EARTH ARTEFACT Katy Robinson
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The Brief
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For this new brief I have been given six weeks to design and submit creative proposals, through to one finished design, for a new version of the “Golden Record”, this is entitled “Earth Artefact”.
The final outcome does not have to be a complete reproduction of the original, however it still has to portray how the world is today, therefore I will be challenging my creative skills to produce a more contemporary version.
To gather inspiration and to look at a variety of different work styles, I will be looking at a range of different artists, illustrators, designers and typographers.
For this project I am interested in producing something unique and interesting and will be exploring a range of ways to do this throughout my research document and development.
Project Plan
Over Christmas -Read through the brief thoroughly pick out key information and establish what it’s asking me to do. -Produce a mind map for the project. -Receive any feedback in studio sessions.
Week One -Research into the golden record and write down any findings and what it’s about. -Start generating own ideas for my version of the golden record. -Receive any feedback in studio sessions.
Week Two -Carry out appropriate artist research relating to the initial ideas thought up. -Regarding chosen idea, research into that further. -Receive any feedback in studio sessions.
Week Three -Start to gather information to put into final design. -Generate “mock ups” of what the piece(s) could look like and their initial design. -Receive any feedback in studio sessions.
Week Four -Put information into a good way to portray across to an audience. -Start to create the final design using the information that I have gathered. -Receive any feedback in studio sessions.
Week Five -Aim to get work finished so that I have enough time to get it printed. -If anything needs to be edited on the work then this will give me time to do it. -Receive any feedback in studio sessions.
Week Six -If needed to, finish any research that may need to be done or added into the document. -Get all work together ready for assessment week. Receive any feedback in studio sessions.
After Assessment -Once assessment is done and feedback received, dependent on the grade, improve on any work that could move the grade up.
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The Golden Record
The “Voyager Golden Record”, which was launched in 1977, acts as a kind of time capsule for any extra terrestrial life forms or even future humans that may come across them. They contain an assembly of one hundred and fifteen images and a variety of natural sounds, such
made by the wind and thunder, birds, whale song and many more. It also contains music from different cultures and greetings from Earth in fifty-five languages. A committee, chaired by Dr Carl Sagan, selected each item in the golden record for NASA. Each record is enclosed in a
protective aluminium jacket, put with a cartridge and a needle. Instructions on how to work the records are in a symbolic language. They explain the origin of the spacecraft and direct how it is to be played. The design allows it to be played at 16-2/3 revolutions per minute.
Carl Sagan noted, “The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced spacefaring civilizations in interstellar space. But the launching of this bottle into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet.”
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My Ideas
The one main thing that I want to get set in stone before I progress further with this project is the media that I will be using to produce a final outcome. Despite it still being early on in the
project, I feel that it will be easier, and my work will be more efficient, if I know what I will be producing at the end of these six weeks. With this in mind, and taking into consideration that the original
earth artefact was a golden disc made solely for communication, my own ideas also need to be similar in the way that they can communicate either through, sight, sound, touch or a combination of all three, as we are unaware if the
other life have all five senses like us humans. Since this however is a graphic design/visual communication brief, we must assume that they do have sight and a small ability to see.
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Idea 1: Book/Poster
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The first idea I had was to create a series of posters, which had each of the letters of the alphabet with an item relevant to that letter.
I felt that this would create a lot would then contain all of the of unnecessary paper, so I then important information, with none of thought about linking it all together it getting lost or unordered. in an alphabet style book. This
These would be similar to the children’s books that are available in any toy shop or good book store.
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Idea 2: Video
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I then thought about expanding my first idea and making a piece of video or a piece with motion graphics. This would still be within
the style of the alphabet, however the items would be animated as to how they work.
For example if I were to use cutlery of how these times that I have as the letter C, I could animate it to chosen to animate work. pick up food items. This way there would be a clear representation
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Idea 3: Infographic
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I then opted to stray away from the idea of basing my piece on the alphabet and thought about producing a piece of infographics
containing information about the Earth. I also feel that this would better
suit the brief opposed to having a book or several posters with the alphabet on. In many ways infographics would educate more
as well due to the nature of how they can be laid out and clearly seen.
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Idea 4: Object
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Whilst in a children’s toyshop I had a thought to produce an item that could be held as opposed
to being looked at. This way the final outcome would not only be educational, but it would also
have a multifunctional purpose. I am unsure of how the outcome could work, however with further
research it may be possible to produce something along these lines.
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Artist Research
As said previously, I shall be looking at a range of different artists, crossing over a variety of specialisms within graphic design. Because I have already decided on my ideas, therefore may have a rough idea of what I want to
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produce for my final piece, I feel that my artist research will be a lot easier for me. This is because I know what kind of work I want to research and this can be narrowed down as opposed to researching artists and designers that have no
relevance to my current work. These will be things such as typography, illustration, photography, contemporary graphic design and people that produce infographics. I then went on to make a mind
map of the styles of artists I had intended to research, looking at the works that caught my eye. Once I had completed this I chose the artists who I felt had the best pieces for me to look at and to gain inspiration from.
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Antoine Corbineau
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Antoine Corbineau is of French origin and works between fine art and illustration and has worked with many major design and advertising agencies.
Within his projects he uses a great deal of colour and uses a variety of mediums and techniques, which to me strikes them as eye catching and makes them stand out from other pieces of work.
Many people describe his work as complex. I feel that in his work there are many simple things that communicate a message to the audience, however also have large amounts of information hidden in
his illustrations. Similarly to what the Earth Artefact brief is asking us to do.
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Jack Hagley
Jack Hagley is a London based graphic designer specialising in infographics. For his work to come across to the audience he uses a bold choice of colour, which stand out to people so that it is eye catching and vivid. His work highly contrasts. One of his pieces is about the 2014 Brit Awards and how artists have all linked together to make music, however another piece of his work
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is about what kills children aged 0-19, as well as logo design. He has also produced his CV based around data visualisation and infographics, which I think is a very creative thing to do and makes a blank piece of paper look a lot more visually appealing. On his website underneath his CV he states “It was really important to me while making this document that it be under 100Kb, black and
white, visually distinctive, use as little ink as possible to tell the story, tells you a lot about me.” One piece of work that he has produced is titled “The World as 100 People”. What really caught my eye about this piece was that it is almost exact to this current brief “Earth Artefact” and it works really well, in a simplistic, minimalistic way.
It touches on subjects that maybe some designers have never spoke about before such as poverty and nutrition in the world. It is a very clear piece of work that is easy to follow, and in many ways it does put the big world into a very small perspective that we may have never seen it before.
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Craig & Karl
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Craig Redman and Karl Maier are a duo of collaborators, but live in completely different parts of the world.
Craig lives in New York, whereas Karl lives in London. Despite this they speak daily to produce bold pieces of work filled with messages finished in a thoughtful
and humorous way. What really caught my eye about their work was the bold, vivid colours and shapes that are used
to create the work. I like this style as it comes across very expressive and “out there�, which makes the pieces stand out.
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Paul Barnes
Paul Barnes is a graphic designer who works in lettering, typography, type design as well as publishing design. For the last 20 years he has lived
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in London after previously living in America. He has been a long term collaborator with Peter Saville. This has resulted in many diverse pieces of work for companies such as Givenchy.
Paul works in a very modern, contemporary style. This can be seen throughout his work and I feel that it works really well for the pieces that he produces.
I really like his piece with the type of Singapore due to the simplicity and the colour palette he has used. Adding to this, the lines flow nicely and it all links together.
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Carl Kleiner
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Carl Kleiner is a still life photographer based in Stockholm, Sweden. I find his work very intriguing, especially how the
pieces are composed together, with different objects making up the photographs and how it all links together, for example when
I first saw the two images to the right I immediately thought of the ingredients that make a cake and this is how he decided to reflect
this. In many respects this is a very clever and innovative way to produce work and I have not seen anything like that before.
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Chosen Idea: Infographics
I have decided to base my final piece around infographics. I feel that this will best suit the brief and give it a nice clear solution to what it is asking me to do. Infographics is an area that I have never really touched upon before, however, I really like the
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concept of it and the way that it works, especially if it has been done through simple design, yet contains a lot of complex information, as it can be easily broken down if executed well. This is what I aim to do in my work over the next few weeks.
Firstly to gain a basic knowledge of how infographics “work� and before coming up with my own ideas on how to set it/lay it out, I looked at a variety of different infographics designers and the work that they produce. I looked closely at the various ways that it can be laid out. Whether this
was through simple icons and symbols or to a more complex interlinking grid system, I knew that they would all help me to gain inspiration in the long run. I also need to consider what information I will be putting into the piece and how it will be shown.
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David McCandless
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David McCandless is a London based author, data journalist and information designer. He works across print, advertising, television and web. His work has appeared in over 40 international publications, these include The Guardian and Die Zeit.
Over recent years, David has been looking at the use of data visualisation and infographics to discover new directions for his journalism and to ascertain new stories for the data surrounding us. This has resulted in his website, blog and book “Information Is
Beautiful” (Harper Collins 2009). work every single bit of data These are committed to visualising visualisation and infographics that ideas, issues, knowledge and data. he produces are different. Some pieces are circular, some are just I really like David’s work and the quotes and others are what could complexity that it encompasses, be seen as “guidelines”. As well as however in many ways it is very this he does touch upon some very easy to understand and read important information and data. off the information. With his
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Lemonly Company
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Lemonly are an American design company made up of a team of 16 people varying in roles from the co-founders, CEO, creative director, a vast amount of visual designers, a product designer,
motion designers, senior and junior infographics, data visualisation developers and many more other as well as iOS design and office roles. development. The company specializes in interactive, static and video
They work in what seems to be a very illustrative style, however this
works very well for the company, especially as they pair this with bright, bold colours that make the work stand out.
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Ivan Cash
Whilst looking online for more examples of infographics, I came across the piece on the opposite page. It is an infographics of infographics, which in my opinion is a very clever thing to have been done. It follows the trend of modern day infographics and contains how the main content and design are built up within these data visualisation pieces. It definitely is a very creative
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concept, and the image is courtesy of Ivan Cash. Ivan cash is an interactive artist and filmmaker, who also runs a small creative studio in San Francisco. The projects that he creates there are both for art and commercial purposes and are all mainly human based projects.
different companies, universities and conferences. His work has also been exhibited internationally. It is in the permanent collection at the Victoria and Albert museum in London and has been featured on CNN, in The New York Times and Juxtapoz.
Not only does Ivan do that, he also speaks internationally and regularly As many of his projects are gives talks and workshops to human based and he has regular
interaction with strangers, he quotes “I believe talking to strangers can change the world but nothing would make me happier than if you closed your eyes for 20 seconds and just listened to your breath.� He has also produced a piece of work, in which was dollar bills stamped with fact based infographics, informing America of its economic disparity
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My Infographic
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In order for me to produce my own infographic, there are a lot of things to consider before I even start to think about producing one. Along the information side of things I need to think about what kind of information will be going into the piece and how it will be shown and laid out, for example
will it be in charts and graphs or will I display it as symbols with notes on the side. As the project is titled Earth Artefact, I need to gather information about the whole Earth, otherwise the title would be defeated. This is another thing that I need to think about, as to how I will include all of the data, as
a whole collective, or as different countries or continents. Thinking back to the design aspect, I need to carefully look at the whole design of the piece and make sure that compositionally it works together. The colour scheme also needs to work otherwise my
work may not look right when it is all in one. Not only does the colour scheme need to work, I feel that for it to be good as a whole there only needs to be about 2-4 colours, with this it could either make or break the work.
After producing and looking closely at the mind map, I have decided that to get the best information across, I will produce one big infographic about the
whole world as opposed to each continent like I had previously thought of doing. I feel that this will get across
a large chunk of information, however in a very simple way and I can break it down into different ways for the audience to perceive it. I also feel that for me, as a
designer it will be easy to interpret the data that I gain. For this to work I will really need to focus, do my research and get the
best quality results from this. I will also be looking into at statistics and transferring the data into what I think will be a good reasonable way to show my findings. 37
Infographic Data
For the information going into my infographic, I have opted to go for world statistics based on the people and population. In my opinion this will put across a lot of information
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that I can widen upon further research.
different ways to represent each demographic point of view, and statistic. from that I can convert into a clear infographic that is well laid I feel by doing an infographic I have chosen to look at three out. about the world population, main categories, this way I I can also put it onto the can get a view of the variety of document in a creative way with statistics there are from a world
In The Categories
People
The total population Population density Age structure Ratio of male to female Age structure Fertility rate
Education
Literacy rates School life expectancy Literate people Religions Languages spoken
Health
Hospital beds per 1000 people Access to water Sanitation facilities Nourishment Life expectancy
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Initial Layouts
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Once I had drawn up the potential layouts for my infographic, I then went on to designing the images for how I would display the data, making sure that they all worked well together, especially with the colours that I chose to use and the way I represented each piece of information.
From the layouts it was clear that there was going to be a big image at the top of the piece. For this I knew that I wanted to have an image of the solar system including the sun and all of the planets, with a brief explanation about the earth underneath it. As I knew this was certain, this was the first thing I drew out.
At first I found it hard to determine how I would do such a thing, I then carried on thinking about therefore I opted to plan out and how I could portray the rest of the list a rough idea of what I could do. information and whilst drawing
them out there have been many differences and changes to what I had planned originally. I also found that for some pieces of information I had a variety of possibilities in the way that the information could be shown, however on many there was one way that stood out a lot more than the other, therefore that was the option that I chose.
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Imagery Ideas
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Final Illustrations
People Total Population
Gender Ratio
Fertility Rate
Life Expectancy
july
Health Clean Water
Sanitation
Hospital Beds
Nutrition
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Final Illustrations
Education Languages
Literacy
School Life
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the expected time for students to sudy in their life
Religion
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Final Illustrations
The Solar System
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Type Experiments
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After everything had been drawn up in adobe illustrator, I then needed to choose a suitable font to go in my infographic.
I wanted a hand drawn style of font, so I opted to look on line, as I knew there would be a range of various different typefaces.
I then carried on to look for roughly ten fonts that I liked the look of and that would ‘fit’ in with what I wanted to produce.
From this I could then choose a smaller amount of four fonts that I liked the most, to then reduce it down to a final one, main font for the whole piece.
Earth Artefact Earth Artefact
Earth Artefact earth artefact Earth Artefact Earth Artefact
earth artefact Earth Artefact Earth Artefact earth artefact
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mathlete skinny
3Dumb
50 PT: mathlete skinny
50 pt: 3Dumb
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg 45 pt: 3Dumb 45 pt: mathlete skinny
55 PT: mathlete skinny
60 pt: mathlete skinny
65 pt: mathlete skinny
70 pt: mathlete skinny
75 pt: mathlete skinny
80 pt: mathlete skinny 48
55 pt: 3Dumb
60 pt: 3Dumb
65 pt: 3Dumb
70 pt: 3Dumb
75 pt: 3Dumb
80 pt: 3Dumb
amatic sc regular
Always Forever
50 pt: amatic sc regular
50 pt: Always Forever
60 pt: amatic sc regular
60 pt: Always Forever
70 pt: amatic sc regular
70 pt: Always Forever
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp 45 pt: Al w ays Forever 45 pt: amatic sc regular
55 pt: amatic sc regular
55 pt: Always Forever
65 pt: amatic sc regular
65 pt: Always Forever
75 pt: Al w ays Forever 75 pt: amatic sc regular 80 pt: Al w ays Forever 80 pt: amatic sc regular 49
Chosen Typeface
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Initially I had wanted to use two different fonts in my piece. One for the headers and one for the main body text, however when I then looked at the final four fonts that I had chosen, I found that none of them fit together or contrasted nicely with another, despite this, if I was doing a different project, or had structured my piece differently then some of the other fonts may
have worked well. After careful consideration I opted to go for just one font throughout and then narrowed it down to a choice of Mathlete or Amatic SC. 3Dumb I felt was too bold and block like, especially for body text, however it would make a good text for headers and titles.
As I looked more into Mathlete and Amatic SC I decided upon using Amatic SC, as I felt that it was that tiny bit clearer and more readable than Mathlete, I also noticed that there was more spacing in the font as well, this again would make it easier to read. I also found that this font went with the imagery that I had drawn out
and was going to use to how my information. Not only this, but it also fitted what I wanted within my typeface, as it is hand drawn and different to any other fonts that I have seen around, giving my work a different feel to anything I have produced before.
amatic sc regular
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 earth artefact
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Infographic Development
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Once a font had been decided on, I then proceeded to digitally produce my piece of work, combining what I had previously
though about with regards to the layouts, imagery and type. I allowed myself plenty of time for this, as I knew that it would
take me a while to get everything in a perfect place so that the composition sat nicely and all of the individual bits of work looked
aesthetically pleasing as a whole.
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After just under two weeks of working on my infographic and many different variations, which still all looked fairly similar to each other, I got it completed to what I had envisioned it to look like and I was really happy with the outcome.
I felt that it was a really linear piece within its design and all of the information was a bit too cramped together, making it look very untraditional and not visually pleasing to the eye.
I was really disappointed with However, after looking at it for longer this after spending the amount of and longer, I started to develop a time on it that I had done. I wasn’t dislike to it. prepared to change my whole
concept though so close to the deadline. Instead I thought long and hard about how I could incorporate the information and imagery that I already had, just into a better format that I thought would be clearer, more appealing visually and a lot easier to understand without being too underdeveloped.
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New Idea
I looked back to the very start of the project at my initial ideas and this was when the idea of having a small booklet came to mind. I thought that I could produce a small four paged concertina style
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informative piece.
then placing the information into the booklet.
the infographic, however a little more condensed down. I also I then proceeded to undertake the included a world map and a short same approach to get to a final So that there were no blank pages, sentence about the countries and outcome for this, just like I had or a page of useless information continents. with my infographic. I started off in the booklet, I added a brief by drawing out a simple layout and introduction, similar to the one on
Inside Development
Throughout the designing of this piece, I made a few changes to the original images, just so that they would suit what I wanted to show
a little bit better. I also made some small adjustments to the titles so that there was more flow within the text as you read through it.
Not only this, but instead of just leaving it with the imagery and to fill out more space, to make it that little bit more informative, I then
wrote a small bit of information about what the image was putting across.
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Page Layout
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Because the introduction page has two different parts of text that do not belong to each other, I decided to look into a different way of showing it by sketching out
what it could potentially look like. The reason for this was due to the spacing between the words and it not working well together.
I tried out these different ways, however I was not liking any of them, therefore I settled with changing the spacing between the letters by hand, not letting
the document do it for me automatically.
Outside Development
As I was producing a concertina booklet, I then realised/ remembered that I would have to produce a double sided document so that it was not a folded booklet with a mass of white space on the outside and information on the inside.
I struggled a fair amount with ideas for this, so I resorted to looking at my original infographic to see what I had on there, which I did not have on my new piece of work.
of ideas for me. As I had it already drawn up, I immediately went onto adobe illustrator to see what I could do, drawing up a layout before hand.
I then noticed that I had left off the illustration of the solar system. This then opened up a new range
Also, due to the brief being called “Earth Artefact” and it being based roughly around extra terrestrial life,
I added in some small images of a cartoon space ship, then further adding some shooting stars and a “trail”. I felt that this livened it up a bit, taking away from the empty space.
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Colour Development
I was really happy with this outcome, and felt like I had finally reached a solution to the brief for what I wanted to put across to the audience. In my opinion I think that everything in the booklet flows a
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lot better and appears smoother in appearance than the infographic. Despite being really happy with the piece and knowing I had got somewhere, I wanted to add some smaller details into it just so that it was not all one flat colour. I did
this by adding a drop shadow around the spaceships, stars and the planets, this way they stood out a little bit more as opposed to being straight against the colour of background. I also played around with different
colours for the background, even trying out a gradient in the colour. I really liked this effect, therefore chose to keep it, as I also felt that as you look at the colour going from the darker shades to the lighter, it gives the effect that you are travelling to Earth.
Initial Colour To Final
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Final Piece
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Even though I was not happy with my initial final piece of the infographic and decided to suddenly change how I was going to produce a solution to the brief that I had been given in such a short space of time.
I feel that I worked to the best standard that I could to get the new final idea developed and almost finished so that I had a piece to show during my assessment.
This then meant that all I had to do I feel that it looks professional was to finalise and everything up, and has a great finish, whilst also to get the best grade possible. containing all of the information that I wanted it to and more. I really like how the leaflet came out, especially with the colours and the feel of the paper. To me,
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An Extra Experiment
Although I had got my final piece decided upon, I questioned to myself how I could have turned my illustrations into an animation. I then decided to play around with a way to do this. In my process and production sessions that I undertake on a Thursday afternoon, I have covered an area of Adobe called
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After Effects. This is a video editing software, so I decided to place my illustrations in this to animate them as a sort of “extra” bit of work.
to guide me in a right direction. Despite this, I feel that it worked well, and the result came out to a standard that I was happy with. To produce it I used the basic tools such as opacity, position, and rotation.
I have only used the software three times, with teachers around, therefore this was the first time that I had used it on my Even though it was just a own, with no extra help around practice piece so I have only
used the initial front cover to create what I guess could be called a “title piece”, I feel that if I wanted to carry it on to a full animation, I would have the confidence to do this. The link to the video can be found here: https://www.vimeo. com/120887165
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Animation Screen Shots
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Project Summary
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Overall I really enjoyed the whole brief from start to finish. Unlike the first brief that I worked on, as I knew what I was now doing, I found the whole process from research to ideas, to final design a lot easier than before.
more efficiently to get my work done and completed before the deadline, so that I had time to touch things up and finalise everything, as opposed to having to rush through my work at the last minute.
Because of this I feel that I also worked a lot better and
If I were to do this brief again, I think that the only thing I would
change about what I did, would maybe to add in some primary research, as I feel that this may have enhanced my work a little bit extra and maybe given me some more inspiration for my own work. I would also consider testing out more media experiments so that I could get a more in-depth focus
on what I could produce for a final piece. Doing this may take up a little more time, however I feel that it could be very useful for the work and myself. With this in mind though, I can use it in future projects to see if it does work out.
My Sources
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/ spacecraft/goldenrec.html http://lemonly.com/ http://www.jackhagley.com/ http://www.moderntypography. com/About.html http://www.craigandkarl.com/#!
http://www.carlkleiner.com/
http://www.cashstudios.co/
http://www.davidmccandless.com/ http://www.wired.com/2012/07/ you-suck-at-infographics/ https://www.facebook.com/ thinklemonly/info?tab=page_info http://ivancash.com/ http://www.smithsonianmag. com/science-nature/what-ison-voyagers-golden-record73063839/?no-ist http://infogr8.com/why-infogr8/ ourteam/
https://www.cia.gov/library/ publications/the-world-factbook/ docs/didyouknow.html http://www.indexmundi.com/ world/demographics_profile.html
http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/ infopage/contnent.htm
http://www.planetsforkids.org/ planet-earth.html
http://www.ropercenter.uconn. edu/public-perspective/ ppscan/24/24101.pdf
http://www.fontsquirrel.com/home
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