Legal & ethical constraints within the social media and web design

After completing the website project I decided to take a look at some legal and ethical issues within the social media and web design and discuss these issues. 

Copyright: The term copyright refers to a legal concept given by most governments giving the creator of an original piece of work exclusive rights to it. It also gives the copyright holder the right to be credited for their work and acts as a form of trademark. The copyright act of 1976 allows these exclusive rights to the copyright holder whether the original item is a literary piece, a musical piece, a dramatic piece, a pantomime, a choreographed piece, a pictorial/graphic piece of work, a sculptural piece, motion picture, audiovisual or sound recordings, architectural pieces, software programmes and even the written words on a website. Copyright is automatically created on original works but it is always a better idea to file a copyright to establish a public record of it in case an infringement suit is pursued. An example of an artist who was affected by the legal concept of copyright is Shepard Fairey. He received a sentence of two years probation and a $25,000 fine in the criminal contempt case involving his "Hope" poster of Barack Obama. Fairey did actually admit to destroying documents and submitting false images in his legal battle with the press regarding the use of a 2006 photo of Obama as inspiration for one of his photos. 

Intellectual Property Rights: Intellectual property rights is a legal concept which refers to creations of the mind where exclusive rights have been recognised. The owners of these original works are allowed exclusive rights in many areas such as musical, literary, artistic works, discoveries and inventions, words, phrases and designs. Common types of intellectual property rights include things such as copyright, trade secrets, patents, trademarks, trade dress and industrial design rights. These rights are protected by copyright for a minimum period of fifty years after the death of the owner.

Permissions: Although the copyright cases require a fact based, case by case analysis to determine whether the third party requires permission for copyright, often it is hard to determine that any other designers, artists or musicians are aware of the legal perimeters. The guidelines apply whether the source material is old or recent aslong as it is copyright. They also apply whether the material is in print or electronic form however certain things should be specifically secured for permission :
- a single quotation from a book, more than 300 words.
- a single quotation from a newspaper, more than 50 words. 
- photographs or artworks.
- charts, tables, graphs and other representations. 
- material which includes lyrics, poems or the titles of songs.
- any computer representations.

Libel and sensitivity to groups of society: The publication of any libellous or slanderous statements about a person or company that can be proven to be published with the intentions of harming reputations is considered to be defamation. Online defamation is the publication of these statements made on blogs, forums, websites and social network sites. Many people believe that they are free to say and do what they like on the internet, however defamation laws and regulations stand for online defamation as they do in any form of media.

Decency: The communications decency act of 1966 was first notable in the USA. It was made to regulate pornographic material on the internet. The act affected the internet in two ways, the first was to attempt to regulate both indecency and obscenity in cyberspace and secondly to say that operators of Internet services are not to be construed as publishers and therefore not liable for the words of third parties who use their services. It is important to protect children who have access to the internet from seeing anything rude or explicit.

Safeguarding: There are various risks for children who easily have access to the internet such as: 
- inappropriate contact from people who may wish to abuse, exploit or bully them.
- inappropriate conduct, they may accidentally become targets to cyberbullying.
- inappropriate content, they may be able to access sexually explicit, racist, violent or harmful material.
- accidentally enabling viruses.
There are various different ways to safeguard children that should always be considered before they are allowed access to the internet such as:
- make children aware that online contacts may not be who they seem.
- children must keep personal information private.
- ensure they use a family email when filling in forms.
- make sure children report concerns about conversations.
- use parental control settings on browsers, search engines and internet packages.
- block pop ups and spam emails.
- always sit with a younger child when they are online.
- ensure that children don't illegally copyright any content.
- set limits on when they can use the computer and for how long.

Final Products

Once I had designed my website and explored aspects of planning and good and bad designs I decided to get my work out there and produce different ways of presenting my work to the public.

The first way I presented my work was obviously Pinterest. 


http://pinterest.com/hrmxxxxx/

I used Pinterest to create a variety of different mood boards and photographic evidence to support my chosen topics aswell as a variety of different subjects such as 50 years of art movements and 50 years of music. I found it to be a good and creative way of presenting work as it is all imagery which some people would find a lot easier to view.


http://www.behance.net/gallery/Denim-Doses/8849937

Aswell as Pinterest I decided to vary the sites and used behance also to present some of my photography based on the chosen fashion related topic, denim. I found this to be easy to use aswell as looking very professionally presented.

Aswell as this I also used an online website called 'imcreator' to make my own website. The site has 3 pages, one of them being a gallery page filled with my own photography of denim. There is also a page for contacting me where people can submit any questions or advice they may have about my work. There is also links on this to my personal blogs. 

The final thing towards the project I did was to create a simple gallery website including denim photography using the programme Dreamweaver.

Final Web Design

After seeing a variety of good and bad website designs I have realised that planning is the key to a good website, without planning the website can go horridly wrong or simply look messy and unorganised compared to a professionally presented site. The goal for my website will be to make people more aware of factors associated with denim E.g the history of denim, the manipulations of denim and denim in the celebrity world. It will be an informative website giving people an outlook on denim aswell as featuring links to my blogs. My target audience will be literally anyone with access to the internet. There won't generally be an age limit, a particular race or genre more interested in the topic or any type of person who would be more likely to view it I think it is a general website for anyone. Maybe specifically people who are interested in fashion or the history of fashion and denim or even just photography. The type of content I need for my website would include a large variety of primary source photographs of denim and fashion. I have taken over 100 photos of denim and chosen around 50 of my favourite ones to include in the website. 

Aswell as this I need to have information about denim and its history. For this information I took a book out of the library about denim. This was the book, it gave me lots of information about where denim originated from and how far Levis had gone with producing so many variations.

I decided to begin designing my website on Photoshop once I had the main ideas in place and all the information/imagery necessary. I first began designing an entrance page for my website because I found this to be very professional looking. The screenshot below is the design I came up with. I took some photographs of the clouds in the sky, altered the hue/saturation and mirrored the photography multiple times. It was almost a kaleidoscope effect but it also reminded me a bit of the tie dye patterning sometimes on denim and other materials. As if denim had been bleached or washed out. After doing this I created a title for my project which would be used throughout the website. I named it Denim Doses.

The screenshot below shows what my Homepage would look like. I brought the previous background through to this page aswell as all of the other pages because I found when viewing other websites consistency was important and looked like the site had been well put to together with pages that all linked. I did the same with the title font. Rather than just having links to the next pages like the majority of websites I thought it would be a lot more creative if the links were in the form of pictures instead. I presented these in a circle surrounded by the word denim. Because my page seemed very simplistic I also added in a short quote from Levi Strauss. Aswell as informing the viewers on a little bit about the type of person Levi Strauss is this would also set the context and theme for my website once people had read it. 

The screenshots below would be the general look for each page on my website. I again kept the same background and title font/size/colour. I wanted to have quite a structured layout that ran throughout. I decided to have the imagery/text presented in a straight and organised grid like formation. The same amount of text was placed in line with the same size photographs. 

After completing the three pages of website that contained all the information I then decided to add a page that had links to my personal blogs, this blogger account aswell as my pinterest boards.

Denim

After a lot of consideration I decided to base my website around the material Denim. Denim has been around since the 1900's and is STILL extremely popular today, to me this says a lot about the trends and fashion of denim for it to still be widely popular after all these years. Jacob Davis is the unsung hero of Levis history (the first company to design and manufacture denim), he came up with the idea of strengthening work overalls using copper rivets which are now seen on jeans swell as swapping cotton duck overalls for much more hardwearing denim ones. Jacob helped Levi Strauss & Co to develop denim into a wide spreading fashion trend. They produced baby denim overalls, cord pants, bell bottom jeans, denim jackets and all in one overalls. Although they first became popular in the mining and coaling industry as uniforms it soon became clear that denim was more of a fashion statement than a work uniform when people like Marilyn Monroe were seen wearing denim jeans. By this point Levi Strauss & Co were producing overalls for many major corporations including Coca Cola, Pepsi, Phillips and Ford. Bing Crosby was actually refused entrance to a hotel because he was wearing a denim jacket so Levis made him a custom denim tuxedo! As stated Marilyn really helped make Lee Storm Riders much more famous along with many other famous people and artists. Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, Gene Clark Woodstock, Miles Davis, John Lennon, Clint Eastwood, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Peter Black, Max Ernst all wore denim and jeans on a regular basis. 

Aswell as artists wearing the denim some even created collages and pieces of artwork simply using denim as their materials and canvases!

http://pinterest.com/hrmxxxxx/

My pinterest contains moodboards regarding denim, celebrities in their denim aswell as my own denim photography.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4fCrjD3cFE

Good/Bad web design

Because I am going to be creating my own website eventually I decided it would be best to explore and compare some websites that have already been set up and see what I think works well in websites. I found examples of websites that I considered effective aswell as ones that weren't as aesthetically pleasing. 

This was the first bad website that I came across on the internet. There seemed to be so much work that needed doing on the website! Without reading any of the information on the site it was clear to see that no planning had gone into it. There was no clear and evident colour scheme to the page, this isn't necessarily of key importance but if there is a colour scheme I think the site looks a lot more professional and organised, it isn't a site for sore eyes with a variety of bright colours! Aswell as this the designer of the website has a wide variety of different fonts and letterings which makes it seem all over the place rather than a professionally made advertising website. If the font and even font size are the same throughout a website I think it becomes clear that the site has been planned beforehand and there is a clear theme. There seems to be no form of organisation at all within this website page, the text is all over the place rather than having clear headings and information in certain areas. It is the same for the imagery and photography within the site page, there seems to be no order. If I saw this website whilst browsing, it would actually put me off whatever they were advertising or displaying purely because if there website has no form of organisation it doesn't look good on behalf of the company. It would also be quite confusing to find a specific page or something of interest.

This Website Page above what I'd consider to be a good website. Everything about the website page is so opposite to the previous one. The site has a font that is consistant throughout the entire website, the font is very bold, very clear and easy to read. I think this is very important because if something is over complicated viewers will more than likely give up with the website. There are clear site links above the main title aswell as to the left linking us directly to the desired page. On this site there is also a good ratio of imagery to text in my opinion. Its good to have an even amount because then it suits a variety of people, they are able to view images and see what the website is about by just looking at them aswell as read a bit of information about the website also. There is also a nice subtle colour scheme that is also consistant. At the bottom of the page there is also links to various social networking sites and contact details which is obviously important in a website and I may consider these ideas when creating my own website.

Grunge

Nirvana were an American Rock band that formed in Washington in 1987. The band was formed by Kurt Cobain, their lead singer and guitarist aswell as Dave Grohl who joined the band in 1990 being their longest lasting drummer. After Nirvanas sudden success within the alternative rock and Grunge community Kurt Cobain was actually referred to as the spokesman of a generation. Although Nirvanas run of success and fame unfortunately ended following the tragic death of Kurt Cobain in 1994, since the band were formed they sold over 25 million records in the United States alone and over 75 million worldwide and the band became the most influential in terms of this whole grunge genre and even the grunge lifestyle. 

It is most probably all down to Nirvana and especially Kurt Cobain that the majority of Grunge bands around today actually exist. Kurt set this trend that although ended badly for him, it definitely conjured lots of fame, money and popularity. Aspiring artists probably realised the potential that this kind of musical genre had in many different ways and the lifestyle and look that coincided with this Grunge genre was definitely one to keep up with. It was from here that 21st century bands such as The Foo Fighters, Linkin Park, Green Day, Rise Against, Blink 182 and 30 Seconds To Mars realised this potential and followed suit with this Grunge trend.

Grunge

So we begin to realise that our 21st century is built upon the foundations of the past 50 odd years or so. Because it is so difficult to come up with a completely new design, concept, song, art movement or idea we are all heavily influenced by the past in the majority of things that we do or make. It seems that we take their trends that were set all these years ago and add a modern spin to them. This is generally the case for art, fashion and even music. In the mid 1980's a new musical genre came about, this genre was named 'Grunge'. This Grunge sort of era first emerged in the Seattle area of Washington, it was inspired by punk, heavy metal, indie rock and is generally known for its distorted electric guitars. Many of the musicians were also recognised for their unkempt appearances and mod rocker themes. Some of the bands that came about during this period include names like Nine Inch Nails, Janes Addiction, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains and probably the worlds most famous Grunge band Nirvana.