Presenting Imagery & Navigation

Blue highlight = essay research influence

Thinking about how to represent the graphs, what's the best way to do this that's cohesive with the publication so far but is memorable and doesn't become compromised by the design?

Research into Imagery:

My 2020 in Data (So Far)

Giorgia Lupi documents her life during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown in a data visualization for ‘The New York Times.’ https://www.pentagram.com/work/my-2020-in-data-so-far/story

The hand-drawn visualization is a personal timeline that tracks the “last” time Giorgia did something before the pandemic hit, and the “first” time she did something new as she started to emerge from lockdown.

• Representing personal experience through data, less typical.
  - Visual aesthetic is hand drawn, mimics that personal exploration into the year well.
  - This wouldn't be appropriate for my topic, however the vibrant colours and unique representation of data could be something to consider.
  - Think back to research on 'visual embellishment' and how this impacts the memory, how do I want the audience to remember this information?
  
  

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Research into Navigation:

London College of Communication - Wayfinding Solution

https://www.pentagram.com/work/london-college-of-communication/story

• Of course this is navigation within a physical space and my project is looking more at the navigation within a book but there are interesting aspects that can be drawn from wayfinding design.
  
• Simplicity of type is extremely effective, able to be seen from far away but also up close.
  
• Colour to separate sections, this is really effective as colour isolates the rooms into different sections of the building.
  - Can easily develop a mental representation and correlate colour to space. This is what I'm wanting to achieve within my publication. 
  - Use of colour within the text to assist the audience in developing a mental map of book, allowing them to navigate the publication as easily as they would a building. 

NYC Subway Design 

Massimo Vignelli “reimagined the MTA New York City Transit subway system as a neat grid of colored lines surrounded by a beige ocean.”

• The system has to be so recognisable, easy to navigate due to its simplicity.
  - Colour to indicate the lines, numbers and letters for stops, instantly understood by those who use the subway and able to be understood by those new to the system.
  
• The map presents the city not in a geographically accurate way (distances aren't to scale) but this is to allow the user to see stops in relation to each other easily. Same as london underground. 
  - Think about this when redesigning graphs within publication, don't just think about what is accurate but think about how the audience is going to understand it from my design choices.
• Think of navigation book like navigating space.

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PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS:

Wanting to make this more visually interesting. 
Colour works well, keeps the attention of the audience, 'in other words, colour has the potential to increase chances of environmental stimuli to be encoded, stored, and retrieved successfully' (Dzulkifli and Mustafar, 2013).

Idea of using icon, the graph mentions the length in cars, this could be an idea:

• Using the cars as a measurement
• Gives people a visual to connect the information to, making it less passive.
  - However isn't the most visually interesting, I doubt anyone has seen 24 cars lined up end to end. 
  - May be worth trying to find other representations that might resonate more with the audience. 
• Has the same issue of being really long and thin
  - need to see how this fits on the page.

In text:

- In text looks odd, similar to the original due to the aspect ratio.

- Another format could be more appropriate.

- When in text with the rest of the imagery, it stands out as it's not like other imagery used, it's minimal and also a little childish with the use of cars. 

Making a more simple design:

• More minimal, similar to the original but with the typeface used within the text, makes it more cohesive as a visual.

• In text fits nicely, the aspect ratio allows it to fit better within the page. 
• Hierarchy within the text is good, stong, with use of bold and large/small type.