(B3) Concrete Poetry: Finalising Poem, Website Design

Looking into concrete poetry publications:

Mindplay: An anthology of British concrete poetry: https://archive.org/details/Mindplay-AnAnthologyOfBritishCompletePoetry/page/n63/mode/2up

- The layout of books is interesting, thinking about the presentation of the poems, simply placed on the page.
- Simple layout means each poem is viewed at a decent size.
- Publication is black and white (most poems are black and white)
- The contents page is very clear and simply organised with hierarchical systems to assist easy navigation. 

Contents

Poem Page

'Poems for a small planet : contemporary American nature poetry': https://archive.org/details/poemsforsmallpla0000unse/page/n7/mode/2up

- Again here system to arrange text in a way that's easy to follow, using grids and hierarchy to do this. 
- Test all same size but changes to italics and placement creates a structure that's simple to follow. 

Finalising Myles' Poem:

• Found the shapes to be a nice addition.
• Serif typeface was lovely but didn't match the playful tone of the poem.
• Shapes added in one experiment added something to the poem without taking away another element.
• - Felt like these could be used more to emphasise elements of the poem. 
• Black and white works well, traditional and does distract.

Adding in shapes to enhance sections of the poem.

- Added in these circles where the tone changes and there are these pauses for breath.

- Feel as though these are less invasive than the other shapes so fit the tone change of the poem but make it a little more visually engaging.

- These two sections are connected but seem to be separate ideas, wanted to demonstrate this through the tether between them 

- Running along the idea of a speech bubble in a comic, but not wanting to be as obvious.

- The shape around the speech adds emphasis which is great as this is a section where the poem gets much louder. 

- Different ways these words were spoken, long is extended so adding in another tether between these sections.

- Flesh is said with separation and hesitation, I wanted to isolate it but in a way that's not similar to the rest of the shapes as the word almost seems like it doesn't fit. So the shape has angular sides, all other shapes in the poem are curved to add a softness. 

- Long wiggly shape to represent the extended 'ar' sound in the word arm. 

Feel these shapes add a new element to the poem, one that'd playful, suits the tone and is visually engaging. When animated into website format: 

The poem feels more alive but still rooted in concrete poetry, the way you read the poem is more engaging and has a sense of rhythm. Feel the idea of a visual/verbal music score has been achieved. 

Wanting to develop a space for these to go, from crit a website felt like the most appropriate. 

Need to :
- Design the website

- Adapt 2 more poems as examples

Poems: 
1. Sarah Kay & Phil Kaye "When Love Arrives"

2. Rudy Francisco "Letter to the Apocalypse"

Website Home Page

Want it to be clean and simple, having the interactions making this more exciting. 

Thinking about ways of presenting the front page. 

• Wanting the website to be minimal and fairly brandless, it is simply a space allowing the work to exist.
• Don't want there to be an endless number of buttons to click before you can see the work.
• Should be easy and clear to use.

Research: 

Thinking back to research and Experimental Jetset had a simple website design:

- Really basic, clean, easy to navigate.

- Works like an archive and I think it's really interesting that they crossed out some of the projects, creates a sense of transparency. 

Window Swap: https://www.window-swap.com/

- Simple idea of letting people in lockdown see new views from all around the world.
- The website interface is simple and allows the audience to use the functions with ease.
- Minimal design features, buttons you need to use (key functions) are most obvious.
- Hover features used to highlight sections of interest. 

Waka Waka: https://wakawaka.world/

- Much more dynamic website, lots of interaction between the user and the interface.
- Some of the actions were confusing, didn't work with the natural way you'd use a website. 
Want to avoid something like this (above) where the actions become too complicated, don't want to distract from the poem.
- “the creation of a uniquely structured grid system that allows for discovery through these organic and random moments of interaction.” 
Like the idea of random moments of interaction, but could make it more purposeful, directed towards a function or purpose but have the user dictate this. 

> Aim to keep things simple and easy to navigate

> Could use motions and gestures to generate interactivity and performance within the poems. 

Own Ideas:

(1) Helvetica
- Names would appear as mouse moved over them

(2) Basis Pro
- Scrolling with names and title of poem, would be like an archive

(3) Basis Pro
- Adding emphasis to title with box

(4) Basis
- The box could appear when audience moves their mouse over it and other names fade

(5) Basis Pro
- Just names fading, less cramped

(6) Termina
- Testing new typeface with scrolling idea

(7)Helvetica Neue
- New typeface with scrolling idea

Scrolling idea works well
- Could have it alphabetical and poems listed underneath to assist navigation

Basis Pro or Helvetica for the home page, not an overpowering visual.
- Think back to 'Mindplay: An anthology of British concrete poetry' for layout of this, could hint to the contents of a publication but with animated elements to take advantage of screen. - Can learn a lot from books about layout and arrangement for easy navigation = key for this home page as it holds all the works.

(A) 1 Column 

(B) 2 Columns 

(C) Staggered Columns

Feel like B or C are the best, they provide separation between the elements in a more direct visual way.
Text organised alphabetically so it's easy to navigate.
The speech marks could be removed, they add a lot of mess to the design, making it seem cluttered.
- Publications at top of this blog post don't include these, think about CoP research and removing anything that gets in the way (Muller-Brockmann, Grid systems. 2019)

Testing with animation:

With the column layouts there wasn't much you could do with animating. 

- Thought about changing weights and emphasising with colour but this wasn't as effective when the type was small.

- Increased size and weight of the text, works better.

- Feel you don't get to see enough of what's on the page, could have the poem titles appear when the mouse hovers. 

- Would look like this without poem titles

- Doesn't looks good, looks too empty

- Thought about all other elements disappear and then you can the the poem titles.

- Would need more poets for this idea.

- Also looks really dull and boring with it aligned to the left (try the right) 

- Aligned to the right and made text large and bold.

- Think this looks a lot more interesting and sits nicely on the screen, the right alignment is unusual and has a similar tone to many concrete poems.

- Need to animate for drop downs. 

Artboard set up:

- Gave the poet names more white space, less cramped and presents a stronger hierarchy as a result. 

Animated: 

- I thought about making the letters of the names in different places along the line:

- I don't think this is appropriate as it would look overused and undermine the work that goes into concrete poetry compositions: 'With particular artists, one risks reducing to parody the very content of the book, or even blurring lines between 'the work' and 'the document'. The book should subjectively communicate the work in a sympathetic way but not attempt to be the work, or risk being mistake as such.' (The Form of the Book Book, De Bonte and Muggeridge, p. 23. 2020)

- It could perhaps be a feature for the title? This way it would be a nod to the visual without seeming like a parody since it's selective use. 

What to do next?
> Develop visual music score for poems

> Animate these into the website

'When Love Arrives': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdJ6aUB2K4g

- Very long poem, could do with selecting a section and working on that first. 
- The poem is read by the two poets, some sections together, others individually.

- The tone of the poem is fun and smothered in love, potentially typical in it's content but not in the delivery.

- Really wanting to push this within the design as its a unique element of the performance. Feel this poem should run like a visual music score with parts and pace being the key focus. 

- The 3 sections for when the words were spoken:

1 = her

2 = him

3 = both

- Can be seen here with the different colours and the overlap. 

Even though the poem is performed by two people they perform as one voice, the words flow from one poets mouth to the other, wanting to avoid unnecessary separation between the two texts to present this.

- The texts should flow from one to the other but with a slight distinction between who's talking when.