Placard Process

Again with the icon's she says. to create a placard, I started with three ideas that may give meaning to my 'rave' topic. I decided to use breakfast foods because whenever people left the clubs, they would go eat the only places that might be open. These places mainly consisted of ihop and denny's. I began to place icons inside the food or as toppings on pancakes.



Next I tried contrasting the night scene with a day scene (aka work). I began building my icons into the furniture and applying the texture of these office materials to the shape of my icons.


Last I thought about what the rave act really means, so I gathered evidence bags and put some of the actual elements as well as icons with the bags. Police were on the look out to monitor water sales and watch for glowsticks and bright colored beads (that may or may not be ecstasy). The glowsticks were apparently a sign that all kids did drugs because it enhanced tripping. I tried showing both a zoomed view and the whole package, and my teacher suggested I have a combination of both, so i did.

RAVE ACT: Final Spread and Infographic

At last the time has arisen when I have to turn in my spread with incorporated infograph. This process was tough. I am physically and emotionally spent. While creating my infographic and spread, I realized the two came hand in hand. When I made a change to one, I had to reinforce the same idea to the other. When I used flat shapes to characterize time, the same shapes were scattered throughout the spread. But I wanted to do something more. I wanted to push myself to see how interesting I could make my infographic as well as make it successful.
How could I push the idea of time? I was watching a lot of music videos that were for electronic DJs and they dealt with a lot of 3d shapes and colored renders. I was dealing with events that happened in one night, so I used a 12 sided shape. I exploded the events into five segments to take up x, y ,and z axis'. The new shapes were put throughout the spread for a cohesive set.
The hardest part for me was incorporating the icons within the already very graphic shapes. I decided to put the icons inside because the shapes themselves were so complex.
I used color to distinguish hour. The shapes aren't colored all the way around because the colors correspond to the amount of time they last during a night out. After the color ended, I gave a reason to why this icon isn't used anymore in the night. I attached the same color as the ending segment to the color of the text so the reader would be able to connect the two ideas together.
My subject matter deals with the night , so I used black as my background and created a horizon line for the text to interact with. I built the text up from this line trying to impose the idea of a city scape. Bright colors are used to accent key elements such as the ecstasy and shapes that referenced my infographic. The small accents of color is something you would see in a rave. (The lights are turned off and elements such as glowsticks and strobe lights are used in unison with dancing)

The article I used is dealing with the Rave Act. The "RAVE" Act makes it easier for the federal government to prosecute innocent business owners for the drug offenses of their customers - even if they take steps to stop such activity. Here are my three spreads, my infographic as my third spread.

Infographic Process up the Wazoo

After reviewing my classmate Adam's comment, I have considered turning my infographic into a 3-d rendering of pure beauty and.. info. My initial plan was to use some of the shapes that are used in a music video by Autechre called Gantz Graf. (that is if I could even pick out any of the shapes before they exploded by). I did a series of drawings based on the idea of these 3d shapes based on a clock exploding from a y axis shown in z dimension. As you can see in the illustrations below, I tried drawing forms and taking shapes out of them to create my graphics. I used the measure that one bar= one hour (each segment = one bar). I also tried leaving the time durations connected and also segmenting them to make it more apparent of quantity rather than a continued line. I started a new set encompassing a full circle as well as a straight bar graph. By using different shapes I was hoping to have it stand for one icon, but to my luck, they didn't seem to be working for me.
After drawing out some ideas with paper, I tried numerous ideas on the computer to see which would work best for me. The first idea shown is quite a bit more abstract as the segments float in space. each corner indicates a segment which indicates one hour. A huge problem I notice right of the bat is how to incorporate the icons and text into the image. The second image I tried making a traditional line graph based on the earlier influence I posted on the last infographic post. The third and fourth tries were experiments to wrap the bands around a twelve-sided shape. The bands start and end where they do in my flat infographic, only now around a dimensional shape. Yet still, I have yet to find the solution to integrating text and icon with the bands fully.



I felt like the progess I made did me no justice. Back to the drawing boards. I remembered a poster for music that Josef Muller Brockman created for Beethoven. How dinamic the circles were arranged made the composition swirl. By keeping this in mind, I drew another quick sketch, hopefully with better luck. By stacking the circles all vertically, I thought I could slide the times and information in the tab spaces. The middle drawing is a direct representation of Brockman's drawing for the concert. Again trouble placing the information. The first digital rendering may look nice, but a few students said it would be important to see the whole ring to help with comparison. Finally looking more closely at my hand rendered sketch, I created the second one with the stair step method I was looking for. I also combined my earlier idea of putting text at the bottom to see the elegance of the shape the steps made. There is a white bar at the bottom because I made the same graphic decision in the magazine spread I am creating in unison with this graphic. This digital render also referenced my flat design of referencing a turntable and a clock.
I wanted to do a little more as well with the 3d render because I wanted to see if I really could make a successful 3d graphic. The bottom image is more true to what I am looking for, with scale and position, I was able to create a space for the bands to sit. I also used my rule set that one segment equals one hour. Although the textual information isn't perfect, it's getting a lot closer to what I'm looking for.






After completing all of these ideas, I feel left behind because, in reality, I haven't created the solution to combining informational text, icon, and image.

Book Cover Series

In my Image class I was instructed to create a series of book covers based on sports. I was given a list longer than Nick Karn's hair, so I chose soccer, rugby, baseball, and basketball. After my first swing (no pun intended) Kidwell introduced Piet Zwart for inspiration because my first sketches reflected his work. Using cut out dynamic shapes, I positioned the elements into a collage. While working with this style, I began to use white space as another element for shape rather than just color. After making four books, I photographed them for documentation and critique.
here are the results:



Final note: Never use white book covers. They get dirty faster than Michael Johnson's 200 meter relay.

Progress on Inforgraphic

I have drawn a couple sketches of what i think my inforgraphic might start to incorporate including the price to pay after using the icons over a period of time. First I thought this would be easier to formulate as a graphic but soon turns out the length of time used in a 12 hour period might work to my benefit. it not only adds a narrative aspect to my infographic, but looks more dynamic as well. I also have numerous first hand accounts of the information and what times each spent at a club, what they wore, how long the drugs and dancing lasted. To visualize this, I referenced a clock added bars as to how long each icon lasted in a night. There is a direct reference to the places from start to finish and the hours of a clock.

Here is documentation and final product of my hand rendered infographic. The sphere references a clock and a record of a turntable. The bars represent the amount of time my icons last in a night (12 hour period). I went though a list of names for the infographic but so far, no success.

• timetable
• rave round the clock
• 12th hour party hour
• ravers revolution
  
• 12 hour party

After looking over my hand rendered shape, the next step was to translate into a digital translation.


When viewing my digital render, I think it looks a bit flat. To fix this problem I searched around on the web for some inspiriting infographics that added depth to them. The examples I found deal with transparency as well as form to infer overlapping of time or events. In my next steps I am going to try and incorporate these elements into my graphic. They will add another aesthetic level to my information and look more dynamic.