Link #4 – Chris Howey
Linking to Chris Howey’s Task #6: https://blogs.ubc.ca/chowey/2021/10/13/an-emoji-story/
Chris and I approached this task quite similarly. We both included the TV emoji before our title to suggest that our emoji story was a TV show as opposed to a movie or book. We also both used emojis to represent ideas and whole words instead of syllables. We started the task, however, in an opposite way. Chris chose to start with the title and move his way through the plot. He also ended his line with periods, indicating that the “sentence” or that particular line of emojis represented a particular idea and the next line would be a new idea. I found it easier to start with the plot and then go back to the title after. I also never even considered the possibility of using punctuation to indicate the end of an idea as one would use in writing.
Chris reflected on the limitations of using emojis, such as with the color of the flowers or the positions of the hands. He also reflected on the idea that context matters and that a shared understanding or pre-context between the “readers” is important. I reflected similarly, but went beyond the color of the emojis and the context to include the culture that is “reading” the emojis. I know that certain images can mean different things in different cultures and considered what an emoji may represent to someone else. I also reflected on the limitations occurred in regards to the people emojis. The people emojis were limited in terms of age, skin color, hair color/style etc. Because of the limitations I experienced, I re-looked at Chris’ emoji story and it made me wonder if the emojis that he chose were actually representative of the characters from his chosen show. I know he would have liked different hand positions and different colors on the flowers, but would other emojis have helped him to provide more detail or a more accurate representation of the plot? Or are there a range of interpretations by the “reader” regardless how representative the emoji are?
Chris has set up his blog to be very user friendly. There are menus down the side of the screen, allowing viewers to easily navigate to posts and recent comments. The large, clear image of his emoji story caught my attention right away and because of the size and clarity, I was able to see the details in the emojis. I did find the grey colored text a little harder to read than the usual black text, but that could just be my eyes!