. But does it work?

There is a very vocal group of Sonic fans who say no, but a lot of what they say has already been covered. Thus, it requires looking at what else they see as a reason for them being incompatible. One being, and understandably, based in Sonic typically showing discomfort to and even openly fleeing from Amy. He is officially described to find Amy’s uninhibited passion and feelings overwhelming, but it is never stated that he dislikes her. In fact, it is implied that he actually does like her. It has even been stated by people who work on spin off media and must answer to SEGA of Japan, the parent company that ordered the creation of and oversees the entire Sonic The Hedgehog™ IP. So, it can then be considered to be true that Sonic does feel for Amy to some degree of what she does him. But then what of his reactions? The answer to this can be found in early concept art of Madonna being shown to daydream about smothering Sonic in kisses.

The key point however is that Sonic is shown to be irritated by the gesture. As such it can be taken to mean that as it is unquestionably known that Madonna was designed as Sonic’s girlfriend that Sonic simply does not like public displays of affection. Then why run from Amy when she displays the same affection rather than get annoyed?

That question has already been answered in that Amy overwhelms him, and the reason for such is that her Genki Girl foundation and filter of childishness shape and energize Madonna’s love. As a Genki Girl, Amy is already overwhelming to everyone, and her childishness will make Sonic uncomfortable as he is typically presented as far older than he is. However, this plays well to what Sonic gets out of the relationship. Sonic loves above all else to run free and face adventure and challenge. Facing Amy’s feelings and being overwhelmed gives him reason to run and the challenge of surviving an encounter with her passion a great thrill.

Realistically, Sonic couldn’t ask for a better partner. But it cannot be viewed as a traditional relationship, or it will be immediately misunderstood. Little surprise as Amy creator Hoshino Kazuyuki-san wanted to avoid a traditional relationship. As covered at the beginning of this document, Amy is designed to enjoy Sonic’s lifestyle and have a personality that will never be discouraged from always having to chase him. And it is here that Amy receives what makes her part in the relationship worth it even as she complains about wanting more romantic encounters with Sonic. She shares Sonic’s character structure and that also entails his love of adventure. So, when she has to chase after Sonic, she is able to be led on adventure after adventure. And Sonic not telling her no is his, awkward in matters of the heart too mature for his boy’s heart to understand, way of inviting Amy along and sharing with her what he loves most. She shouldn’t ask for more without facing the karma of her first karmic cycle and recognizing how silly she is.

Still the fact remains that Amy is treated as a momentary gag character when her love for Sonic is on display, and just as quickly removed from the story. Sometimes there is an alternative outcome however, and it lies in Sonic’s tendency to tease Amy by not fleeing at speeds she can never dream of matching, or when they are forced to adventure together. In these cases, Amy always calms down. Once she has leveled out her limitless energy, Sonic grows comfortable in her presence. He opens up and Amy’s role as his love interest, his girlfriend, to show Sonic’s full range of emotions beyond the unreachable, larger than life hero upon the distant pedestal come to light. Amy grounds him by being able to reach his most guarded feature as his girlfriend, his heart. But Amy cannot reach his heart if she is never on screen with him. And so, this essay/paper turns to the importance of Amy being the main female lead.

-AMY AS THE FEMALE LEAD-

Having the position of female lead of the Sonic The Hedgehog™ IP puts a lot of expectations on Amy, especially as she serves as an entryway to the IP for many women and girls of all ages. That she is typically presented as a gag character, dismissed and left out, and even shown to be obsessive and abusive at her worst to some does not paint a fair picture of Amy or present a welcoming environment for female fans to find entry into the series. That she also can’t keep up, never blatantly has what makes her and Sonic a couple shown, and is the only character besides Sticks from Sonic BOOM! to need a weapon to partake in the action, that Amy is a girl on top of all that results in an image that is vulgarly misogynistic and anything but welcoming. It is with little surprise then that Amy has such an extremely divisive reputation bolstered even further by her presented lack of a clear identity. And if this is how the main female is treated it is hard to take any of the other female characters seriously. No, as the lead female and love interest of the main character, Amy’s presentation carries far more importance than her treatment speaks to. Though in recent years she has been considered to be treated better, it has been completely at the cost of her character to the point that Amy herself is not there at all and only a doppelganger that shares her face and name. This unfortunately begins to present an image claiming that female characters are only acceptable within male marketed materials if they fit certain criteria, lest they be treated as a joke and naught but disrespected. This is a dangerous precedent and one that should be always avoided. But how?

As this segment’s title and the above problems around Amy state though, Amy is the female lead. This means then that she is at the fore of all other female characters and sets the precedence for how much freedom to be characters or just acceptable archetypes. To do so however requires elevating Amy to full on main character, a role she has on occasion been able to achieve before being pushed aside for any number of reasons. Yet, as Amy shares Sonic’s character structure, it is unquestionable that she has what it takes to be not just the female lead of the IP, but even able to lead in Sonic’s stead when reasonable. In such a position, as she shares Sonic’s character structure, Amy would be able to do everything that Sonic does, but with the twists both positive and negative in the right way due to her girl/girlfriend concept, Genki Girl foundation, and filter of childishness. It brings a vastly different experience, especially when the influence that her nickname, Rosy The Rascal, has on how she approaches different scenarios. But even elevated to such status Amy’s role as Sonic’s girlfriend can still be crippling if she does not interact with him positively, something not possible without his signature speed. With it, she could spend the time with him to show how well they get along once her energy levels out and Sonic is able to acclimate to Amy’s presence. Further, it would allow for the two-way teasing between the two and the competitiveness between them to shine. This also allows for moments of Sonic and Amy flustering one or the other first, a dynamic that allows Sonic to put Amy off balance and enjoy seeing her flustered. Yet another opportunity to show that they have a healthy, competitive, supportive, and loving relationship. It is anything but traditional, but then neither are Sonic and Amy.

And so, that is where the Sonic Ring Bond AU begins to explore Amy’s character. With the projection and question of what if Amy had Sonic’s speed, a return and prominent use of her nickname to make clear character expectations, and design changes to allow the consumer to see that they are being presented a new take on Amy. Her white leotard presenting a clean start free of the stains of her existing reputation. Further, the AU’s core idea and namesake, the Ring Bond, establishing that Amy sharing Sonic’s speed firmly establishes the idea of a bond between them, and one that allows Amy to partake of her dream of being a part of Sonic’s life and adventures. She need only master his speed, and her impossible dream and character message of never giving up on your impossible dreams but pursuing them and letting them help you grow and become the best version of yourself that you can be, becomes very clear and motivational. If Sonic is one to be chased after, then Amy, or perhaps better, Rosy, is the one to pull you along so you never give up or grow discouraged. To that end she will need an in-universe example. And her story will have to be told genuinely, and never from a meta or out of universe perspective lest her earnestness and genuineness be made to be false, and she seen as two faced and untrustworthy. No, she must be shown to care about who she helps, what she seeks, and who she loves honestly. It cannot be made a joke, even if the consumer is invited to laugh at her when her karmic cycles put her in the role of comic relief. After all, her Genki Girl foundation assures she will always smile and pick herself back up to try again in a better way while keeping everyone else smiling too. One could not ask for more form a character of an entertainment IP.

-FINAL THOUGHTS-

With that, I complete putting in order most of what I think about when I aim to write Amy. It is naturally incomplete as some things only come to me while I’m writing, or they are thoughts rooted in other characters and the nature of their responses to Amy. But perhaps, and I truly hope so, that with this essay/paper I have managed to chase away the idea Amy is a simple character, simply Sonic Lite or Girl Sonic. Because while she shares her character structure with Sonic, her concept of girl/girlfriend alongside her Genki Girl foundation and filter of childishness make her vastly different yet uniquely rooted by making use of two (2) karmic cycles to keep her entitlement at bay. Entitlement that breaks her genuine and earnest character, warping her roles and enabled by the faulty use of the Piko Piko hammer. And hopefully, by digging out who Amy actually is under years and mountains of projections and top-down writing, even complete discarding of her character, my aim of putting her fully in the spotlight can be appreciated. Even should my writing skills fail to reach my lofty goals.

Finally, I would like to thank everyone who read to the end of this essay/paper. It is a long read, and one that is perhaps difficult to accept as I site no sources for my claims. But this paper is less to prove anything so much as show what I think about when I write Amy, or more accurately, Rosy. To that end I truly hope I was successful regardless on if I am agreed with or not.

Once more thank you, and please, wish me luck in my efforts to write “Amy,” and not just another doppelganger.

Thank you.

[mikegranich87]

Windows 11 review: Microsoft’s most pleasant OS—until it isn't

What's the point of Windows 11? With Windows 10, Microsoft had to make a big course correction from Windows 8, an ambitious yet flawed attempt at bringing PCs into the touchscreen era. Before that, Windows 7 was meant as a palate cleanser to help us forget about the bloated mess that was Vista. Given that Windows 10 was already pretty polished when it launched, and only got better over time, why the need for a whole new version?

After testing early builds for months, as well as the shipping release this past week (here's how to nab it yourself), it's clear that Microsoft isn't actually trying to fix much with Windows 11. It's basically a fresh coat of paint on top of Windows 10 (and likely a last-ditch attempt at rebranding the defunct Windows 10X.) But the more I use it, the easier it is to see that small design tweaks can go a long way. Windows 10 was laser-focused on productivity; it aimed to make you as efficient as possible. Windows 11 goes a step further: What if being productive was also pleasant and oddly relaxing? Windows, meet mindfulness.

What's new

At first glance, Windows 11 may seem like a radical departure from Microsoft's typical desktop template — an aesthetic that hearkens all the way back to Windows 95. The taskbar is still around, but now all of your icons are centered by default. The Start menu is back with a redesigned look featuring pinned and recommended apps (you can also hit All Apps to see everything you've got installed). RIP, Live Tiles — nobody ever used you.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

This refreshed look extends throughout Windows 11: App windows now have rounded corners; icons, Windows Explorer and the Settings app look sharper than ever; and even the sound effects have been cleaned up. This is Windows at its most refined. To put it uncharitably, though, it also seems a lot like macOS. But fret not, Windows diehards: You can still shove the entire taskbar back to the left side of the screen. (Editor’s note: Where it belongs.)

Microsoft has also reworked system tray, for better and worse. Hitting the date and time brings up your notifications and calendar, while clicking on the volume or networking icons makes the new action center pop out. It’s similar to the system shortcuts in Windows 10, allowing you to change Wi-Fi networks, enable airplane mode and quickly change your brightness and volume. You can also easily reach some accessibility tweaks, like enabling the magnifier or color filters. Everything looks sleeker than Windows 10, though some options are gone entirely, like the ability to turn Night Lite settings on and off.

Windows 11 also marks a major return for widgets: bite-sized apps that also appeared in Windows 7. You can reach them by hitting the widget button in the taskbar, but frankly, I found them useless. These days, I don’t need a glanceable screen for my calendar, news and mail, not when my smartphone is always within reach.

Microsoft

Less noticeable than the taskbar changes, but still important, is the new Windows Store. It looks cleaner, with a left-hand navigation bar and multiple panes for individual app entries. I'd wager Microsoft just wanted to keep those install and purchase buttons in clear view at all times. Windows 10 is also getting the same Store app eventually, so it's not really an exclusive for the new OS. Eventually, we'll also see Android apps in the Microsoft Store, but it's unclear when that's happening.

Similarly, Windows 11 ships with the latest Xbox app, but that's also available on Windows 10. You'll still want to upgrade for the best overall gaming performance, though, as Windows 11 will be the only way to use Microsoft's DirectStorage technology on PCs. Whenever that does land it should dramatically speed up load times (assuming you have a compatible GPU and SSD) just like the Xbox Series S and X.

Microsoft

Calm from the start... mostly

On a new PC, Windows 11 welcomes you with a series of setup screens that feel like you're flipping through a spa brochure. Log into your Wi-Fi (or plug into Ethernet), enter your Microsoft credentials, and maybe grab a cucumber water while you wait.

As with Windows 10, you can choose to disable advertising IDs, which prevents ad tracking, and opt out of sending diagnostic information to Microsoft. But there aren't many other choices you'll have to make; the setup process basically runs on autopilot until you see the new desktop.

It's worth noting that Microsoft has made setup more restrictive for Windows 11 Home users: Both an internet connection and Microsoft account are required. You won't be able to set up a local user account, or use your computer at all, until you meet those requirements. Windows 11 Pro users won't have that limitation, which is good news for IT professionals and power users. But it could be frustrating for people without reliable internet access of their own.

(As of last year, the FCC said around 14.5 million Americans don't have steady broadband, defined as at least 25Mbps download speeds and 3Mbps uploads. Recent figures from Data Reportal say around 40 percent of the world's population are offline. Microsoft is probably assuming that the majority of its potential customers won't have an issue finding internet, but that goes directly against the company's moves towards increased accessibility.)

I'd expect many consumers will be upgrading their existing Windows 10 systems, rather than setting up a new computer. Unfortunately, Microsoft didn't have a way for me to upgrade my PC with a final Windows 11 release. Based on what I've seen with the latest Windows 11 Insider previews, though, moving to the new OS appears to be very similar to installing a major Windows 10 update. On a Surface Laptop 4 I had lying around, the upgrade process took around 15 minutes after downloading the new OS via Windows update.

You're going to have a tougher time if you own an older PC that doesn't meet Microsoft's hardware requirements. You'll need a compatible Intel, AMD or Qualcomm processor; 4GB of RAM; and at least 64GB of storage. Also, you'll have to enable Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 (Trusted Platform Module), features that should make it harder for spyware and malware to attack your OS. Microsoft's PC Health Check app can help you see if your system is ready for Windows 11.

If you don't meet the upgrade requirements, you can download a Windows 11 ISO and install it manually, a method that bypasses Microsoft's CPU restrictions. Still, you'll need to be savvy enough to create a boot disk and deal with a more complex installation. Another caveat: manual installations may not receive some future Windows Updates, according to The Verge. (It sounds like Microsoft hasn't decided how restrictive it wants to be just yet.)

If you've built your own desktop PC, I'd suggest bracing yourself for additional upgrade complications. Microsoft's Health Check app initially said that my system — powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X processor, an ASROCK motherboard and 32GB of RAM — wasn't compatible with Windows 11. It turned out I needed to enable the AMD TPM 2.0 module and Secure Boot in my BIOS. But once I did all that, my system couldn't boot into my Windows 10 installation.

After a bit of sleuthing, I learned that I needed to convert my Windows 10 installation disk from MBR (Master Boot Record) to GPT (GUID Partition Table). So off I went into the command line to run some strings and pray for my Windows installation's safety. Five sweat-soaked minutes later, I rebooted and saw my trusty Windows login screen. Whew. From there, I was able to proceed with the Windows 11 Update as normal.

I'm sure I'm not the only one with a Windows 10 installation on an MBR disk — that was the standard on older computers — so I'm hoping Microsoft eventually bakes that conversion into the entire Windows 11 setup process. I can't imagine average consumers trying to figure out command line prompts without wanting to throw their PCs out the window.

Microsoft

In use: A new look, new frustrations

Windows 11 is nice to use. Pleasant, even. Windows 10 wasn't ugly, but Windows 11's focus on design leads to a more refined experience at first. I enjoyed having color-matched themes. The new Settings app is a dream; it's actually easy to find things for once! I genuinely love the new automatic window snapping, which lets you shove an app to a particular area of your screen by hovering above the maximize icon. Even better, snapping a few apps together creates a group that you can easily revisit in the taskbar.

That facelift doesn't come at the expense of performance, either. Windows 11 feels just as fast as Windows 10 on all of my test systems. But I'll be more interested to see how it performs on PCs older than five years, which is about the cut-off for Microsoft's upgrade requirements.

As impressed as I am by the design changes, a part of me feels constrained by the new OS. No matter where you place your taskbar icons, for example, you won't be able to see app labels anymore. Microsoft has been pushing an icon-focused taskbar since Windows 7, but you always had the option to turn on labels, so you could see what was in an app window before you clicked on it. Dealing with that loss is the single biggest hurdle I had with Windows 11.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Now it takes me multiple clicks to find a specific Chrome window, or to locate an email I popped out of Gmail. Icons just aren't enough. I can understand why Microsoft took away labels: They make your desktop look chaotic. It's not nearly as zen as a simple line of high-resolution pictures.

But as a Windows user, I'm used to chaos. I was shaped by the instability of Windows 3.11; I learned to tame Windows XP as an IT admin; and I was there at the Windows 8 launch in Spain (an event that seems cursed in retrospect). Even after all of that, I'm still primarily a Windows user. If chaos can make me more productive, I embrace the madness. Sadly, Windows 11 doesn't give me that option. It just wants me to relax, damnit.

To be fair, I have similar issues with macOS. As pretty as it is, finding a specific app window can be frustrating. To mitigate that, I typically rely on Mission Control to establish hot corners that can either show me every open app, windows within a specific program, or the desktop. Windows 11 lets you set up a hot corner in the bottom right of your screen to show the desktop, but you'll have to rely on keyboard shortcuts to see open apps. (I'm still debating whether Alt + Tab or Win + Tab is better.)

After spending so much time with Windows 11, I'm begrudgingly getting the hang of the new taskbar, at least. I'd bet some Windows diehards will be similarly frustrated with the new Start menu, especially if they're used to seeing all of their apps instantly. Personally, I find the focus on shortcuts and recently added files and apps to be more useful. And as of Windows 10, I just hit the Windows key and start typing to search for specific apps. (I'm glad that's still practically instantaneous on the new OS.)

I’ve only dabbled in the Windows 11 touchscreen experience so far, but in general it feels easier to hit specific targets. Microsoft has also made apps more responsive to touch, so it’s being able to quickly expand and maximize windows feels less frustrating. You still won’t mistake Windows 11 for iPadOS, but I never expected Microsoft to go that far. This new OS is simply better for laptops that have touchscreens, and it’s far more usable for hybrid tablets like the Surface Pro.

While I've found Windows 11 pleasant overall, I'll be interested to see how mainstream users react to all of the changes. Some members of Engadget's staff initially found the new design to be ugly (some warmed up to it later), and at least one was grateful I explained how to move the taskbar back to the left. It's tough for Microsoft to make any major changes to Windows without having users throw a fit. (Remember everything that happened around Windows 8?) So I expect the initial reaction isn't going to be welcoming. Let's just say I'm glad I'm no longer in IT support for this transition.

Microsoft

So, who needs Windows 11?

To paraphrase Thanos, Windows 11 is inevitable. It's going to start rolling out to eligible Windows 10 users today, and it will ship with new PCs this Fall. Aside from re-learning the taskbar and Start menu functionality, there's not much of a reason to avoid it. The new Secure Boot requirements will make it a safer OS overall; gamers will eventually get faster loading times; and everyone can appreciate the clean new aesthetic.

It's a step forward, even if it isn't as momentous as Windows 10. It's also hard to ignore the story behind the new OS, which makes Windows 11 feel more like a way for Microsoft to save face after an embarrassing failure. In the fall of 2019, the company announced Windows 10X, an OS variant meant for dual-screened PCs. Those devices, like the intriguing Surface Neo, failed to arrive. (It's unclear if the complex new hardware was the roadblock, or if PC makers were waiting for Windows 10X to be completed.)

Microsoft announced last year that it was shifting the focus of 10X to single-screened devices, and it put the final nail in the coffin this May, when it said that Windows 10X development had stopped. A few weeks later, we got word that Microsoft was gearing up to reveal the next version of Windows, and shortly after that the Windows 11 leak occurred. On June 24th, with practically all of its new features spoiled, Microsoft officially revealed its new OS.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

In my head, I imagine the frantic meetings around Windows 10X's rocky development like something from The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin. With dual-screened devices a no-show, maybe they could just repurpose that work for traditional laptops, a harried Panos Panay would say. But why even make that a separate version of Windows 10? The PC market is pretty hot right now, perhaps there's a way to capitalize on that? And at some point, someone just said "Why not just go to 11?" A stunned silence. Applause all around.

Not to sound too cynical, but releasing a new OS is an easy way to encourage people to buy new computers. That's particularly true now that we're relying on our PCs more than ever, as many people are still working and doing schoolwork from home. A new version of Windows is no simple thing, and it’ll surely get more headlines and media attention than a mere Windows 10 update. (Stares directly into camera.)

from Mike Granich https://www.engadget.com/windows-11-review-microsoft-mindful-os-200028040.html?src=rss

[unit8rosiefryer]

Evaluation

For my final major project, I created an animated music video which could better be described as a motion graphic. It’s visually narrative, as it follows along with the lyrics of my song of choice, and is therefore both informative as well as aesthetically pleasing. When designing this piece I imagined it joining many other music videos on YouTube, which meant that the audience would likely be younger people (25 or under) as they are the current primary demographic for this site. However, due to it’s storytelling nature, I also believe that those old older generations will enjoy watching it and learning about the story within the song. In fact, when I showed it to my family, the majority of positive feedback came from people aged over 35. 

I went into this project with a very basic understanding of the software that I chose (Adobe Illustrator and Adobe After Effects). This was actually quite motivating to me as it meant that if I wanted to produce something that I could be proud of, I would have to research, practice, and learn to expand my skills. For the most part I think that I completed my plan well, as the end result was fairly accurate to the image I had in my head. Having said that, if I could go back in time and chose what I was going to create again, I think I might have chosen differently. This isn’t because I didn’t enjoy the challenge - I actually found the progress very rewarding - but because I discovered that the reason I enjoyed this was because it involved visual story telling, and not because of the animation aspect of it. Following this, I believe I would chose to do a form of info-graphics next time, perhaps a series of advertising posters with an underlying satirical/sarcastic tone. I think that this would play to my strengths more, as I enjoy the cryptic aspect of designing something that has to be thought about to be understood, but could also be interpreted differently by various people. 

When it came to researching for this project, I was reluctant because I didn’t know where to start. I knew that I had seen motion graphics used in advertising before, but I couldn’t remember where or when. However, luckily for me advertising is everywhere, and it didn’t take long before I saw an example that portrayed exactly what I enjoy about the style. From here I searched digital art websites and found many more portrayals of what I wanted to create: a simple, visually pleasing motion graphic, which had smooth transitions and told a story. Finding inspiration for my elements was even easier, as I had a solid image in my head of what I wanted them to look like, I just needed a guide to make sure some pieces were recognisable for what they were. Both of these instances refer to secondary research. I found primary research harder to acquire, as there is very little around me which I could have gathered to use as inspiration for my design, as it is set on a hillside and I live in a city. However there is one scene containing a skyline of city buildings, and I could have explored my home further to find inspiration for this instead, of just using the internet; which is what I did. I was able to obtain one source of primary research however, and this was in the form of a survey. I asked people around me of varying ages and occupations how they felt about animated music videos. I believe that this sample was fairly representative as some of the people have knowledge of this area, whereas others have none; and both of these groups were a mix of ages. I used my findings to approach my project in a way that would please as many people as possible, as that is one of its primary functions - to be viewed and enjoyed.

As stated earlier, during my time collecting secondary research, I mostly used the internet, as it contains anything and everything I could want. For one occasion, I saw some inspiration on an advert when I was in the cinema, and then found the link to it later on YouTube. I didn’t use books at any time, but I feel that this is justified because of the digital field that my project is set in. I was sure to reference all my research in my bibliography, although I think I might have lacked mentioning it during my reflective journals, and expressing when and where it had inspired me. For another project I would be sure to gather more primary research, because I think it can give a project a more personal impression, as it contains elements of my life, not just ideas from already existing sources.

During my time creating this animation I ran into quite a few problems. I decided to alter my plan in the first week of animating, by removing a character that I had originally wanted to be in there. This meant that I had to redesign some of the frames on my storyboard to be as expressive without using a face to portray emotions. I suppose this was less of a problem and more a consequential decision, but even so it put me a little off-track. Further issues arose at various points, for example, the format of the software I was using was accidentally altered once, and I didn’t know how to access my work, but a classmate helped me to fix that. The biggest issues came about in regards to my memory stick. This was a large project storage-wise, and when it came towards the end I had to get a new one to save my rendered version on to. There were also complications when I (foolishly) moved some files around, and made them inaccessible to the original piece of work; which meant that none of my elements were visually available, but again this was fixed within the hour.

Due to the removal of the character in the beginning of the project, my end result is a bit different to my original sketches and storyboard. However I don’t think that this is a bad thing; in fact, I think that it ended up better than I had planned, as without the characters face to express emotions on, I had to think of creative and subjective ways to do this, which can be interpreted by each viewer differently. I truly don’t believe that I could have dealt with any issues in a more effective way. They didn’t set me back too much and ultimately, allowed my project to become what it is and I’m happy with that. I learned a lot from fixing them, for example I should never alter the placement of files during such a big project, without being sure that I had multiple copies saved first in case anything went wrong. I also feel that I have become more confident when asking for help, as it just allows me to progress faster and doesn’t (often) effect anyone else.

To produce this project I planned a reasonable amount. I created sketches and storyboards for each scene of my animation, as well as annotating to show how one would morph into the next. My schedule was broken down into weeks which were spent creating the elements, and then creating the animation. In reality these two activities overlapped a little due to some changes to the plan, but I still managed to finish with comfortable time in-hand. In this sense, I feel like I was efficient, because if I hadn't been then I would have either struggled to finish, or the quality of my end product would be affected more than it has been. If I had to complete this exact project again knowing what I know now, I don’t imagine that there is much I would change. The digital quality of my animation could be clearer, so if I were to repeat this I may do some more research into how to make this happen, but i don’t feel that the lack of research in this area has been particularly detrimental to my project. 

For the whole of this project I used software that I had used before, and knew vaguely, as the original time pressure to get everything finished felt like enough of a challenge, that didn’t need adding to by using unknown software. If I had wanted a challenge, there are many pieces of software in which to create animations that I could have researched and used; but as After Effects was the only one I knew (even though I was only introduced to it in the last 6 months) I decided to stick with this, and to challenge myself by learning new skills and techniques. I did this by following YouTube tutorials, one of which for example taught me how to create the simple motion graphics of the expanding circles and stars that I used to imitate the beat in the intro and chorus. Now that I know how long this process takes, and that I was able to finish a 3.5 minute animation in 6 weeks, next time I might venture into new territory software-wise, as I feel that this could be interesting, but may also allow me to complete this to a higher standard than After Effects did.

I used my blog as a journal throughout this process, by writing up how each week had gone. In these entries I included how far along I was, any problems that had occurred, how I solved these as well as how I was feeling about the whole process. My evaluations were an honest reflection of my performance that week - if I hadn’t been overly motivated then I would mention it because I wanted to admit when I wasn’t trying my hardest, and use this as motivation to do better next week. For a future assignment, I may use a rating system to show how each aspect of my project is coming along, for example I would use headers such as ‘progress’, ‘problem solving’, ‘timekeeping’, and ‘personal feelings’ under which I could describe the week, and then give a rating out of 10 for each section. Doing this would give me both qualitative and quantitative data, from which I could produce a form of chart at the end, so I could see how consistent I was in each area week by week. I could then use this to improve my work methods for anything else that I complete.

I chose to use this layout for my blog as opposed to a grid layout, as I think that having my posts in a chronological timeline paints a better picture of the process I went through, and the progress that I made along the way. I added a profile picture which is the same as the one on my YouTube channel, and my Behance page, as I feel that some consistency across these sites will look more professional. I made sure to use headers for each blog post to explain what they were showing, and used images where I felt they were appropriate. My only issue with this method of tracking progress, was that if I wanted to add in something which was more relevant 2 weeks ago, it had to be at the top of the timeline so everything isn’t as in order as I would like. I considered starting a new blog so that once everything was written, I could put every post in the order that I wanted it to be in, but decided that this wasn’t fully representative of what I had been doing. Instead I just explained in some posts that the content was created a while ago and I just hadn’t had to opportunity to upload it until now. I have learned that tracking my progress is a very good way of motivating me, as I can look back and see how far I’ve come, and remember problems that seemed so dire, as menial and unimportant now. The chronology of my blog allows it to tell the story of how I made each decision, and whether or not that worked for me, and I now find this almost as rewarding to look at as I do my final piece. 

[noredinktech]

Designing for Teachers: User-driven Information Architecture

It’s not breaking news that teachers are using technology in their classrooms more than ever. Public schools in the US now provide at least 1 computer for every 5 students and spend more than $3 billion per year on digital content. With their already packed schedules, teachers don’t have time to figure out websites and apps that are complicated and unintuitive. A key feature determining whether using a website feels simple and easy is the site’s information architecture, or IA. IA is the underlying structure that defines how the contents of a website (or any repository of information) are classified and organized.

Good IA goes unnoticed, allowing the user to navigate the site and find what they are looking for without a second thought. Bad IA makes itself obvious, and can often be the culprit of a frustrating user experience. My local supermarket, for example, continues to baffle me in the way that its goods are organized. On a hunt for peanut butter, I see the jelly and think to myself, “I must be getting close.” But alas, it’s hiding 4 aisles down, next to the olive oil, inexplicably.

This summer at NoRedInk, the product team embarked on a project to redesign the information architecture of the teacher side of the website. We hadn’t audited the IA since its launch in 2012, and we wanted to ensure that creating an assignment and viewing student results were as easy as finding the peanut butter next to the jelly. As with everything we do, the project focused heavily on user research. We utilized a variety of methods to get to the core problems with our IA and evaluate potential solutions, resulting in a final product we think teachers will find welcoming and intuitive when they come to NoRedInk this fall.

Phase 1: Gathering and synthesizing teacher feedback related to IA

The first step was to examine where our current IA wasn’t working well. We spoke to members of our Support, Customer Success, and Partnerships teams about feedback they’ve collected from teachers regarding usage challenges on the site. These teams interact with teachers every day, responding to support emails, conducting professional development training, and giving demos of the site, and they had great insights about common navigation pitfalls on the website. For example, the Support team tracks all the emails we get from teachers about specific problems or requests. The second most common issue reported this past school year was not being able to add new students to existing assignments - a problem we knew could be fixed with better IA.

We then conducted interviews with teachers who had recently signed up for NoRedInk in order to understand which aspects of teacher functionality were easy to do right way, and which parts of the site were more likely to go unnoticed. We learned that a few key aspects of NoRedInk - the different types of assignments we offer and the ability to track students’ mastery levels - weren’t always immediately clear to teachers in their initial experiences on NoRedInk.

Phase 2: Card Sorting

Once we knew the major problems with our current IA, we started to design solutions. Instead of building off the existing model, we wanted to give ourselves the freedom to start from scratch. So we began by listing out all of the teacher-facing pages on NoRedInk and experimenting with new ways of organizing the pages. Using a method called card sorting, we had teachers do the same. Card sorting is a tool that helps uncover the way users intuitively group and categorize the pages and functions on a website. The user is presented with a long list of the website’s contents, like “Preview an assignment,” and asked to sort them into categories and give each category a name. We recruited teachers who had never used NoRedInk to avoid bias from familiarity with the current structure. The card sorting tests revealed that participants largely agreed on the overarching categories on NoRedInk: Assignments, Student Performance, Classes, Settings, and Instructional Resources. From there, we had to drill down into the finer details of where more specific functions would be found and what to name them.

Optimal Workshop, the tool we used for card sorting, analyzes the results from each participant and quantifies how frequently cards were sorted into the same category.

We took what we learned from teacher interviews, support data, and card sorting to the drawing board, and each member of the product team mapped out some new structures. We had a brainstorming meeting in which we taped hard copies of the sitemaps up on the wall and went around with stickers to mark the ideas we liked the most.

Ideas of new sitemaps from our team brainstorm.

Phase 3: Tree Testing

Our brilliant designer Ben synthesized all of these ideas into two new versions of the IA: one that was more similar to the existing site, and one that was more “class-centric” - using a teacher’s classes as jumping off points to other parts of the site. We used a method called tree testing to evaluate whether the new versions made things easier to find compared to the existing IA. In a tree test, the user is presented with a hierarchical list representing the contents of a website and several tasks; the user clicks through the list and selects the places where they think they’d be able to complete the tasks.

A screenshot of one of the tasks in the tree test. Based on the feedback we heard in our initial research, we wanted to make sure that teachers could find where to add new students.

The data we collected from tree testing included where the participants expected to complete the tasks, the paths they took to get there, and how long they spent looking. We conducted several rounds of tree testing with participants who had never used NoRedInk before. After each round of testing we made changes to address places where participants were still having trouble. Sometimes we simply renamed a feature, like changing “Student Leaderboard” to “Top Performers.” Other times we changed the location of a feature, or added another way to navigate to it. All in all, we tested 7 different iterations until we came to a version that nearly all participants completed correctly and quickly.

Phase 4: New IA! Final Design and Validation

Ben transformed the final version of the IA we developed during tree testing into a beautiful new design for the teacher side of NoRedInk. The updated layout features a new menu bar with some renamed pages. “Lessons”, for example, became “Curriculum,” a clearinghouse for our scaffolded pathways, lessons, and tutorials designed to address a pain point we frequently encountered during our research: many teachers weren’t aware of the full breadth of curriculum available to them on NoRedInk. We also added a prominent sidebar menu where teachers can manage their class settings, including student rosters. The biggest change in the new IA is the class-centric teacher dashboard, where teachers can view their classes, see what’s upcoming for the week and how students are progressing on assignments. We knew from our research that those were things that teachers want to see right away, and we organized them front and center so teachers can jump quickly into assignments or student data being better informed about the current state of their classes.

To validate the new design, we tested a working prototype to see whether the real layout, compared to the more artificial layout in the tree test, was still just as easy to navigate. We tested with new users who had very little experience on the site and with NoRedInk Ambassadors, who use the site regularly. The feedback we got from both groups was hugely positive, with multiple teachers using the word “streamlined” - exactly what we were going for.

Our current dashboard (left) and the new design, not yet in production (right).

What we learned

Looking back, the most important source of information was teacher feedback, via the Support and Customer Success teams and directly through interviews. That feedback heavily influenced the solutions we designed, and tree testing was a great tool to fine-tune and validate them. Card sorting, though a common and logical place to start when it comes to IA, didn’t tell us much beyond what we already knew. A better way to start might have been to brainstorm creative ways of getting teacher feedback related to IA that eventually drove our final solution. We’re really excited to release this more straightforward, user-friendly IA to teachers this fall!

At NoRedInk, our product team is deeply user-driven, and we are consistently pushing ourselves to find even better ways of getting feedback from teachers and students. If you’re passionate about building a product that teachers really want, our team is hiring — we’d love to hear from you!

Christa Simone is a User Researcher at NoRedInk, leveraging research and data to help build a product that teachers love.

[violetsystems]

#personal

I managed to do seven miles before work on Wednesday.  I run down by the river walk near the lake.  I’ve been feeling more and more lately like that’s the only thing worth my time here outside of work.  I know I’ve been saying it.  But now people are seeing it in perspective.  And all I can say is, I don’t really look back.  It’s pretty scary to look backwards.  I definitely don’t get nostalgic for the past particularly.  2013 isn’t really so far in the past.  But I was a different me.  Less sure of myself I guess.  Still me though.  Who is ever sure of themselves these days.  I’m sure enough of myself to run seven miles in public on a lake path.  It’s pretty peaceful and people leave you alone.  It’s about as social as I like to get here with headphones on.  I’m less nervous around surprises with them off.  Back in 2014 my hair was way shorter and I was just trying to reestablish myself as some kind of artist.  I was very unsure of myself and yet I was wearing the exact same shirt I am right now.  An undercover shirt by Jun Takahashi from his collection back in 06.  I bought that off somebody off of Tumblr for like sixty dollars.  I was wearing that the shirt when I dj’d this house party here in Pilsen we threw.  It’s where I met some really dear friends.  At the time I still had feeling I needed to reprove something about myself to people so I was humble and tried to do it grassroots.  It’s a small city.  It’s full of the same types of people year after year.  People who party.  People who consume.  People who never stick around enough to care what kind of legacy they leave behind.  And the people caught up in between.  And back then people had their opinions about me and what it was I did.  The people I hung around didn’t do many favors.  I realize now it’s because people here are afraid to go out of their way.  To stick up for people and get their hands dirty unless it’s performative.  And that exists in everything from relationships, friendships, and even citizenship of a small third market city with barely enough love or money to go around. 

Everything to me has been ancient history to me for awhile now.  I just needed some distance for myself to think.  I did that.  I continued to work a day job.  I made music.  I got bored.  Read about fashion.  Travelled around the world.  Had a paycheck.  Still have a paycheck.  Came back home and this year particularly I went nowhere.  I stayed in Chicago.  I tried to make it work.  And three years later of trying to make it work nothing really changed.  Some of that is good.  I was reading about the Nike Presto the other day and it’s history.  It started as a design concept in Korea.  Tinker Hatfield apparently redesigned them for running.  His model became the Nike Presto.  And in the history, he lets it slip that the Presto 2 was really the Nike Free.  Which is one of the first pairs of Nike’s I bought for running.  I didn’t really know about Presto’s until this year particularly because of the Acronym redesign.  But I had the Free 3.0′s because I was genuinely into the design.  I knew none of this four years ago.  I had an undercover tshirt and a bunch of gear from vacationing in Japan.  When I came back nobody knew or even cared about what it was.  They were all too busy acting cool and being shitty to each other.  Nobody would talk to me.  When they did it was at parties to call me and my music irrelevant and my dreams and accomplishments a joke.  Years later people are still doing the exact same thing to other people.  It’s all a real life drama played out online with no regard for human decency or hint of care.  You can fight it.  But it’s always going to be there.  I’ve learned the hard way that you avoid it.  This city really doesn’t have anything to offer me other than my job and a great riverfront for me to stay alive long enough to get out of here.  I may never leave my job.  That’s a depressing thought.  There’s always Parsons or Cooper Union.  Somebody from the Design Department of Central Saint Martin’s just followed me the other day.  Academia is a small world.  I could go anywhere to be honest.  I’m not too worried.  But I also treat it with a lot of respect.  Even when people don’t believe I do.

But that’s this city in a nutshell and maybe just part of a broader problem.  All these years nobody made me feel valuable.  Nobody in this city anyway.  Some people manipulated that.  A lot of people did.  You can ask around.  I don’t need to tell the stories again.  That’s the part of the past I could care less about looking back at.  Revenge is dumb.  Life is short.  Too short for me to waste my emotions on fake feelings that go nowhere.   All those things I did for people that meant nothing at the end of all these years.  There’s a lot of people who see that.  See how people treat people like me.  Whatever it is I claim to be.  To me this is just me sharing my personal space low key.   Nobody pays attention to me in real life.  Sometimes they do.  But for the most part they don’t.  Or they just think they’re better.  I’m not in a competition with anyone but myself.  To be the best person possible with the time I have.  I don’t understand why that’s so difficult for some people.  Maybe I do.  If I look back too far I can see a person who wasted a lot of time.  But if I didn’t make those choices I wouldn’t know what I know and be the person I am.  However much value that doesn’t mean to the place I live.  I just don’t think you can expect people to respect you when deep down you just know.  It’s a feeling.  Like waking up to someone in your dash.  That simple interactions that lead to real inspiration are better than flashy, over the top and ultimately anxious public displays of validation.  I’d be lying to you if I didn’t say a lot of what I say and do is calculated around the idea of another person.  That’s romantic to me that I’d want to be something more for somebody that inspires me to be just that.  Even if it’s ultimately something people in real life pass off as too complicated or too much of a fantasy to entertain the logic.  Those people aren’t even paying attention to anything but the sound of their own voice.  That’s why I don’t say much and look at my phone.  It’s where I feel like people are genuinely paying attention to what my heart has to say.

[iamthebarefootone]

Apple Watch Series 4 review: Bigger, faster and even mo...

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I am of two minds on the Apple Watch. On one hand, I think that it's the best overall smartwatch you can currently buy. And to that end, the Series 4 -- now available starting at $399 -- is the best Apple Watch to date. 

After wearing one for weeks, it's worked really well, but it's not as tremendous a leap forward from last year's model as you might think. And the Apple Watch is no closer to being a clear must-have device than it was before, unless you value the possible benefits of new health features. The 2018 model adds a nice slate of upgrades:

Thinner design with bigger, almost no-bezel watch faces: Larger 44mm and 40mm displays fit into the same general case sizes that previously held 42mm and 38mm ones, respectively.

Lightning-fast speed: The Series 4 is fast. Response time for nearly everything that doesn't require an online ping is effectively instantaneous. The improvement versus Series 2 and earlier models is particularly dramatic.

Fall detection: The Watch will alert loved ones and EMS when you take a serious tumble (but Apple doesn't guarantee it, and it's not on by default unless you're 65 or older).

Electrocardiogram (EKG or ECG): This feature, coming soon via a software update, amps up the Watch's already impressive heart-rate monitoring features with a full-on, FDA-cleared on-demand EKG that will check for heart arrhythmia.

On the other hand, the Apple Watch Series 4 doesn't address some of the longstanding frustrations that have dogged the platform since day one. Specifically:

Battery life remains stuck at little more than a day (two days max, if you're lucky).

No sleep tracking: Because the watch needs to be charged overnight, that effectively kills sleep tracking options.

No always-on watch face: To save battery life, the watch face is dark most of the time.

Despite a handful of new data-rich watch faces, the apps that use these faces are limited, and deeper customization -- including having a watch face store like rivals do -- remains MIA on Apple Watch.

To be clear, none of these are futurist fantasies. Rival products from from Fitbit, Samsung and others are starting to last for days -- with promises of weeks between charges (in more pared-down watch modes) made by Qualcomm's new chip that's powering upcoming Google Wear OS competitors. And those same products offer sleep tracking, dozens or hundreds of watch face options, and always-on timekeeping, too.

Sarah Tew/CNET

But back to the positives: if you're looking for the fastest, most seamless, best-connected smartwatch around, this is it. And, yes, on a watch, speed matters. And the Apple Watch's audio capabilities are improved: speaker and microphone are stellar.

New features like automatic workout tracking, walkie-talkie communications between watches, raise to talk (no more "hey Siri") and better support for music and podcasts are all welcome additions to the Apple Watch. But those are part of the 2018 WatchOS 5 upgrade, so they're also available on older Series 1, Series 2 and Series 3 models.

To that end, if you're not a workout junkie, or someone who's particularly interested in the safety aspects of fall detection or EKG-level heart monitoring, the Apple Watch Series 3 -- available starting at $279 (£279, AU$399) -- is still a worthy option. That model retains the standalone cellular option, too, if you want to occasionally go phone-free.

The Apple Watch Series 4 starts at $399 (£399, AU$599) for the standard model, and $499 (£499, AU$749) for the LTE model. Models climb up from there depending on size, material (stainless steel versus aluminum), band choices and additional styles (Nike+, Hermes).  

Existing Series 3 owners shouldn't feel a rush to upgrade. And Series 1 and Series 2 owners should start with that free update to WatchOS 5, of course. But if you're looking for considerably faster speed, a bigger and more information-rich watch face, and better health and workout features, the Apple Watch Series 4 is a worthy upgrade. 

However, iPhone owners looking for a smartwatch with longer battery life or sleep tracking should check out alternatives like the Fitbit Versa.

The original Modular watch face is still on Apple Watch Series 4, and it's definitely more minimal than Infograph.

Sarah Tew/CNET

My favorite thing: Speed

The first Apple Watch in 2015 was slow. Loading apps was its limiting factor. The lightning-quick, smooth feel of the Apple Watch Series 4 almost feels like a given, since it's how Apple products tend to feel out of the box. It's as fast, now, as an iPhone or iPad. It feels automatic. Last year's Series 3 was also fast, and it's still fine. The Series 4 does it one better, so that loading times no longer seem to exist much at all.

Speed is probably more key on a watch than on a phone, if you're counting on quick glances and instant info, I can't think of a better wearable.

The Apple Watch interface design is mostly the same as last year, even with WatchOS 5. There are some key improvements: notifications now stack by type, much like on the iPhone in iOS 12, and it really helps with clutter. The Control Center (quick settings accessed via swipe-up) can also be reordered, front-loading most-needed controls (sadly, no new shortcuts can be added).

Speaking of shortcuts, Siri Shortcuts -- which allow you to program activities with simple commands -- are supported on the Apple Watch, but I haven't found myself compelled to dive into using them yet.

My next favorite thing: Audio

More than the watch's refined design, I truly appreciate the way it handles speakerphone functions. A louder speaker truly helps with quick Siri requests (which I really do, on my wrist, when setting timers or alarms or quick tasks). A new raise-to-speak function in WatchOS 5 means I can lift and talk really closely into the watch and not have to say "Hey Siri," and it usually works. But for phone calls at home, when my phone's lost somewhere and my sister or mom calls, I can talk with the whole family via my wrist and it works perfectly -- it's no different than a speakerphone call on the phone.

My good feelings on audio extend to the Apple Watch as iPod. Last year with WatchOS 4, the watch autosynced albums via Apple Music during overnight charging to fill an instant on-the-go library, and it made me use the watch for music far more than I expected. Podcasts and third-party audio apps can now work offline on the watch, too, and with a pair of AirPods (or other Bluetooth headphones, but AirPods pair and swap between iPhone and watch mostly seamlessly), it's a perfect experience. I also appreciate the watch's easy access to music controls when in a workout.

Bigger screen is better, but untapped watch face possibilities

The Apple Watch S4 is the biggest design update since the watch launched in 2015. Apple followed the model of its recent iPhone designs here: The Series 4 cuts down the bezel surrounding the screen versus last year's Series 3, effectively squeezing larger screens into the same size chassis. It's still a squircle, but the look is much more refined. It's thinner, too: Apple cut the depth of the Watch from 11.4mm to 10.7mm, so it's less bulbous on your wrist.

The Apple Watch still comes in "small" and "large," but thanks to the economy of sizes from the redesign, the smallest new Apple Watch has a display that's close to the size of the previous large one. The new watch sizes are 40 and 44mm, versus the previous 38 and 42mm.

Both displays are bigger now, keeping case size still relatively compact. The 40mm (left) and 44mm (right), in stainless steel (gold colored steel is on the right).

Sarah Tew/CNET

The larger display on both sizes of Apple Watch models means bigger, more beautiful watch faces. But it doesn't mean there's all that much that's new. There are only two signature new watch faces exclusive to the Series 4 -- Infograph and Infograph Modular -- and those faces show off new graphically rich complications for extra information on-watch. However, not all watch apps can take advantage of them yet, and even those that do aren't as helpful as I expected. Heart rate, for instance, doesn't show my heart rate or my resting heart rate on the watch face itself. Instead, it's just a heart-shaped icon I can tap to launch the heart rate app.

Several weather apps can use the new "Infograph Modular" watch face's center information pane to show daily weather trends, but few other apps can. And the areas where these complications are laid out can't be moved around. For more thoughts, read my deeper dive into the new watch faces.

Other watch faces look bigger and prettier. New motion faces are full-screen, and the Kaleidoscope face looks brilliant and big. Round watch faces fill more of the available space. But they're not fundamentally different, or any more customizable. I'd love to make my own styles of new watch faces, and build layouts that worked for me, using information I need. Apple has 25 watch faces to choose from and thousands of ways to tweak them and customize them, and yet I still find my ability to make my own perfect at-a-glance watch face is challenged.

I love the bezel-minimal, curved-corner display on the new watch, but with all the available space it now has, and the speed of the processor inside, Apple could be doing a lot more.

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[sweetlightstudios]

Studio Set Product Photography | SF Commercial Product Photographer

This Commercial Product Photographer is working hard to simplify Product Photography …

So excited to share our latest epiphany: a less-complicated way of pricing and creating Marketing Photos for Commercial use created by a professional Commercial Product Photographer! Hello there!  Thanks for checking this post out! This will be great for business owners, merchants, and online retailers… We’ve restructured our pricing, and we believe it’s going to make for an easier way of life!

First of all, when we started to redesign the sweetlightstudios.com website, my husband queried me about how the business is run.  You know, the operations, and logistics.   Telling him about the portraiture side was simple because I keep my work simple. My client and I agree on a date, I make the most amazing portraits of them I possibly can & I get paid for the portraits my clients love. Talking to my husband about the details of the commercial side as a Commercial Product Photographer rather challenging, to say the least.  Quite the opposite of my portraiture model. Multiple explanations took place over what seems like days of pricing based on various scenarios. Bids, Negotiations, Estimates, Approvals, Deposits, Contracts, Invoices, Shot Lists, Schedules, Pre-Production, Assistants, Post Production, Processing Fee’s, Expendables, Talent, Usage Rights, Licensing, Use Fees, & on and on. As a result, it made both of us feel a little cranky just trying to talk it out -- because there is no “average cost” or plain English pricelist on commercial photography, not really. As a Commercial Product Photographer,  I stopped to think how hard that must be for my clients, you!   Ugh!    So Sorry! Through our service experiences, both personal and professional, we've come to believe that “a confused mind says No!”... and therefore we decided to simplify our pricing. As a result, we set out to design our website differently.  So good people with nice products can easily find out how much it will cost for us to photograph their goods.  And, then make it easy to order a photography session to meet their needs and budget. No drama.  Online pricing.  Once and Done.

Order at 2 a.m. in the morning if you like.  Gotta say, though, we’ll probably schedule your photo session during the day!  ;) In exchange for your money, we'll give you web-resolution files of your goods.  In addition, we'll deliver matching hi-resolution .jpg image files of your products. We also include a Grant-of-Rights giving our clients an Exclusive, Unlimited Image Usage License for Web Use. We also include the right to use the accompanying high-resolution images purchased as specific print rights. Sweet Light Studios includes it all because, it seems like the reason you wanted a Commercial Product Photographer to make really great photos of your stuff would be, most of all, to Use the Images to Sell Your Products! Am I right?    

Sweet Light Studios' Commercial Product Photographer  Serves 4 types of Product Photography Needs!

Commercial Studio Pricing -- you bring your goods in, we snap them, you go home with great photos of your products! Commercial On Location Pricing -- same as above, while we come to you. Commercial OnLine Pricing -- send your goods to us, we snap & send you great photos of your goods.  Send return postage and we’ll send it back. Custom -- For those who deserve extra special attention.  We’ll work it out.  

SF Bay Area Commercial Product Photographer

Commercial Studio Pricing

Let’s say you have a few items you sell in your boutique that you’d also like to feature in your online store.  Furthermore, maybe you have a dozen stands that you’ve made to sell online. Perhaps you want to make a catalog of your cool smartphone covers for an upcoming show. We’ve added up all the expenses that go into a basic product shoot in the studio, added in the variables that change pricing (such as level of retouching) divided by a common number of items especially relevant to most sessions. As a result, we've made it easy for you to know with just a few clicks how much it will cost to hire me as your Commercial Product Photographer. Also, we can use my Studio!  

Commercial On Location Pricing

Well, here’s where things usually get a little bit trickier to get a price from your Commercial Product Photographer.  Going on location.  Since location shoots mean we must take all our gear out while traveling.  As a result of going on location, we also have to think on our feet and be creative setting up in a new environment.  Plus, we’re in the SF Bay Area, so you know the price is going up because now I’m going to need to park, right?  No worries, we've crunched the numbers and come up with a plan!  In addition, you too can see, with just a few clicks, the price to have me come to your Location as your Commercial Product Photographer! Seems like we are swimming along nicely.  

Commercial OnLine Pricing

But, what if you only have two or three products? What if you live in Illinois? How about merchants that have New Products to add to your existing site changing seasonally? No worries,  Be happy, we have a plan for you as a result of all our number crunching and scenario reviews!   Uncomplicated tabletop product photography with our Commercial Product Photographer in-house that you can price and order online from anywhere? Seems like a dream come true!  Here's the deal:  you ship your items to beautiful South San Francisco and viola we’ll send you happy shiny product photos back electronically. First, choose the angle(s) you’d like your product(s) photographed at and also let us know what luminosity your items are using the drop-down menu.  Finally, select your desired level of retouching and viola, get a price for your shoot! Furthermore, Commercial Online Product Photography pricing starts at $12.98.  Our Commercial Product Photographer will shoot just one thing,  there's probably no reason not try it out!  

Custom Pricing

Custom Orders won’t upset us!  We are ready to quote special orders because not everyone has the same needs.  Quite the opposite, much of our custom work is a combo of our product photography categories. While a model may be required on one set, another set may be a combo of bags and wardrobe on a stand.  Consequently, one style of product photography won't fit. Therefore, if you need your Commercial Product Photographer to come on location and photograph a selection of larger items on a Set PLUS a few more items on a tabletop call Sweet Light Studios. Perhaps you’d like to add talent to your commercial product photography shoot, a model or stylist that we contract for you.  We can probably help you out -- Whatever your needs,  just be in touch, via phone or email or,  if it’s two a.m.,  fill out our online survey.

We are making it easier to order product images from a Commercial Product Photographer.

To get all the details and understand everything included, you can check out our Terms and Conditions Online!   To support you better we are working with Shopify partnering in building e-commerce and expanding the online shopping presence of our clients. We'd love to help you start your online store!

Click to get your 14- Day Free Trial!     “Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.” Henry Ford My goal is to work with you to create amazing product images that Sell! Shop online or call today for a consultation on working together to create your commercial product images for marketing and let me help you “See Yourself in a New Light, in a Sweet Light”. Wishing you a Sweet day! XOX, She Schedule a session of your own at Sweet Light Studios in beautiful South San Francisco or at your site.  Contact Shelah today! Phone: 1+415/409.9389  | eMail: info@sweetlightstudios.com   First of all, Find Us on YELP at SweetLightStudios In addition, Follow Us on Instagram at @inSweetLight Also Like Us on Facebook at SweetLightStudios & Finally, BTW, We’re Right Nextdoor, too!   Read the full article

[bestnewsmag-blog]

New Post has been published on Bestnewsmag

New Post has been published on https://bestnewsmag.com/mozilla-updates-firefox-53-with-these-5-new-features/

Mozilla Updates Firefox 53 with These 5 New Features

Mozilla Firefox was as soon as a dominant player inside the browser international, however ever for the reason that release of Google Chrome, the browser appeared to have lost its sheen. With opposite numbers like Opera, Vivaldi opting for the Chromium manner, Firefox has now grown to be the simplest browser that runs on a one-of-a-kind middle era (other than Safari of course). Now, Mozilla has up to date its browser technologies with the launch of the brand new Firefox 53.

  The Firefox fifty-three which was in beta until now comes with some of the cosmetic adjustments too. It now has an alternative for 2 new preset Themes – Compact Mild and Compact Darkish. That Subject matters absolutely trade the appearance and experience of the browser. On permitting this topic, the tabs turn out to be squarish, similar to the only visible in the Microsoft Area.

Pjimage-1-e1492685801328

To activate These new Themes actually head to the f9ef7d9e905d1a4504697a5c6dd610d7 section of your browser and then click on a look. Thereafter pick out any of the 2 Issues – Mild or Darkish – depending on your flavor. Except, you could constantly switch back to the default theme from this add-on section just if you don’t like any of those present Topics.

  As noted in advance, the Design adjustments in Firefox 53 is going past the addition of present Topics. The site identity and the permission panels have now been absolutely redesigned to lead them to more visible. While surfing a ton of tabs in your Mozilla Firefox 53 you see a slider cropping up on top that allows scroll among tabs. This feature ensures that more details of the tab are visible thereby supporting you switch among them at ease.

Apart from that, the audio and visible controls have obtained a visible overhaul. They now guide WebM files with alpha, thereby allowing builders to embed motion pictures with transparent historical past onto pages.

Uses a new Quantum Compositor for Progressed Pictures Stability

To improve Stability on Home windows devices, Firefox has started out the usage of a new Quantum Compositor in its new browser. For starters, a compositor is chargeable for portray factors of an internet site to your display screen. the new Quantum Compositor seemingly uses the GPU abilities of your Laptop to offer a fluent surfing experience. It adds a GPU processor to Firefox’s multi-process machine. So any Photos related crashes any longer will now not shut down the entire browser. Mozilla claims that its Quantum Compositor works on computers with Intel, AMD and Nvidia Photographs that are jogging Windows 7 or later. With that said, the MacBooks aren’t using the new Quantum Compositor as Mozilla claims that Apple’s Mac OS offers strong Graphics composting.

Firefox-1024×563

Ditches guide for older Windows and Mac

With the modern-day update, Mozilla has formally introduced that it’s going to ditch aid for the older version of Home windows and Macs. This definitely has something to do with the new core technologies which are being used within the Firefox fifty-three. So customers nevertheless walking on Windows XP, Windows Vista and 32-bit model of Mac OX 10 will not get predominant updates. They are able to but download Firefox 53 ESR to maintain receiving safety updates for yet some other year. Aside from that, the browser may even prevent helping Linux computer systems with Intel Pentium four, AMD Opteron or older chips.

3 Reasons Why Mozilla Firefox Browser Should Be Your Primary Web Browser

  Among the top browsers available on the Internet, Mozilla Firefox Browser is the best web browser you can ever download. According to W3schools, a web development site, Mozilla Firefox has been the second most downloaded web browser for the last seven years. It has always been second most popular to the Google Chrome web browser. You may think that this statistic places Google chrome above Firefox, but let’s face it, Google is a much bigger company that spends way more money on marketing and advertising than Mozilla ever would or could.

Having understood the statistics behind Mozilla Firefox, let’s consider why Firefox should be your number one choice when you think about which browser to download. Here are three facts that skyrocket Firefox above everyone else:

Add-ons and customization: The number one reason why many users like myself love Firefox is because of the ability to customize it to run the way you want it to. A favorite add-on of mine is the ability to create and view PDF files within the browser itself. Other web browsers offer customization with extensions as well, but not as excessively as Firefox.

Web Development: As a website developer, I have found Firefox to be the best at allowing me to easily view the HTML and CSS of specific parts of a web page. Users can easily view the page rank, coding, and sometimes even default login information for online accounts that you would otherwise have to sign up for.

Limited bugs and crashes: Many users have agreed that Firefox has much fewer bugs and crashes than other web browsers. It is much more developed in its ability to satisfy a user by providing a solution through an alternative download or update. There is no setting that can’t be changed to suit your needs while browsing the Internet with Firefox.

Now it may be the personal preference that causes you to choose one browser over the other. Maybe it is the ease of use, simplicity, or the speed of your web browser that has made you satisfied with your choice; whether it is Google Chrome, Safari, Internet explorer, or Opera. Perhaps you simply think one browser looks better visually than the others. Whatever it may be, remember that every top browser is very similar in almost all areas except customization. Customization alone, being the first point that I made, places Firefox above all other web browsers.

Every developer, hacker, and security specialist needs a powerful tool like Firefox. Being an active Firefox user, I have come to realize just how powerful this web browser can be when it comes to hacking and website development.Every hacker is only as good as the tools he is able to us. Subscribe to] for more powerful hacking tools and tutorials.

If you’re looking for an easy way to use the web browser Firefox on PS3, then this article is just for you. Firefox is really the best web browser so I can understand why you want to use it on the PS3 – and this article will show you how. Let’s get into it below and figure out how you can use the browser Firefox on PS3.

How to Install Firefox On PS3

There isn’t a particular version of Firefox for the PS3, so what you have to do instead is actually turn your PS3 into a computer. This might sound technical, bad, or complicated – but I’m sure you will find it really simple once you use good software which automates everything. Instead of it being technical now, you just install a small piece of software and you’re good to go.

Choosing Good Software to Install For Firefox

  There’s some great software which you can find online, and a bit of searching for turning your PS3 into a computer will give you tons of results. However, there is also a lot of untrustworthy, and bad software, which really only puts viruses and other adware on your computer. Most of them don’t even work, or outdated – so it’s very, very important that you choose a good one.

Here’s the Best Software I Recommend

PS3 Magic is the top software that I recommend if you want to use Firefox on PS3. Their reviews are great and the track record is superb. The reputation that they have with their existing customers is stellar, so you don’t have anything to worry about. Also, they have the most user-friendly installation which really takes a load off of you having to find out how to install it yourself. You can download it to your computer then transfer that to your PS3.

Why don’t you take a look at this software program? Visit: PS3 Magic [ Download PS3 Magic, and if you want in the meantime you can read through their step by step guide. You probably won’t need it, though, but it’s there just in case. Once you download it you can transfer and install it on your PS3 usually within an hour or two, so by tonight, you’ll have your PS3 turned into a super computer! So, do you want to get Firefox on your PlayStation 3? Today? Right now?

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Description of SharePoint workstations: What is the role is the best for you?

So you want to land a SharePoint job? Me also! And so do many people. Before You can land this dream job, you have to understand What SharePoint jobs are and how your package Competencies corresponds to the roles available.  SharePoint is a massive system with plenty of  Moving parts. More parts for the SharePoint puzzle Means more job roles and gives you the chance to To specialize in one area. This is the simple secret To bring you to potential employers: the specialization. Let's look at some of the areas Specialization so that you can land the work that is the best for you.

Most common SharePoint workstation roles Site Collection Administrator You do not need to know everything about how SharePoint works to perform this role, but You need to know how the Site, Lists, and Libraries function and be in a position to manage the Content for your users. This role is increasingly Predominantly as the federated support model is In large enterprises.

 In short, the federated support model means that each Site collection is supported by an administrator Site collection and that the first problem is them. They are the first line of support, User training and administration. In this role, You have the unique benefit of understanding what the site Is used and where to grow it.

 SharePoint Engineer

This is the most common SharePoint role. Unfortunately, there is also a misconception that jobs SharePoint are all engineers. Engineers take The role of configuring and administering the farm to ensure The day-to-day management. They take care of patching, Availability, server maintenance and everything else. SharePoint engineers are often the last line Support when things go wrong. With them being the Admins of the farm and the admins of the waiter, it gives to them Authorizations to make any changes in The environment that may be necessary to correct Some problems. In this role, you will take care A server-side SharePoint environment.

 SharePoint Architect

I have already said that you do not need to know everything about SharePoint to be a collection administrator of Sites, but in this role you will. An architect Specifically designs the environment for use Optimal. The majority of times a SharePoint architect does Not actually install or configure, rather than Plan all the details. Architects plan the entire environment, from the Configuration of servers and networks to services Which will be balanced in charge, and they are even working Launch an appropriate governance plan. In this role, you Plan the architecture of everything and ensure performance Optimal as required.

 SharePoint Developer

Now it's interesting. Although much has changed to Every job role with SharePoint 2013, none has changed As much as the role of developer. SharePoint 2013 has Away from solutions that work within SharePoint and that use the app, which runs in the customer. Since the solutions are now obsolete, they Will have to be redrawn to execute in the client at Server location. This changes the way we For SharePoint. SharePoint developers now have to think Completely contrary to the way in which they conceive Programs for SharePoint. At the same time, we have Now the SharePoint store, which allows you to publish Your program and have it purchased inside The environment of a company. Thus, while Be different from the program for SharePoint, at the same  time,

You can now create your own work in Programming and publishing in the store for On-premises and Office 365 environments. There are many possibilities in this work role to go Forward with the work of redesign, self-publishing, and Development. With all the changes it allows Also to new developers to enter a field More equitable, as everyone is relearning the Development process. In this role, you will create a Custom code for all that is needed. Imagination is really the limit when you create.

Project Manager

Project manager positions are available in the Technologies, but with SharePoint having so many Ongoing projects every day, there is a major need for the role. Since the development of new applications, New SharePoint sites, new environments, New processes and guidelines, every day, Something changes in the SharePoint farm. A Head of Project contributes to the growth of SharePoint, and the Only SharePoint develops organically in a mess Entangled. The job of project managers is to get there And see the big picture. They need to see how Group will assign another group and which resources Are necessary, while at the same time trying to ensure that Projects are completed on time and that users Get what they need. It may Difficult but extremely important work.

One thing that many of us have encountered is that multiple groups buy tools for SharePoint that have the same function but come from different companies. A project manager really helps to lower the cost of SharePoint while increasing its return on investment.

 Is that all the roles?

No, but they are the most important. If I put all SharePoint posts out there, it would be a novel. We have roles for workflows, Excel creation, user education, support, PowerPivot site designs, graphic design, marketing and so on.  

In truth, there are as many roles as there are needs. I would like to take a moment to talk about an interesting topic that I met to clarify what I mean. There was a customer who needed to have something specific done. I went to collect the requirements and see what we could do to help. I met the accountant of the company who was looking to get away from the paper and go digital inside SharePoint. She explained to me how they kept all the documents and the specific code they were mapping to each form, and I was impressed with how complicated it seemed to work so simply when they used it. In this scenario, I am a supposed SharePoint expert that is completely out of my field because I have no idea how bookkeeping works. Yes, we could get this process in SharePoint, but needed to understand how this accounting system worked first, which is easier said than done. The company, understanding this, introduced a SharePoint file management expert. Honestly, I had no idea what job role even existed. She filled the gap between accounting and digital record keeping with ease and then left at sunset. With SharePoint being so great, and the needs of users being so varied, I really do say when I say that job role are as diverse as the product itself. Choosing the area you want to work, then the specialization he likes the records management expert had done, increases your chances of landing that perfect job.

Check: SharePoint Jobs  in Hyderabad