(B8) Social Media: Refining Spreads on Monitoring

Comments on yesterday's work form Peg:

Oh I like the ones with just loads of text, like the dates, they're really cool!

I think my one concern is that having photos of celebs faces makes it feel a bit too like a magazine, like Nick said if we're wanting it to be abstract I think we should really push the out of context style stuff.

But I think they're really strong and I love the first spread as well with the overlapping text!

Want to focus on these elements today.

GOOGLE TREND SPREADs: MONITORING

GENERAL SEARCH SPREAD:

Want to avoid things becoming too much like a magazine (like Peg said) thinking of ways to be more experimental with the layout and abstract with the visuals.

Personally I liked the numbering and referencing so could try and keep this in somewhere.

^Blurring the images, wanting things to be less obvious as to what they are.

This feels as though it relates more to censoring than monitoring, are these related? 

- Imagery could still be pushed further, and layout needs considering more as currently looks like the contents page of a publication. 

^Blur and inverted numbers

Makes things more ambiguous, but they look underdeveloped, the inverted numbers aren't adding to the page.

- Inverted colour could work well for the polarising section so keep on hand but don't use here. 

^Colour halftone effect to imagery

Thinking about the digital representation of physical print production.

Close ups on sections of the image so you can see how it's made, I think this would work for larger images.

What the issue is here is the spread, it's too clean and considered. Presenting the data in a way that is more representative of having lots of tabs open (since this is what I had to do to collect the information). 

Left:

The layout is much more representative of searching on the internet, having the images layered over the text add extra dimension to the pages.

Nothing is numbered on this side, does this work better than the numbered text? Not sure.

Right: 

Has the visual of referencing which is then furthered in the large numbers next to the imagery. 

I think this works well at adding in more layers to the content, could make the large numbers less obvious? 

Left: 

White large numbers with black outline, makes them less of a focal point on the page. Concerned about the legibility of the page, does having a full colour type prevent the audience from being able to understand the content?

Right: 

Having text as an outline only allows the audience to see more of the text in the background, feel like this is the most successful. Visually represents the concept well and is functionally most appropriate. 

(comment from peg: not sure those large numbers are needed?)

CELEBRITY FREQUENCY SPREAD:

The spread with data on was well received when it was presented in this format:

Like peg mentioned not having the celebrity faces helps keep the content abstract, so need to develop the layout without imagery.

What could I do to text? 

• Use typefaces that represent data (more digital typeface)
• For different celebrities use a different typeface
• Introduce colour to see the impact
• Could layer, play with opacity

^ Categorising dates and then pulling out the numbers

Using the contrasting colour to try and create more visual interest, but the spread is pretty boring, it doesn't grab attention or promote interest.

- Experiment with different typefaces. 

^ Left:

Single celebrity data

Right:

5 different celebrities data shown with different typefaces for each celebrity.

This feels much more successful, like how it has been organised into the calendar months so there is structure to the page but the audience has questions to answer still. What do the different typefaces mean? What relation do the numbers have to the dates? etc. 

- Could try experimenting with colour? 

^Using colour to further the separations between the element. 

 Brings the tone down to a less refined place, feel it becomes more of a distraction, the different typefaces is more effective, ore subtle. 

(comment from peg: I actually really like the block colours of the data too, it's ugly but kinda gives that digital appearance)

^ Working on the page, filled in all the content. 

- Really like the idea of highlighting when the celebrities hit their peak search frequency, adding to the theme of monitoring.

- Could then think about rabbit holes and research what happened on these dates? Make the next spread an informative page. 

Dates:

19th March 2020

5th April 2020 (x2)

19th April 2020

3rd May 2020

15th Nov 2020

(could look into these dates in different years? Really push the theme of rabbit hole)

Lots of info on wikipedia about the different dates (not year specific), also has births and deaths for the different years. 

- Not sure if having information about all years is relevant, but could be good to gather. 

Looking for information on the specific dates and it all very Covid related. Think something like this isn't most effective as all the content is the same, could do more of the things throughout history. 

19th March:

• 1279 A Mongolian victory at the naval Battle of Yamen ends the Song Dynasty in China

• 1644 200 members of Peking imperial family and court commit suicide in loyalty to the Emperor

• 1863 Confederate cruiser SS Georgiana destroyed on her maiden voyage with a cargo of munitions, and medicines then valued over $1,000,000. Wreck discovered exactly 102 years later by teenage diver and pioneer underwater archaeologist E. Lee Spence.

• 1920 US Senate rejects Treaty of Versailles for 2nd time refusing to ratify League of Nations' covenant (maintaining isolation policy)

• 1932 The Sydney Harbour Bridge is opened in Sydney, Australia

• 2003 Airstrikes by an American and British-led coalition signal the beginning of the Invasion of Iraq, without United Nations support and in defiance of world opinion

 

5th April:

• 1242 Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod defeats Teutonic Knights in the Battle of the Ice

• 1722 Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen discovers Easter Island / Rapa Nui in the southeastern Pacific

• 1818 In the Battle of Maipú, Chile's independence movement - led by Bernardo O'Higgins and José de San Martín - win a decisive victory over Spain, leaving 2,000 Spaniards and 1,000 Chilean patriots dead.

• 1847 Birkenhead Park, the first civic public park, opens in Birkenhead, England, designed by Joseph Paxton

• 1879 Chile declares war on Bolivia and Peru, starting the War of the Pacific.

 

19th April:

• 1770 British explorer Captain James Cook first sights Australia

• 1775 American Revolution begins in Lexington, Massachusetts. The "Shot Heard Round the World" took place in Concord later that day

• 1909 Joan of Arc receives beatification by the Roman Catholic Church

• 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Timothy McVeigh sets a truck bomb at Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 and injuring 500

• 2011 Fidel Castro resigns from the Communist Party of Cuba's central committee after 45 years of holding the title.

3rd May:

• 1791 Constitution of May 3 is proclaimed by the Great Sejm (Parliament) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, becoming the 1st modern constitution in Europe

• 1926 Britain's Trade Union Congress calls for the country's first ever general strike, begins at 1 minute to midnight in support striking coal miners, lasts 9 days

• 1937 Margaret Mitchell wins Pulitzer Prize for "Gone With the Wind"

• 1945 World War II: German ship "Cap Arcona" laden with prisoners sunk by Royal Air Force in East Sea, 5,800 killed - one of largest maritime losses of life

• 1947 Japan's post-war constitution goes into effect, granting universal suffrage, stripping Emperor Hirohito of all but symbolic power and outlawing Japan's right to make war

15th November:

• 1492 Christopher Columbus notes 1st recorded reference to tobacco

• 1884 European Colonization and trade in Africa is officially regulated at the international Berlin Conference, formalizing European powers "Scramble for Africa"

• 1904 King C. Gillette patents the Gillette razor blade

• 1948 Mackenzie King retires after 22 years as Prime Minister of Canada

• 1969 An estimated 2 million people take part in the Vietnam War Moratorium Demonstration across the United States

 

Think this idea has potential, and could work really nicely. 

Work more on this tomorrow, thinking about the visual language that's developing throughout this section.

- Play with type and layout for the right spread and start refining. 

Moving Forward:

• Focus on the digital side of the publication, some spreads becoming more focused on looking editorial than communicating the abstract concepts we're conveying.
  - Thinking back to creating a "portrait" of the person without depicting their face, using data instead.
• Do we need to develop new ways of presenting the same information? Having a difference between the pages.
• Think more conceptually about the work, research Trevor Paglen for more abstract representations of information.