Development 10

 To Complete Website:

> Name Love.jpeg created into artwork for starting page 

> Lydia Article 

> Joely Article 

LYDIA + JOELY COLLAGE PIECES FOR ARTICLES 

So - During lockdown 0.1, I found myself happily single and most definitely enjoying a little bit of me time… I was adamant that nobody was going to distract me from this intense period of isolation. One day I decided to go on a walk round the park (by myself of course). All of a sudden I find myself bumping into an old family friend’s son. This is someone who I have fancied since I was a kid, and admired from a far… We got chatting and ended up having a socially distance convo for about half an hour. FYI - I knew this person had a GF… When I got home and checked my phone, he had slid into my DMs and we started texting. One thing lead to another - he ended up confessing he’s been in love with me for years, he split up with his girlfriend the next day and we also got a private apartment in town where we could have sex during the lockdown… It was fucking wild. We ended up having this whirlwind intense romantic lockdown relationship. The funniest thing about it is that as soon as the lockdown ended; I suddenly got the ick. We are not together anymore.

For me, fear has been a theme that has tormented the past year. Fear is the governments only means of control, and they’ve taken no prisoners in using this method to scare people into staying in their bubble. If fear is the opposite of love it seems it would be hard to navigate love in such intense times. I started secretly sleeping with a friend at almost the exact same time that lockdown started. In part, secret so that my friends didn’t judge me for meeting someone beyond my household. But we’ve all seen enough Hollywood films to know that friends with benefits never stays that way. In the intense times we live in, it ended messier than it should have. In the aftermath, a rhetoric that he seemed to relish in was his belief that the past half a year would not have panned out the way it did had Covid not occurred. But the fact of the matter is that it did! I often think this comment was driven by fear too, fear of his own feelings when two people have helped one another in a fearful time. The fear of having feelings for another person is an issue our generation finds hard to grapple with, pandemic or not. I recently asked a friend how things were going in his relationship and he told me in a concerned manner that his mum was calling her his ‘lockdown girlfriend.’ I didn’t see why this was important, but it seemed to bother him. It made me wonder why people have become so scared of what could have been had the pandemic never happened. Are they thinking of the conquests that could have been? Or questioning if their significant other is just someone to lean on in hard times? Surely if something’s meant to be, all the sliding doors would have led there anyway? The idea of people settling in lockdown is a notion I’ve heard circling round. The idea that couples have formed to fight the feelings of loneliness that may be more present in the current climate. As well as meeting up with a partner feeling like meeting up with someone on a less illegal and more guilt-free basis. Social media and social circles seem to gossip that these relationships won’t last, that when everywhere goes back to ‘normal,’ cheating will be rife and as loneliness declines so might the relationship. The gossipers seem to forget that the opposite of fear is love. The world we live in is so absorbed by fear that in the hunt to escape that feeling it’s possible that the stars have aligned for some people. That relationship may not have happened had the pandemic not, but surely that could be a silver lining instead of an escape? In the absence of love, it gave people the courage to go out and find it. Going back to the sliding doors, another of my friends was thinking of ending things with her not yet boyfriend at the time. But Covid gave them the opportunity to isolate together and become the lovely couple they are today. All the expectant mothers of the imminent baby boom might not have been expecting a baby quite so soon, but I bet they’ll love their lockdown baby all the same. Things would be so different had lockdown not happened, but it did. One day life will go back to normal, and people will remember that love is hard to navigate even in normality.

> Lydia collages much more reflective of text after developments from initial starting point with emojis 

> Use of tiger prints and road signs reflects this sense of staying alert, fear, and control 

> Strong individual aesthetic which is successful in ensuring each story and person has their own style 

> Decorative type not readable

> Must be more bold, wider in stroke 

> Difficult to make any type prominent and legible above such detailed backgrounds

> Utilise outer glow? 

> Really reflecting the tone and shift within the story through the colour choices, text boxes and imagery 

> You feel the deflating of passion and energy in her story and this is really important to make the viewer not just visualise but also feel 

> Drop shadow used as a way to create a more ethereal digital vibe, which changes in size and level of dramatic as the passion in her story increases and then decreases 

> As this story didn't take place as much online as other stories, this one uses other references to input a level of digital

eg. phone reminders, phone setting messages, almost like the safety of the online world and isolation is trying to pull her back in with little messages and pop ups on her phone 

> Title colours taken from most intense passion colour and the most deflated colour, but it doesn't feel very vibrant and is not prominent on the page 

> Development is brighter, more colourful, playful 

> Typeface in title and additional pull quotes chosen for its organic but also unnerving characteristic in reflection of what happens when you get the ick about a lover 

> Pull quotes still don't feel right

> Greater drop shadowing may create more prominence?? 

> Needs more elements like other stories, interactive parts and animation

> Present her feelings changing throughout with additional hover boxes? 

> pixel thermometer? What element would you clcik on to suggest a focus in on feelings?

> pixel question mark? Type 'feelings'? Another message iphone box would be more consistent, health notification?

Presentation:

> Screen recording of website