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Research Document Tim Stokes U1575572

SYMBOD The new social media platform revolving around building an avatar that represents you.

With no requirement for profile pictures, social interaction can proceed un-inhibited by initial judgement.

Imagining the Platform What became SYMBOD was originally nicknamed Project Lifeatar. After hours of mind mapping and deliberation, I finally pushed through a solid Idea that had the potential to flourish.

The Issue I chose to face, under the cybernetic self brief was that of judgement. So many people judge someone by their profile pictures or “selfies” and often don’t give the time of day to people they don’t think they will click with. While this can often be the case, it can just as often be the complete opposite, while somebodies personality can affect how they look, thats never a great way to judge someone.

So here comes Project Lifeatar, a social media platform where people can create their own avatar and look however they want to look, without any pressure of looking “ugly” or “different”. Users can get to know eachothers personalities.

Research Document Tim Stokes U1575572

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The Avatar Avatars aren’t new things, Xbox, Wii, IMVU are all examples of products that have made use of user/player avatars.

With this in mind, it was important that I took an approach to Avatar creation that would be attractive, include lots of variety, and simple enough to get the “self image” message across easily.

The main difference between the avatars to the right and the avatars in project Lifeatar is setting, Project Lifeatar will be a browser based platform, whereas the Xbox and Wii are both consoles and IMVU is a computer program.

This brought up the idea of simple 2D Vector Avatars.

The Avatar Personally I haven’t really ever been much of a illustrator. Especially not by hand, so sketching out ideas and slightly more finished pieces was a new and interesting challenge for me.

I used many references across the internet to try and pinpoint the correct style.

From super simple business avatars to cartoon hipster avatars, I slowly worked out the style I wanted to push Project Lifeatar down.

I finally settled on an amalgamation. A clean and simple block colour vector system that allowed personality to be displayed but to leave viewers/users wanting to know more.

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Settings Furthering the avatar style, a good way to distribute information on an image level is through your avatar having a “setting”.

Much like facebooks cover image, SYMBOD’s settings are areas that you can place your avatar within to give an impression to other people about your hobbies/likes/places you hang out regularily.

For example, Pubs, Theatres, Gigs, Posh functions, the possibilities are endless. In the spirit of pure variety the SYMBOD Setting creator will also let you choose colour schemes for your settings and even add props.

Research Document Tim Stokes U1575572

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Research Document Tim Stokes U1575572

Research and Development for the front end of the Symbod social media platform