There are many ways of communicating without talking, especially in design where you want to be able to convey a message in the simplest way possible. You can do this via logos, icons, and characters such as ‘!’ or ‘?’ to represent alertness/ anger or confusement. We have speech bubbles to show speech, thought bubbles to represent a thought and you can use a simple musical note to convey that someone is singing. We even have sign language as a way for the hard of hearing to communicate. These are all great ways to represent speech without using words and is very useful for print based design.
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Looking into visual ways of portraying audio brought me to this video for Arctic Monkey’s song ‘Do I wanna know?’ which portrays the story of the video through a distorted sound-wave which soon turns to a visually animated realization of the song, whilst in keeping with the theme of the video.
“Plot millions of journal entries from 18th and 19th century ship logs, and you reveal a picture of ocean trade you’ve never seen before.”
Arctic Monkeys - Do I Wanna Know?
Adrian Newell - Scoreline
Adrian Newell - Scoreline
After looking at Adrian Newell’s work relating to the quantity of goals scored by Thierry Henry by showing the position and distance from which they were scored and portraying the data in such an interesting way inspired me to have a go at my own variation, but using audio. I’m not entirely certain of what I will be visualising using this method yet, but I was thinking about showing spikes in the sound-waves from an audio file (of a conversation) to show the dynamic change in pitch due to the change in emotions from the participants in the conversation.
Whilst looking at this work I thought it would be an excellent way to visualise something that may not be as interesting when being expressed in a verbal manner. Hearing about the goals is definitely not as exciting as seeing them, in the same vein, hearing about something as mundane as my route to university is not very engaging so I’ve decided to look at how to visualise it in an appealing way whilst keeping the information.
Looking back at the previous research I have done, I found that this image is what I envisioned my work to look like, in a way. It depicts the travel routes of ships across the globe for many years.
Whilst looking at maps and GPS route tracking I came across a runner who used NikeID to draw out images through the app. This is similar to something I would like to achieve but I visualise a much more abstract outcome.
This is an example of a peice of work depicting my route to university in a morning, it doesn’t look too aesthetically appealing at the moment but this will develop over time.
This is another way I looked at showing a journey. The process would involve taking photos of locations and views on the route to my destination and layer them in a way similar to this. I have to say that at the moment I prefer the Adrian Newell inspired piece due to it’s more abstract nature.
IDEA ONE
personal work The ‘306’ title represents the bus I most commonly ride around Huddersfield, whereas ‘Beaumont’ represents a park in my local area.
This is an infographic of sorts, depicting my journey from my home to my university, which took 12 minutes and 58 seconds in total.
The aim of this idea was to portray something that would be very boring to listen to, which in this case is my route to university, and try to visualize it in an appealing and thought provoking way. I feel that the outcome would be a lot more interesting if I were to pursue alternative topics and delve into different ways of showing the data but I would rather move onto another idea and possibly come back to this later.
‘Good Vibrations’ is just one in a series of pieces by artist Peter Crawley which depict different songs through their sound-waves which have been hand-stitched onto thick card. Each line is representative of 1 minute of audio to leave room for up-to 6 minutes of audio.
Peter Crawley - Good Vibrations
good vibrations
“Braille characters are small rectangular blocks called cells that contain tiny palpable bumps called raised dots. The number and arrangement of these dots distinguish one character from another. Since the various braille alphabets originated as transcription codes of printed writing systems, the mappings (sets of character designations) vary from language to language.�
Today is gonna be the day That they're gonna throw it back to you By now you should've somehow Realized what you gotta do I don't believe that anybody Feels the way I do about you now Back beat, the word is on the street That the fire in your heart is out I'm sure you've heard it all before But you never really had a doubt I don't believe that anybody feels The way I do about you now And all the roads we have to walk are winding And all the lights that lead us there are blinding There are many things that I would Like to say to you But I don't know how Because maybe You're gonna be the one that saves me And after all You're my wonderwall Today was gonna be the day But they'll never throw it back to you By now you should've somehow Realized what you're not to do I don't believe that anybody Feels the way I do About you now And all the roads that lead you there were winding And all the lights that light the way are blinding There are many things that I would like to say to you But I don't know how
IDEA TWO I really like the aesthetics of the work and feel that it is a way of communicating to the blind through visuals (which is obviously why braille is used) whilst staying visually pleasing due to it’s patterned nature. I feel that when actually printed via a braille machine the texture will only add to the aesthetics in a positive way.
I said maybe You're gonna be the one that saves me And after all You're my wonderwall I said maybe You're gonna be the one that saves me And after all You're my wonderwall I said maybe You're gonna be the one that saves me You're gonna be the one that saves me You're gonna be the one that saves me
This is a concept I did incorporating braille lettering into a ‘Peter Crawley’ influenced piece. This lettering depicts the song ‘Wonderwall’ by Oasis which is inkeeping with the theme of representing music by the original artist.
You're gonna be the one that saves me
K E E P YO U R FACE TO THE AND YOU CAN NEVER SEE THE
Personal Work - Example of my idea
This is just a piece of experimental work I did when dabbling in typography and I feel it would be a great way to portray a conversation or message in an attractive way that will engage the audience.
I really like the idea of hand writing in designs because it creates a personalised and unique look which will never be replicated without tracing. Incorporating an inspiring and thought provoking quote into an aesthetically appealing format like this is a great way to educate people or at the very least grab their attention.
When life gets you down do you wanna know what you’ve gotta do? Just keep swimming!
Kendrick Lamar - Compton Arctic Monkeys Why’d you only call e when you’re high? Quick mock-up examples of possible ways to visualise a message in an interesting way.
I felt that songs took too long to get to their point and therefore had too much text on the page and would take too long to read. I started to look at iconic movie quotes that are thought provoking and positive and started to build posters around that quote.