Final Project!

SVELTE

ta-da! it's been great having class w/all of you. have a great winter break!

Designing Briefs...not boxers.

As stated in other posts...

My final project is based on the future installation of a smart closet. This will be Phase I of the Svelte project. Svelte will eventually be a smart closet equipped with RFID reading capabilities that will use software to sort your clothing and sync with your calendar to tell you how to dress for various occasions. Svelte will have the ability to make suggestions for what to wear based on a multitude of factors including the weather forecast for the day. It has potential to integrate with store and designers' catalogs to customize seasonal catalogs to your interests and size. For this phase, the gui will be completed and feature at least 1 suggested arrangement based on the weather. The information presented graphically will be linked to a robust back-end system built with MySQL and ColdFusion.

2nd mock

oh man i am so tired...and the lab family just made me realize my 2nd (yet to be 100% completed...sorta better) site mock wasn't online. hooray!

2nd mock

Rough Svelte Mockup

This is ROUGHLY what the core components of the GUI will look like. I was going to work on the GUI layout over Thanksgiving break but I am unfortunately very sick today...mostly physical issues and I have not had my medication in 3 weeks because of illness and most recently insurance coverage issues. BUT I ironed them out this morning and I will have my medication tonight. Hopefully things will improve it has been a terribly difficult semester for me. Worst health situation since high school...okay back to the project...

Yes so this is the sketch in GUI photoshop mockup form. I want to reiterate that it's in the first stages of being built so there will be many revisions but I must continue to dedicate the bulk of my time initially to back-end work. If not just because of sheer complexity alone, the fact that I need to get myself acclimated to HOW I build it certainly doesn't help!

Instead of a 3D model of a body it will be the image of the closet's user. I am considering having a "default dress style" like pajamas or something instead of the whole underwear thing. This way you don't feel uncomfortable looking at yourself or showing others your Svelte closet first off...Secondly I think

PLEASE let me know what improvements you would suggest as it will aid me a great deal when I really get into the GUI design. I would appreciate if you consider the following...

Svelte (adj.)- Slender or graceful in figure or outline; slim.

O/U: 7 hours

Okay so I've done a lot of re-educating on ColdFusion. The problems begin with "haven't used in over 2 years" and end with "have learned a language or 2 since then and can't remember syntax or commands." You get the idea. I brought my ColdFusion Web Applications Construction Kit (WACK...*chuckle chuckle*) from home after clearing the dust off it a couple of weeks ago and it's been quite helpful. Anyway so I decided I'd worry about BUILDING the database and getting some code down first. THEN I'd worry about how efficient it is later on after the rest is done and contingent upon whether or not I have time to worry. The GUI won't take nearly as long as this stuff, especially because I have a sketch done of basic layout anyway. I know what I want and what color template I'm working off of as well. (see: black, silver, purple, varying opacities to begin with). Anyway yeah anyone who has a project that involves dynamic code and a database I strongly recommend you get the code and database setup first. Ya know have an IDEA of what the GUI should look like...but it's by far the more time consuming of the two. Moving on...

So I'm going to take it 1 step at a time starting with 1 user scenario as stated before...definitely the way to go...and umm...oh I basically have the CSS file completed with the colors I specified. I worked an orange and a red in there juuuust incase. Okay here are some screen captures of the test work I have so far.

Svelte

I have a very basic sketch...I think the interface I have decided on is curvy and satin textured. It will eventually end up being customizable but:

Image of person on white page with basics on. (whatever they feel comfortable with as a startup)
Purples, reds, whites, blacks and silvers are the colors I may be going for in terms of GUI and a logo.

I like something about the Brooks Brothers website and feel like it's a nice place to pull some ideas from. Since this would be a luxury market item I have been reading luxist.com, especially the fashion and gadgets section and monitoring looks of related sites.

I've started on the database and I am considering keeping it one moderately sized table rather than multiples. It'll be easier to create and efficiency isn't necessarily important at the moment because I will be presenting 1 (POSSIBLY 2) specific scenario for the final. We'll see...

I've also picked up monitoring this site a few times a day: http://www.dressupgames.com/fashion.html

That's all for now kids! I'm really beat right now. *sigh*

Svelte (work in progress)

Okay so the name "Svelte" may not stick but that's what popped into the ol' noggin for now so it'll have to do!

Svelte (adj.)- Slender or graceful in figure or outline; slim.

My idea is a completely immersive "smart" closet. The closet will be completely customized for one's needs and would be pretty exclusively marketed to the luxury market. The centerpiece of the walk-in closet would be the kiosk. The monitor may be touchscreen in the future. The kiosk houses the central core where the computer would be housed along with the monitor and control mechanism...which at this time would be a traditional keyboard and mouse, but certainly not in the future. From the console you'd have instant access to your entire closet. It's 55 degrees outside, what should I wear today? It'll make several suggestions. Prefer something else? Ooooh not that shirt unless you absolutely have to, you wore it last Wednesday! What? That skirt? Oh no it's at the cleaners 'til 7pm! Hey don't forget your appt. with the your little girl's teacher on friday, you should wear this to make a nice presentation. Oh and your nephew is graduating from middle school on the 29th so make sure you have something like this outfit ready by then...don't worry we'll remind you tomorrow too. Future scalability includes actual recommendations from designers as well as purchasing suggestions based on what you currently like to wear and an estimated budget. Potential for certain celebrities making selections available. Imagine seeing what's in Paris Hilton's closet?!? LyKe OmG!!1!!1!!oneone! In all seriousness though stores would potentially have the ability to make instantaneous availability for wardrobes and have their seasonal catalogs tailored to your needs (literally) in your home immediately. If you like that blue polo shirt you're wearing now just take a look at how this leather jacket would compliment it! $109.99 only at Macy's and we have your size! Pre-order now? ...to be continued.

It's my goal to make the system work as unobtrusively as possible. At this time I have done research as well as had discussions with Sabine Seymour who teaches at ARS Electronica, as well as here at Parsons with Fashionable Technology. It appears as though the project can be done "rather easily" and may have some support overseas. It also looks like my proposed solution of RFID labels might be the way to go, but a technology called "smart buttons" may be better. More research is needed. I've heard this is similar to a closet in the movie Clueless but I'll have to check it out. I haven't seen that film since Alicia Silverstone was pretty. *zing*

So for my final project in Core3 I plan on having at least a skeleton of this project up in terms of the interface and interaction via a custom GUI application. This will involve ColdFusion, MySQL and a customized database. I would like the application to function for just one scenario with one outfit for the time being. The next month should be a fun process and I'll try my best to document as much as possible. Open to suggestions as always...enjoy.

Phase I of Final Projectivo

Here is a list I'd made before it occured to me what my final should be, as well as a diagram of how my project works just strictly from the user-computer interaction...which will be everything this time around. The project has much greater depth but to complete it would be more of a thesis than it would be a core3 project. Also see: Ira's current skill and time limitations. That might explain why it'd also be incredibly foolish to even attempt to complete the full-scale project at this time! haha...okay so check out le images and then I'll discuss my project in the next post...which will actually end up being above this one! Yay! Enjoy.

List of Meaningful Things	Diagram of Interactive Process

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

REMOTE CONTROLLED HUMANS!