info-graphic

I chose to do my info graphic on Twin Atlantic. Being the only band I've seen live more than once and knowing Ross (the bassist, and his sister Lucy for many years) it seemed an obvious choice.
After spending too long looking at facts, figures, information and statistics and not coming up with any decent ideas, I decided to re-search the bands fans myself. I started by looking on fans Facebook pages and trying to find things they had in common that related to the band.
After reading an article about Twin Atlantic, this quote really stuck out:
"fans are already showing up at gigs with their logo and lyrics tattooed to their bodies."
So I looking at a few profiles and noticed the amount of tattoos their fans have, not only this, but the amount of lyrical quote tattoos the fans have too. In particular, twin Atlantic lyrical quotes.
I then started to note the actual quotes and the amount of fans I found with these particular tattoos.
When it came to actually designing my info graphic, it seemed most fitting to use a map of the UK, because the fans profiles I viewed were all from UK. I wanted to make my info graphic really typographic (using different script fonts) to get across the style of the tattoos and the feeling of rock/grunge that the fans seemed to have.
I also decided to take note of the fans ages and genders and where in the UK they are from. Having gathered this information I then created the key. For the text outside the map I wanted to use a font that would relate to the band, therefore linking the band and fans. So I chose a loosely kerned sans serif font with a tall cap height (similar font used for Twin Atlantic's logo and on Cd's/merchandise)
I decided to include the banner at the top to highlight the "fans tattooed" because the banner style reminds me of old English style, relating back to the style of the old map and tattoos.
For the guitars in the "age" section of the key, I tried to use the idea of different styles of guitars that relate to different age groups, the acoustic being the youngest, the flying v the teenagers/20's (most popular) and the Les Paul to indicate the 40+ age group. Overall my info graphic design was aimed to be mainly typographic (because I prefer the look of type than charts or graphs)

Info graphics

In terms of understanding, this info graphic, it uses far too much text to convey information. For me the clear focus is the illustrations and the text is an afterthought. The only parts for me that are easy to understand are the Top section with the glasses. I’m not sure if this is because there is clear hierarchy here (the percentages) or because the text itself is larger therefore stands out more? My eyes are immediately drawn to the illustrations, although only 2 of 5 of them are easy to understand on first glance rather than reading the small text.
From looking at the info graphic and not reading all the small print, the only thing I was able to learn was the per cent of women (much more) compared to men working as librarians. Also the per cent of librarians at different ages was easy to understand too- both due to use of illustrations to help me learn.
The designer targets and engages the user (people who read a lot/librarians themselves) by using mainly text to convey information. The use of the serif font may be deliberate to convey classical style associated with older books and the sans serif used to convey more modern style (aimed at younger people) The relationship between the user and the designer is important too because the designer has purposely designed the info graphic to look the style of a book/ the style a librarian would be interested in.
The format of the design is an online graphic and the designer has used space quite badly I think. There is far too much text included in the info graphic and not enough space and images (appropriate for target audience but difficult to understand at a glance) There is no clear hierarchy (only 2 fonts used) and the size and weight doesn’t vary greatly. There should definitely be more space used throughout the design to break up the information a bit.
Typography is used to communicate meaning because the difference in serif and sans serifs used to convey older/classical style and the new/modern styles. Hierarchy is used well at the top of the poster and seems to get less obvious the further down the page.
Imagery is used to communicate meaning because the style of the glasses used in the illustration at the top are quite stereotypical of the age groups being analysed, therefore making it easy to understand at a glance. The images used are symbolic. The designers choice affects my understanding of the graphic mainly through imagery.
The same 4 colours are used throughout the info graphic and are quite muted and reserved (librarian style) The red stands out most for me and is confusing to distinguish between the red of the brain and the red of the female per cent of librarians at the bottom of page.
Type and imagery work quite badly together to communicate meaning -imagery communicates meaning over type. Although the meaning (librarian/classic style) is obvious, the type as a whole doesn’t really convey this.
The style of the illustrations is simple, yet effective. It’s good that the graphics are simple because it makes it easier to understand. There is no clear historical movement influence. But the design style is definitely simplified (stereotyped)
The design process would involve research – talking to librarians/questions/researching info graphics and their styles. Researching online (statistics from websites) human anatomy (brain), librarians style (stereotypes- glasses) The design concept was to be aimed at or appeal to librarians.

journey

Helvetica

I definitely enjoyed the movie about Helvetica. From watching it I learned that it is a Neo-grotesque sans serif, and modernist style. It derived from the Swiss style of the 1960’s and its original name was Akzidenz-grotesk. It was designed by Max Miedinger. The word “Helvetica” comes from the Latin word for Swiss.
It surprised me how often Helvetica is used in everyday life and how type has become such a big part of life that we hardly notice it anymore. It also surprised me that it’s still being used as often as ever, even though its 60 years old. It seems to be timeless.
It made me laugh the way each of the designers analyzed Helvetica. Some of them slatted it, saying it has only a few uses. Some of them found it funny how often it’s used and how it can seem to be adapted to fit many different styles/circumstances/situations.
I discovered a few designers during watching this movie, some of which I already knew and some of which I didn’t but would like to know more about.
-Mathew Carter
- Eduard Hoffman
- Herman Zapf
- David Carson
- Neville Brody
- Michael C. Place
and Push-Pin studios.
The designers speaking in the film, some of them went into great detail about the technical analysis of the font but most of them spoke about its emotional meanings/connotations. For example, how Helvetica, like most fonts has a rhythm to it, much like handwriting. How it’s a neutral font and can be used for many different things to communicate different meanings/emotions. How it’s almost a default typeface (Arial default on pc’s – Helvetica copy) How it’s the most commonly used typeface (ultimate typeface) and how people keep looking for ways to improve it or make it better, but there are none. It was also mentioned that it’s used a lot on street signs and how it’s not as legible as other fonts (maybe serif fonts?) but it’s used anyway because its recognisable and looks nice.
It was also described as a font that commands the reader – anything that is typed in Helvetica feels like an order. Helvetica was also mentioned as having personality, like most fonts, it portrays feelings and is beautiful by itself (type as design).
Clearly a great deal of thought had been put into the design of how the font would look on paper, how the counters (negative spaces) would look. The horizontal terminals. The contrast of thick and thin within different letters.
This movie has helped me to identify different aspects of type design to analyse if I were to speak about type in the future I would start by typographically analysing it and then look at its uses and meanings. I do agree that Helvetica in all weights is a beautiful font. I also agree that its timeless, has many different uses, its neutral and the font itself is a design. However, since listening to all the thoughts and views on it in the movie is has made me think that designers maybe just get lazy and know that Helvetica will most likely look good on their design/look modern/timeless, therefore spend less time looking into different fonts to use because  Helvetica is the most commonly used.
Since studying Graphic Design and type, I only recently because aware of  how often Helvetica is used in everday life, although before that I was aware of its existence I didn’t notice it as much as I do now.
I think now that I’ve learned so much about Helvetica, I’ll think twice before using the “default” font just because it in itself is a design, and maybe broaden by font choices, but still use similar style sans serif fonts.

That font sure is saucy

Getting Around

Font choice: All the fonts used in this parking meter sign are bold sans-serifs.
Font guess – Zurich bold? Possibly two slightly different fonts used between all the text on the right hand side and all the text on the left hand side?
The fonts have obviously been chosen so as to stand out to the reader and the important information is  clearly visible , although the majority of text (mainly the headers for each point down the right) are all in caps presumably to indicate hierarchy, but this is slightly confusing as to what has been made to be viewed first because so much of the text is in caps.

Information Hierarchy: Number 2 and 4 on the right haven’t been very well thought out, the designer could easily have made the font size the same for each and fitted the whole sentence on one line. Instead number 4 is a smaller font size than number 2 and spread over 2 lines this looks odd.
The “how-to” steps down the right are most noticeable to me, not only because the background is a bright colour, but because the type is aligned left (easiest to read/most common) and because the headings are bolder or have more weight than the text not in caps.

Usability: Considering this parking meter will mainly be used by people in a hurry and in the busy town centre (so that it doesn’t cost them too much for parking) its not very well laid out in terms of hierarchy at a glance. I would have said the most important information (therefore what to make stand out most) would have been either the times at which you can’t park or the prices for parking.
I also think for people viewing this quickly, the wording of “controlled hours” should maybe be changed to something else so that its more obvious that this is when you SHOULD pay.

If I were to re-design this parking meter to better suit to customers needs, It’d look something like this below. So that the controlled hours/price were more noticeable at a glance, and the step by step instructions were less noticeable (because its pretty self explanatory how to buy a ticket?)

gridsss



1 size of type & flush left alignment only



1 size of type, flush left and variable weights



vary the size of type but keep it flush left and one weight



anything goes