New Placard Direction

With more discoveries during this project I realized how over complex my ideas were for such a small assignment. I realize that trying to fit a info graphic into my placards was not only very hard to do but that it was not a necessary element needed, considering the actual info graphs we just made. Although it was a great attempt, in my opinion, it didn't quite hold up to what it was I was wanting to convey and how I wanted it to be viewed.
With all these problems suddenly arising during final crit about legibility and hierarchy, I decided that it would be easier for me to resolve this problem by going back to some initial ideas and going from there.
I specifically chose to go with the idea of personalizing my icons with a member of the family who would use these objects the most and providing sort of a cheesy 60s quote as well to unite the group as a family and to show each persons devotion to these objects in their everyday lives.

Set 2:




Set 1:

Final Placards

Final Placard Refinements:

-I made the text inside my icons smaller
-I Changed the color of my title and spread it across all three frames since the information in the band at the bottom will be static throughout all three in my flash movie.
-I lowered the saturation a bit
-And changed the call out color from harsh red to a more subtle yellow, which I think compliments them nicely. I also tried to reference the colors in my spreads more and the original colors of my icons.




For my final placards I added a few extra elements that I thought were complimentary to the set, and I also made some necessary changes for better legibility in the small format.
I decided to add in a background image for each one that represents the floor of each room that pertains to my icons and objects. So for the iron I added some bedroom carpet, for the pan I added a wood grained kitchen floor, and for the plunger I added a tiled bathroom floor. I decided to print them out onto notebook paper to emphasize on the documentary aspect and then I photographed them for depth.
I also made revisions and changes to my object list for each icon.
For the Iron I chose to show Clothing: Shirts, Pants, Socks, and Undies
For the Pan I chose to show Food: Pancakes, Eggs, Cheeseburgers, Steaks, Grilled Cheese
For the Plunger I chose to show Toilet Trash: Toilet Paper, Soap, Gum, Fishes
Along with these changes I also changed the year increments for each object, so instead of each object representing 1 year, each represents 10. The red still represents 50 years which is stated in the last frame. I did this mainly because the scale of each object became to illegible even for me. I feel that they are at a nice size now and you can actually recognize the objects, some more than others.
One last change I made was the inclusion of the year for which each object was created. I decided to separate this information from the title by punching it out of my solid icons, and letting the title stand on its own by making it brighter.

The Line-Up





A close second:

Inspirational Concept Techniques!

Here is some very different concept inspiration but pull from it what you like. Some address the icon, image, and word together and some just reference the icon and image. Either way I believe that concepts are very strong and evoke other meanings than the icon can not do alone. I also tried to find inspiration using different techniques, as you'll find out they vary from drawings, to photos, to paint, to whatever.

Placard Image Concepts

FINAL COMPS-


Concept, Formal Exploration, Element Composition:






Final Image Concept:
So I decided to go with one concept that was much stronger than any of the rest of my concepts. Mainly because of how long my thought process was for it and the amount of attention it will need to be pulled off in a successful manner.
My inspiration originally derived from the work of Chris Jordan and his series of photography titled Intolerable Beauty. Here Jordan accumulates information on the levels of consumption and exposes them to his audience, us, in the form of a collage. What drives him to do these extraordinary pieces is what seems to be so interesting to me, The Information on our consumption levels which he states, "can be desolate, macabre, oddly comical and ironic, and even darkly beautiful. For me, I feel there was a direct connection in that since the beginning my theme didn't speak directly to beauty but it was my goal to find it.

ICONS & OBJECTS:
Iron - Clothing
Frying Pan - Food
Plunger - Toiletries

My objective is to take the object that each of my icons affect the most and to create 3 separate 3-D renderings of those objects based on each year that the icon has been existing. I chose to represent each year with two objects. For example, hypothetically, if the frying pan has been existing for 94 years, I would make a collage using 188 pieces of food linked together to create a larger pile of food (94 x 2 = 188). With photography and icon placement I will explore relative scale amongst the three piles as well as relationship to the size of my icons.

Patterning Ideas:
Iron - Clothing
-Pair of socks every decade
-Pair of undies every 50 years
-Shirt and Pants every other year

Frying Pan - Food
-Fish every decade
-Steak every 50 years
-Eggs and Pancakes every other year

Plunger- Toiletries
-Paper towel every decade (distinguished from toilet paper by visual pattern and texture)
-? every 50 years
-Two different colored toilet papers for every other year

I also plan on implementing experimentation with xeroxing the objects, using full color to create some patterning and using various materials to actually build these things such as toothpicks to create to structure support.
Images of process will come shortly!

Suggestions?


Top 3 Image Concepts so Far:
1. Showing the effects of time through an abstract representation of the physical marks and tears that my objects obtain over time. Using various mark making tools and materials to show scratches for the pan, tears for the bear, and burns for the iron.
2. Showing members of the family who would interact most with the objects. A mother in her apron for the pan, a man in his suit for the iron, and a young child for the bear.
3. Showing the objects that my objects affect in a mass collage. Using cut-outs of: clothing for iron, food for pan, crap for plunger

The objective for this assignment is to effectively combine three of our icons with type and image to create great form through the experimentation of using hierarchy, elements of color, image, and various processes. phew!

Project 3 Statement

From this project, the greatest thing I learned was how important it is to know your content and be able to apply different design devices to it in order to make your content stronger, not weaker. A lot of the time I tended to bring in stylistic elements that didn't really relate to my content but were visually what I wanted to include. Before I tried adding in things like animations and at times I completely forgot about my content and how it was supposed to speak to household object that were shabby yet antiqued.
I also realized how important it was to work on both the magazine spreads and the info graphic simultaneously because you want them to feel whole and not separate with each other. I specifically focused on relating my image content throughout and using color to denote importance.

Magazine Spreads

Finally, after weeks and weeks of countless revisions, editing, and nit picking, it's almost over. Here's what I have come to.
Any final suggestions?

Text Refinements