About upcycling

www.upcycling.co.uk

Upcycling is something we can do to help the planet become more sustainable by reusing unwanted items by turning them into new products. This in turn means we can reduce the use of raw materials and the energy used in the manufacturing of raw materials.

Environmentally it is great… but, just as important is it can be fun and give you more unique products.

Upcycling is becoming increasingly popular among groups and individuals concerned about climate change. Recycling is great but it requires energy and resources to collect, sort and process unwanted items and waste.

Upcycling is an even greener way of recycling – you find a new purpose for your unwanted items before you chuck them away

New moodboard

To get a feel for the new design of the website, I quickly collated some images to form a small moodboard. The feelings behind the website are:

+ Handmade

+ Dreamy

+ Nostalgic

+ Unique

+ Romantic

+ Warm and loving

+ Pretty

+ Retro

Flash or Java

I have decided to complete my project in flash, however if i get chance towards the end I will be attempting to design the website in javascript too. This will allow my users the option of both.

The problem with making the site primarily in flash means it is not compatible with all browsers and users will need to update their flash player.

However, with javascript there runs the risk of users not having installed javascript support for their browsers.

Either way by doing both it should eliminate the risk of some users not being able to use the site.

Changes to the flowchart

The new concept for the website has changed the flowchart slightly in some ways:

- The user must sign up/log in before making a mixtape

- When designing the inlay to the tape, instead of giving the user free-reign on design I will be offering them themes to choose from, however these themes can be edited as regards to text and images. But text and image placeholders will exist and users will not be able to change the positioning of them.

- The colour chooser for the tape will now be the style and make of the tape (eg Agfa 500)

Market Research

Due to my project changing, I decided to do some research into the type of market I wanted my website to fall into. I decided to look at a range of websites which all offered different services, however their target market appears to be the same. I wanted to find out how they were offering

Tumblr

age group:

sex:

design:

usability:

Weheartit

age group:

sex:

design:

usability:

Instagram (app)

age group:

sex:

design:

usability:

Pinterest

http://pinterest.com/

age group:

sex:

design:

usability:

Redesign & New concept

After much consideration, I decided to change the concept of we heart mixtapes.

I was worried about the comparisons that would be made to makeamixa.com so I decided to change my idea slightly to avoid this.

The cassette tapes I was originally going to use were brand new un-used cassettes. However after looking at my target audience I decided to change this.

A cassette tape is a piece of history, soon factories will eventually stop manufacturing them. With this in mind, I have now decided to use old used mixtapes for my project. My target market will be mostly girls who enjoy the history of old/antique objects and one off vintage finds. Every cassette tape will be individual to its recipient making the story behind the mixtape more loving and sentimental. Also, this will tap into the green-conscience customer who is passionate about recycling and re-using.

With this new concept in mind, I am under-going a new redesign. The design will reflect the new concept and will have a handmade feel to it. Photography will be washed out and dreamy, using old cross processed filters. I will be taking inspiration from digital scrapbooking for the overall design of the website.

Conceptual Mixtape

"Art students! You're itching to create a conceptual mixtape. While mixtape making is an art form in itself, you should make a conceptual tape under only one condition - the recipient is also an art student. We have heard reports of one creator who made an avant-garde collection with exactly 4'33" between songs, as a nod to John Cage. There are very few people who will tolerate this kind of whack job. Lets be clear; this is a novelty stunt and the tape will be tolerable for one listen, much less repeated takes. keep the Art in the gallery and away from this populist medium"