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LMC 6399 Project 1 - Mapping Transitions and Border Crossings

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We explored the following concepts: What is a transition space? What does it mean to cross a border? How can a map tell a story? How do we capture the emotional and personal aspects to enhance the qualitative data we are presenting? 

We then worked to create a design that captured the individual experience and impressions of the transition from three different perspectives.

GETTING RAINED ON

The Sad Life of Students Without Umbrellas

Rain is an inconvenience when you have places to be and rely on walking to reach your destination. The goal of this project was to create a visual map of an individual's physical, emotional, and mental experience, from anticipating the first drop to accepting the deluge.

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The following case study is an account of the methodological approach we took to design this visual graphic series.

Final Design - Grace

Final Design - Grace

MEET THE TEAM

Transitions & Border-crossings Project 1

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GRACE A. HALVERSON

Origami Squirrel Crown

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CHRIS SUN

Ferrero Rocher Fascinator

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ALLISON CROCHET

Peter Pan Fun Hat

PROCESS

With very little instructions, my team met and brainstormed ideas throughout the weekend and compiled a list of 50 ideas on Google Docs (e.g., "Getting ready for bed", "Riding a roller coaster", etc.). We conducted several rounds of anonymous voting and after considering visual depiction of transitional concepts, we narrowed it down to "Getting Rained On".


At our weekly meeting we shared our initial sketches with each other and discussed their individual strengths and weaknesses. Our chosen three iterations were then transferred onto 11x11" sheets of paper. We chose to all use sharpie for its legibility and uniformity. 

Brainstorming Ideas on Google Docs

Some examples of our brainstorming on Google Docs

Crit 1 (by Row) - Grace, Allison, Chris

Critique 1 (by Row) - Grace, Allison, Chris

Initial Critique Highlights

During the first critique, I was surprised how graph-like my images appeared. While there was a transition, I realized I needed to focus more on the intentionality of my lines and what they expressed to a user and less on perfecting my marks.


Feedback Highlights below:


Strengths

  • Good sense of unity (choice of black)

  • Good use of lines

  • Sense of motion/transition

Areas to Improve

  • Narrative is not self-evident (too abstract)

  • Could strengthen transition

  • Needs more sense of personal involvement

During our second critique, our audience helped narrow down our most powerful iterations, which would eventually become our final design. Their reasoning included:

  • Heaviness that evoked feeling of falling/melting (motion)

  • Effectiveness of varying contour line weights

  • Relatability of word transitions (added illustration of emotion through word appearance)

  • Use of the ambiguous figure

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From there, we regrouped and pushed those iterations farther. I definitely preferred my melting blob drip as a reflection of my internal depression that comes with rain. For my final process, I played a lot with transforming the letters to better fit the emotion they represented; I wanted them to have a transition of their own. I considered having the drip melt off of the white square, but liked how it was trapped in a box - no escape from the misery.

Second Critique Highlights

Our team worked together to strengthen our preferred initial concept through more iterations. After reviewing more examples of "mapping", we agreed to maintain our more abstract portrayal instead of literal mapping to focus more heavily on the psychological rain-human relationship. We then decided to display our iterations vertically to illustrate the action of rain falling.

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Feedback Highlights below:

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Strengths

  • Title helps users understand concept

  • Change in layout strengthens presentation

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Areas of Improvement

  • Stay abstract - less stylistic cloud and uniform raindrops

Crit 2 (by Column) - Grace, Allison, Chris

Critique 2 (by column) - Grace, Allison, Chris

Final Critique (from Top to Bottom) - Allison, Grace, Chris

FINAL DESIGN

We valued good craftsmanship  and because not everyone in our team was confident in their mark making, we decided to recreate our chosen final designs with Adobe Illustrator. Additionally, I saw this project as an opportunity for me to gain some experience with Adobe programs and to learn from my peers.

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I struggled a lot with Illustrator, but with some good tips from Chris and Lynda.com I was able to produce something I was pleased with. I relied heavily on communication with my team through social media during this learning process. We were fortunate to have rain during the last few weeks of the project because that added experience really reinforced our ability to actively reflect on our design choices.We met one last time to conduct a final review (accountability) and to print. 

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For presentation, we discussed how our  pieces would best work together to map out the transition of Getting Rained On. We also were able to play with the ordering and appearance on the AI file art board. We started with Allison's representation of a physical rain drop, to my focus on the internal emotional journey, to Chris' focus on interactive relationship between rain and individual. The increasing density of our mark-making reinforced our decision to present our pieces vertically, to add weight to the human experience.

Critique 3 (top to bottom) - Allison, Grace, Chris

REFLECTION

I am used to working solo, so having to collaboratively design with people I barely knew seemed a daunting task. I came back to school to push myself, so I approached people whose hats (an earlier assignment) were completely different from mine. While we brainstormed and worked on our own iterations separately, we consistently met up for a few hours each week to work on this project. We brought different perspectives and skill sets to the table and I was really pleased by the results. 

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Chris was our resident Adobe Guru and he took the time to teach and assist us with our final design. I have experience with mounting images, so I shared that knowledge and skill with my teammates. Allison is witty and descriptive and her different way of portraying concepts like transitions and rain really pushed me to think more abstractly. 

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The main challenges were how to get started and how to present our different views in a unified way. We also struggled with creating marks that matched what we were envisioning. I am not a very emotional or abstract person, so digging more deeply into lines that could evoke an emotional response rather than a realistic depiction of a transition was difficult for me. 

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The quality time spent together definitely strengthened our project. Working together also revealed separate strengths and skills that we were able to share and teach. We held each other accountable and we acted as each other's sounding board for ideas, encouraging intent and pushing for greater depth. Meeting in a social place, like the second floor of the library, proved helpful. There, we were able to use white boards to scribble ideas and explanations, and we were surrounded by peers we could test the narrative on. 

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In conclusion, I was pleased by the collaborative experience and with our results. I can see why good design requires social interaction and communication. Additionally, I have a new appreciation for rain and getting drenched that I have never had before.

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