Competitions, Festivals, Exhibitions

In order to get an idea and build a brand around my website I have created a logo which may change over the course of the project. Colour Logo Black on White White on Black

After getting in touch with the creator of the OpenLitterMap service Sean Lynch been granted permission to embed the map within my project, I messaged him through LinkedIn, see the image below for the conversation. This is great news for me as the previous company I contacted were not so reluctant to help, despite it being for a good cause, which shows where their true intentions lye, capitalist's that do not really care about the movement. By presenting a solution by allowing the user to build and add to the open database on plastic pollution by incorporating the OpenLitterMap on my web-page at the end of the life cycle analysis of the plastic bottle. By earning Littercoints it will also give the user an incentive to use the OpenLitterMap service.

It has come to my attention that despite all current efforts such as Reverse Vending machines, recycling schemes, encouraging house holds to use less plastic and all these other means of fighting this global battle, this is currently a war that we are losing, and as a direct result we are harming both our planet and our selves in the long run. I realised after my first solution failed to materialise with the reverse vending machines that it is not good enough to just encourage users to recycle their plastic bottles to earn money off of their shop, to then go and buy more plastic which would then not be recycled, this wasn't the only issue, locating these machines was the hardest part of my project, having taken time my self to go out an locate these machines, I even got my girlfriend to search around central London, to no prevail. In order to actually provide a solution for the plastic pollution problem, legislation needs to be enforced and a ban on plastics production to be br...

Concept: My finalised concept will be that of a parallax website which displays the life cycle analysis of a plastic water bottle whilst also visualising open data in a aesthetically pleasing manner and give the user the option to create their own open data, at the end of the life cycle analysis I aim to incorporate the OpenLitterMap which again aids in visualising the scale of the problem world wide and also gives the user an opportunity to help and at the same time and add to this open data bank and be rewarded for their efforts. Target Audience: My target audience will be that of millennial's ages between 11 - 30 

I took it upon myself to further look into the OpenLitterMap and what it is trying to achieve in order to determine if it would work well on my parallax website from an article on Medium from the author of OpenLitterMap he describes it as; "A Citizen Science Open Data Litter-Mapping Game with a Blockchain Reward that enables anyone, anywhere, to receive recognition for mapping and producing Open Data on plastic pollution. All data goes through a verification process to ensure its validity and upon verification, all data is made easily accessible for anyone to download and reuse for any purpose with the Open Database License, and all data is automatically analyzed by space, time, location and behaviour. And, users can receive a weekly payment in Littercoin (erc-20), which is “mined” by producing Open Data." (Medium, 2018) This is a very inovative use for block chain technology and also has a great purpose in that it is helping map out visually the plastic pollution  problem, ...

To give my website a unique user experience I will be incorporating JavaScript with the idea of having the landing page look like in the example I have created below in Photoshop. I will use the jQuery library Ripples in order to make my homepage interactive with a water ripple effect in the background with a plastic bottle floating on top. As the user scrolls down the life cycle of the water bottle begins. http://sirxemic.github.io/jquery.ripples/

In order to complete my website I will be creating all the graphics and illustrations, I will upload them to this blog post as I progress. I wanted to ensure that I keep a cartoon theme when creating the parallax website in order to target a wider target audience, as at current my focused target group is millennial's aged between 11-30. I believe this target group is perfect as the plastic pollution problem will be most relevant and visible to this generation, therefore it is important that they are educated.  I created the following graphics in both Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator Water Bottle: This will be the main graphic throughout the page which I will keep in the same position by using the CSS atribute; "position: fixed;". For the project I want to emphasise that the problem is the water bottle and by centring this on the web page and having content transition in and out around it, I hope to effectively convey the life cycle of the water bottle. ...

As I will be visualising open data on the parallax website, I have found a good source of open data facts regarding plastic bottle pollution publicised by the UK parliament, as this is from a more credible source I believe the message and impact of my website will work well, as if the statistics and data are coming from the Government then there is no denying that it is an issue that needs the attention and this authority figure will reinforce the importance. Link:  https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmenvaud/339/339.pdf  (Publications.parliament.uk, 2017)

In the event that I fail to secure the location of these reverse vending machines I have done some searching and found a backup solution for the problem at hand. The recyclenow.com web page contains a system similar to what I am trying to incorporate. By using a iframe on my website I can embed the recycling system at the end of the parallax website.  (Recyclenow.com, 2018) However going back to the theme of an economy and giving the user incentive to recycle, I also discovered OpenLitterMap which is a service that incorporates blockchain that "rewards users with Littercoin for producing open data on litter. Open data on the geospatial characteristics of litter provide means of invoking and evaluating responses to plastic pollution."  (Lynch, 2018)  The way that this works is that it users take photos of litter and this data is then verified by other users and paints a global image of open data displaying the rising plastic pollution levels. As the user verif...

For my site to be structured correctly I have created a site map which will demonstrate the flow of the website. As I am creating a parallax website, there will only be one main page however I will transition from page to page through the use of the mouse scroll and in turn will display to the user the analysis of the life cycle of a plastic water bottle whilst also displaying visualised open data from various credible sources. Site Map

The most appealing aspect of using this service is that it gives users and incentive to recycle is the fact that they can add another stream of income in the form of vouchers which can be used off of your shopping depending on the store that the reverse vending machine is located in. This opens up doors to a whole economy and market for recycling, as there is currently a lack of recycled plastic for large corporations such as Coca Cola, as stated in a BBC article "Coca Cola has committed to using 50% recycled material in its bottles by 2020 but availability of recyclable plastic is limited."  (BBC News, 2018) This then builds a whole market and in places such as Germany the homeless use this as a way of making money, this could potentially be scaled up to an industrial level. Research: I took it upon myself to test the system to see how well the reverse recycling machines work by seeing firstly how easily accessible they are. After personally going out and lookin...

As I am trying to convey the life cycle of a water bottle, my primary colour pallet for the website will consist of bright and vibrant colours to give the website a warm feel for the user, however as each scene changes there will be a variation of the pallet of colours for the scene, I will be using a variety of shades of the colours below. Main Pallet: I want to ensure that the website is aesthetically pleasing so that the narrative of the life cycle is delivered in a smoother and digestible manner for the user. I also want to keep a consistent theme to ensure the project is packaged professionally.

In order to communicate my project well and ensure a consistent style is kept through out I will follow this post where I will be detailing the types of fonts and colours I will be using throughout the website. Title: The font I will use for my title will be 'Lobster' which I found and downloaded from dafont.com, I believe this font works well with the cartoon style I am going for and at the same time is bold and will catch the users attention. The font that I will be using on the site is Times New Romance, it again gives a rounded and simple feel which is what I am trying to achieve, however if the user can not download/support the custom font the backup will be Times New Roman.

In order to make sure my parallax website flows correctly I have taken it upon myself to sketch out the layout and order that each page will be displayed in, you can see this below. This will help me visualise better where certain things will be positioned and how transitions will work. At the end of the site it will either have the option to locate further recycling locations dependant upon your location, or a map containing open data visualising the issue of plastic pollution from OpenLitterMap, a scheme which involves blockchain technology to reward users with Littercoin and give them an incentive to recycle and post photos building a library of open data.

For my project I want to display information specifically open data that can be gather from the internet including facts about water bottles such as how they are made and what materials, how long they take to degrade and more. Americans buy an estimated 29.8 billion plastic water bottles every year. (Montgomeryschoolsmd.org, 2018)   Plastic water bottles can take between 400 and 1,000 years to decompose. (Ellsbury, 2018) It requires 3 times the amount of water to produce a plastic bottle than it does to fill it. (Ellsbury, 2018) It takes 17 million barrels of oil to produce plastic bottles yearly. This could fuel 1 million cars for a year. (Montgomeryschoolsmd.org, 2018)  80% of our bottles are not recycled – they end up in the landfill or are incinerated with other regular trash. (Montgomeryschoolsmd.org, 2018) All plastic that is used for food and drink is brand new plastic – for health reasons we cannot use recycled plastic.   (Montgomeryschoolsmd.o...