About Bob Hughes
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I am a multimedia designer, but
my forte is writing I suppose, and that's what I end up
doing most of the time. I love coding, but have to
recognise I'll never be as good at that as Chris. In the
past I've been an artist and an ad-man. I discovered the
computer in 1987. I come from Liverpool where, in
the 70s, I had a walk-on role in the "Liverpool
Scene" (if you remember that). My proudest
achievement from that era is the gilded sign I made for a
fabulous bookshop called "News from Nowhere"
(after William Morris's book of that title) - and
although the shop has now moved three times, my sign is
still there over the door
at 96 Bold Street.
My major passion boils
down to "explanation" - of all manner of
things.
My c.v. goes like this
(latest first):
Currently:
1. Completing long-term book project: "More is
Different", (a source-book and survival-guide for
creative workers in cybermedia).
2. Prototype of a CD on calligraphy.
3. Papers on narrative and hypermedia. (See
"Narrative as Landscape", presented at
"Hypermedia & Narrative conference April 1997,
at http://www-iet.open.ac.uk/iet/meno/ht97.html)
July 1993--May 1997
Nationwide Building Society "Interact" project:
a public-access touchscreen system explaining financial
concepts, processes and products, produced with Andersen
Consulting, and Software Design & Build, Bristol.
Winner of various awards including a Smithsonian Award in
1996. Responsible for high-level analysis and design,
prototyping (using Director and custom tools) and content
development - text, graphics, animation.
March-June 1993
Action Aid's "Discover India": a CD-ROM based
Mac/PC resource for primary schools, produced with a
mainly student team, using testimony, images, sounds and
data supplied by the Indian Government and the charity's
field workers. Responsible for coding effort, and for
training the team in Director and related multimedia
software.
1987-1993
Multimedia games design, research for "More is
Different", and numerous short projects: feasability
studies, prototyping, writing. Devised, developed and
staged a series of Mac-based, multi-participant games for
corporate conventions and product launches - including
Citroen's launch of the ZX range in 1992 - all to very
tight budgets and schedules, with a small team.
Customer information
system for AlphAGraphics printshops (in HyperCard).
Prototypes and feasability studies for various companies
and bodies.
Numerous articles written and conferences attended on
interactive learning, "cyberarts", hypertext,
the human interface, VR, and consumer multimedia.
Formed the Bristol
Hypermedia Interest Group in 1989: an early forum for
academic and commercial developers, and students of
hypermedia, based at the University of the West of
England.
Pre-1987
Writer and creative group head at various national and
international advertising agencies, including J. Walter
Thompson. Devised, wrote and produced campaigns in all
media for a wide variety clients and products, including
British Telecom, Allied Breweries, Asda.Gained practical
experience in all mass-media from concept to completion;
principles of media and communication and what we now
know as "user focus"; optimum use of budgets
and time.
Before advertising:
calligrapher, teacher and writer.
Skills offered:
1. Multimedia-specific: project briefing, scoping,
high-level design and planning, authoring and programming
(Macromedia Director, Hypercard and similar); human
interface design and user evaluation.
2. General: writing, typographic design, graphics, audio
and video production, and communication-design.
Major interests:
Cognition, working methods, creativity, HCI, narrative
theory and practice (oral, literary, in new media),
explanation in general, and specifically in science and
"complex systems".
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