Wednesday, April 30, 2008

final project


These are my 18 compositions so far, The bottom set are the hand generated versions, and the top are prints of the photographs that that have the type added to them, in the next step I will be exploring/implementing negative space, and will explore different type arrangements and sizes, and hand lettered versus computer generated.

These are my visual explorations of the themes that I developed in the last portion. I explored acetone transfers, stamps, degradation through printing and photographing, and projection. The degradations that happened across multiple steps were unsuccessful because the images were to complex to be as illegible as they were. I think I will continue to explore acetone, stamps of my icons since the form of them lends themselves to becoming stamps, and projection/photography.


This is my brain's storming of ideas onto the page. I came across many possible solutions, but the three I am most attracted to are the comparison of religion and science. The juxtaposition of my icons with objects that it would be impossible for the objects to manipulate, as a means of commenting on the limits of science. The third idea that I thought was worth something, but I don't think I like as much was the idea of showing the icons, "good guy equipment" with the bad guy equivalent. I think that I don't like this one because I want to stay away from the crime business.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

thinking

The purpose of thinking is to find a solution. Find an answer. Blindly thinking does not lead to answers. So, what leads to answers if not sitting back and hoping they pop into your mind?
What I just did is what leads to answers. Asking Questions. Even if the questions seem irrelevant or obtuse. Just continually ask questions and answer them to the best of your ability. The brain cannot conjure answers without a prompt. You have to work for it. It is the people who do all the work all the time who eventually catch onto things.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Statement

This project was a challenge all around. From the very beginning I had trouble with every aspect of this assignment. Clearly organizing my information, creating a consistent magazine layout, choosing the typefaces, etc. I tried to make my system of infographic information multileveled and complex, just as a crime scene investigation would be. If anything it was good copy writing practice. I learned more than any other project the importance of evaluating a hard copy. Working with the magazine spreads in indesign seemed extremely different from the hard copy. The scale change really had an impact on the composition.
Color was a challenge simply for technological reasons, working from photoshop, to illustrator, to indesign presented me with a most horrendous time in color correction.
Legibility was something else I grappled with. This is a relatively small space for the amount of information my article contained.
The application of my icons in this project led me to a pair of discoveries, one being that I enjoy working photographically, due to the richness that if offers a project, and the other is that I hate artificial light due to the orange quality it gives everything I photograph.
While working I was trying to decide what it was that made an information graphic easier to grapple with than a block of text. I decided that it's ability to engage the viewer is what makes it a more useful too. I tried to use this to my advantage, by giving the viewer something to engage with. The lines leading to things are supposed to be a sort of connect the dots that require viewer participation in order for the graph to make sense. While also being conceptually consistent.

Final Shmagazine




This is my final magazine, From the last version the major change I made was to unify my color palette across the spreads to make them less... gross, for lack of a better word. I also fixed my side bars so that they would be even with the gutter width. I also thinned out the background design even more so that it would only be a subtle accent.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Shmagazine






∆ Click this guy and it'll do the electric slide show.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Shminfo Shmaph Binfo Baph


Since last critique I have:
physically created, photographed, and photoshoped (ugh) my graph materials.
trying to get that stuff to line up properly was a very large pain in my relatively small body; however, I think that it worked out for the better. The depth that the photograph adds to the graph, I think adds a lot more interest.
added some colored bars to clarify which items are in which row. I also think they add a level of visual appeal.
went with a color change instead of scale to indicate the first appearance of each object. I decided not to add a key because I thought that it would add more clutter to the graph, and I thought the the idea would become self evident to the viewer, and is not an important enough aspect of the graphs structure to warrant explanation.
wrote the editorial, on the post war population increase causing economic growth, crime growth, technological growth. Which gives three reason why the united states would be the country making these improvements and discoveries.
fixed my spelling errors
changed how the names of the countries interact with the country.
extended portions of my time-line to accommodate the space the icons require
added the pictures of several well known serial killers to accent the graph.

I'm not to sure about them. I thought about photographically those also but that would give them too much importance on the graph, when the are there to serve as an accent to the underlying theme. The problem I have with them now is placement. I think the placement makes them look like they should have significance to the icon, but they don't. I wanted to do that, like have a serial killer who was put away as a result of the different tools, but then they would all be on the right side of the graph, cramping it even more since photographs of earlier criminals don't exist for obvious reasons. Well I guess we'll see.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Peer Editing

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Make Your Mistakes Quickly


In the initial brainstorming phase of this project, I was just organizing my informtion in order to determine what form the graph should take.

After that I moved into my first idea, which was to place all the icons on the map of the earth in the places they were invented and modified. This failed the quickest, because I realized that most of the invention/modification happened in just a couple places.

Now that I knew I had to deal with a few places of origin I tried again with a map of just the places they had been invented, but It didn't work because most of the objects were invented or modified in a single location, but a few then would skip out to spots on the map that are geographically distant, also it didn't give the sense of time through space and scale the way I wanted it to.

My next step was the one on the previous blog post, then I started this version based on the input described for that one. I changed my y-axis to place of invention, and my x-axis was still time. The problem I attempted to solve at the bottom of this graph with all the scribbles and numbers, was how to evenly and logically destribute the time.

This version maintains the x-and y-axis of the previous, and utilizes the separation worked out on the last time line. I segmented the time into five places, each one moving at different intervals in an attempt to create a more even spacing along the graph.

Friday, April 4, 2008

Friday's Critique


Click for pre and post critique photos
The critique with Ramzy and Cassie today was very helpful, while Cassie was able to figure out what my graph was depicting we decided that it was far too confusing, and that the ascension of the icons along the vertical was arbitrary. It was suggested that the vertical axis be the countries of origin instead of having them extend below the time line. It was also decided that the lines leading to the text will become entirely too confusing. Finally the "EKG-ish" element will not have as much prominence, it just looks dominant because in my rough version the hand lettering has such thin strokes, but I think when I'm finished it should be balanced enough. The reason it is there is because that zig-zag is a mathematical element used when graphing to show truncation. I think I need it, because otherwise there would be 2500 years of empty space. So it was an effort to make the graph more even. If you think it should go I can remove it, but I kinda like it. I'll just subdue it. Maybe I can use my own method of truncation instead. I'll think about that.