Exercise: Giving Information

This exercise asked me to draw inspiration from established information graphics and then male my own for my own surroundings. I decided to map out my Art tools and materials drawer. I thought this would be a good one as there is many different items in there that all are sorted into logical groups. I wanted to colour code each different category, and I also thought each colour could have a tint based on its position, left to right top to bottom, with the last item being the lightest. I started to explore the all important layout, depending on wether the map was to be text led or image led would dictate the positioning and prominence of the image. I tried to separate the text lists around the image the obvious problem here was a lack of structure and consistency, displaying the categories together seemed to offer a more simplistic approach and was easier to navigate through. I decided that I would need clear header to describe the category, these alone would be useful to point the viewer in the right direction.

Exploring layouts

I sketched out the layout and dividers of my drawer, Adding in the contents in clear and logical ways, my drawer is not this neat, its organised exactly like this but some digging and searching is needed for just the right thing.

Once I began to colour code a nice even structure become apparent, I tried my original idea of using the same colour but using tints to show the position of the items on the map. This I felt worked well, then I started thinking about the user, what if he had poor eye site or colour blindness, adding a numerical system would add another simple layer of navigation that would ensure bases were covered.

The downside of my colour coding does mean it relies on a dark background to work, as the tint approach means that the last listed item will be white or thereabouts. This may or may not be a problem, in a printed context its probably fine but if this was to be translated to a web environment we may need opposite version for night mode where the image is darkened with shade rather than tint.

Exercise: Birthday list

I started a document in adobe inDesign, the functionality for adding/editing guides feels best to me. I made a grid 8 columns by 13 rows, one for each month and one for a header these were fixed to my margins I had set so I have some space above and below for ant additional styling or decoration.

I wanted a date of birth field so I can calculate an age if need be, also the name and then the checklist items.

The problems with creating a table of this kind of data is the format would need to change if I was to find another friend, I tried to approach it logically by month, this runs in chronological order but doesn’t include all months, only the ones that include friends/family’s birthdays. I think this is the most logical way of doing this task, as time is the main focus, I added in the date but omitted the month as this was already included in the header.

I added in the card, text, and gift as Icons to save space, the type would be either really small or have to be turned on the side to fit in if not. These are the icons below, they didn’t come out too well after I compressed the image for web.

I enjoyed this exercise and at first it seemed simple but it really is when you start looking at the data that you have to start to overcome problems and find the best way of displaying the information.