Process BookNolan King

BackgroundThe intention of this set of projects was to relate some idea or ideas of water into a graphic system to inform a viewer, more commonly known as info graphics or visual mapping. This visual mapping took on two different criteria for the first two projects, then combined the systems that they established into an atlas or reference book.

The over-arching idea of water that my projects tackled was fountains, particularly the history of different significant fountains. This idea rose through my study of water, detailed in later pages, and developed in my interest of history. History has always been something that has facinated me. It tells us not only how and why things were done a certain way, but offers the opportunity to use the same systems and ideas to influence our own.

Knowing that so many things can be influencial to different people, I had to somehow narrow down from countless fountains which were to be included. After much research, I was able to find 25 fountains that were significant more so than the rest. After continuing this research, it was evident that I needed to include the Roman Aqueducts due to the fact that they end up supplying the water to most of the fountains included.

The aesthetic style that I wanted create was one of a clean, systematic nature which read easily, but also warrented some study. I also wanted children to be able to immerse themselves into the images with bright colors and intriguing forms, much as I found myself doing as a child.

Background

The first project tackled the idea of mapping quantitative information, or factual information. Keeping the history of these fountains in mind, I wanted to relay where in the world each of these fountains were placed geographically, but also where in history they are found. The biggest issue I had to start, how would everyone know what fountain I am talking about and remember what it looks like. The icon system I created became the easiest way to inform the viewer of the basic look of the fountain without having 26 photographs on a page also allowing for the bright colors.

The second project devoted itself to qualitative information, or information that it more or less opinion based rather than factually based. After struggling to find what historical, factual information of fountains could possibly allow for any opinion, I thought back to how I found and included each of these fountains. I had formed some sort of way of saying one was better than another. This coupled with my thoughts toward a reason of why each fountain was built made my second project much easier than I had originally thought it would be.

The final culmination of both projects and all information I had researched was put together into a book. This is something I hope can inform people and inspire them in the same way that large, image driven history books drove and inspired me and my brother growing up.

Background

StudyTo start, I chose 5 major categories by which to find relating images to water. It was through this process that I became interested fountains. A major aspect of this was the historical placement of the fountains as well as the shape and function. Why was it that fountains once served to bring water and life to a city, but now are used only as displays of wealth? And where did this shift occur?

Link to Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/52928433@N06/sets/

I began to create a web of what were possible options for taking my interest in fountains and history.

Study

Study

History page. One major area I went.

Entertainment page. Another major area I went.

From here I began collecting my data. Seeing the major time periods that fountains fell into (Ancient, Renaissance, Baroque), I wanted to find a way to layer this information into my map.

Study

IconsKnowing that I wanted to symbolize each fountain by its shape, I thought it would be easiest to lay these icons onto each foutain’s city on the map. However, it became clear that Europe is much too small and Rome and Paris have too many historically significant foutains for this to work.

Collection of all the icons. Each were traced using the pen tool in Illustrator from photographs with the appropriate angles.

Close up of the Trevi Fountain with greater detail.

One version of how to dealwith crowding.

Icons

ColorThe choice of having the faded gray map on a black background was something I had in mind from the start, so there wasn’t a whole lot of study done into that. In order to have the icons and dots stand out from this they needed to be colorful and bright. This was originally something just assigned arbitrarily, but the confusion of what was where and similar colors needed clarity. It was here that I was able to assign a color family to each period and relay more information in through color.

Color

Color

After doing a test print it was evident that my gray at 95% was too dark and did not stand out enought to be noticable from the black background. I took it down to 90% and that was much better, being able to stand out from the background. but still not above the colors.

Project 1Quantitative

LayoutA format for layout was never clear. The map was to always be the focal point in size and then the timeline and color would stand out in color. However, how to configure these and on what size of page changed many times.

First iteration of layout. Side panels would be flaps over the center map.

Layout

First iteration of layout. Side panels would be flaps over the center map.

Second iteration of layout. This began to feel too condensed and wasn’t giving the viewer enough information on the fountains.

Islamic

Renaissance Baroque

Mughal

Modern

Contemporary

Ancient Medieval

0100BC200BC300BC400BC500BC 400300200100 16001500140013001200 2000190018001700

Islamic

Renaissance Baroque

Mughal

Modern

Contemporary

Ancient Medieval

0100BC200BC300BC400BC500BC 400300200100 16001500140013001200 2000190018001700

Islamic

Renaissance Baroque

Mughal

Modern

Contemporary

Ancient Medieval

0100BC200BC300BC400BC500BC 400300200100 16001500140013001200 2000190018001700

Islamic

Renaissance Baroque

Mughal

Modern

Contemporary

Ancient Medieval

0100BC200BC300BC400BC500BC 400300200100 16001500140013001200 2000190018001700

Layout

Third iteration of layout. Icons would be placed under title. Side panels would be a card to put names to fountains and give more information.

Layout

While relaying historical information, I wanted the map to feel very modern. Knowing that a lot can be said through just the typeface that is used, choosing the right one was critical. I did a study of slab and sans-serif fonts that gave off the best vibe I was aiming towards. In the end Maven Pro Light was chosen due to its variation in weights as well as a slight distinguishability that wasn’t distracting.

Choosing the best title was a little tricky. How do you say one fountain is more significant than another? Eventually the ‘Some’ would be dropped from the title.

Type

Type

TimelineThe timeline was rather straight forward. I created a grid to ensure that visually time represented the longevity of each fountain. A break was inserted to cover approximately 800 years on the timeline. The circular timeline was added to show how the periods fell in history. Starting in the center and moving outwards, it shows which time period fed into the next. I want this to also show volume of fountains made during these times in thickness of the circles as well.

Besides looking cool and filling space, this feature became one of my favorite parts of the whole map. The idea came at the last minute, but it flowed easily and became that last piece to the puzzle that slides into place.

Timeline

Project 2Qualitative

Graph

Graph

Wanting to sort the fountains into categories of their original intention for being built, a venn diagram seemed like the best plan of action. I started planning out what it would look like by sorting the fountains first into the four categories. Noticing that some areas were not filled at all, I wanted to make sure that they were minimized as much as possible on the graph.

Graph

Working out the sizes for each circle for the venn was a challenge. Particularly with the ones that just had information in the overlapping sections, I needed them to be large enough where they overlapped, but smaller in the areas where there is no information at all. Also figuring out the coloring and opacity for the circles was something that was hard to work out. I didn’t want to stray too far from the gray of the continents in the first project, but there needed to be variation to differentiate the circles.

Graph

As I continued to play with the venn, I realized I needed another system. The venn wasn’t ordering the information quite the way I wanted and felt a little clunky. Doing some research I found several line charts that were more beautiful in form and felt like they fit the system I had set up much better. Switching from the icons to simple color bars also helped the clean feeling that I wanted to achieve.

Graph

The color of the lines felt much more appropriate to have a large variation in color due to their much smaller size. They didn’t overtake the color system of the fountains as much as the circles would have. Not to mention the curves of the lines are extremely visually appealing.

Grading

Grading

I knew going into this section that I wanted a grading system of some sort, but wasn’t sure how to come about it. I began by taking each of the four categories and gave each fountain a grade of 1-10 in each. Zero’s were given in the areas where the fountain’s orginal intent did not fit. From there, I gave each category a weight to show that a utiliarian purpose was much more important than an aestheic one.

Grading

After creating this system, I took the top ten scores and put them into a bar graph going in a circle to reference back to the circle chart in Project 1. Knowing that there would be questions on my system of grading, I also decided to create a break down for one of the grades, showing the math that went into determing it.

Layout

Layout

Originally with the venn diagram as my man focus, I had that take center page. However with the empty circles, I thought that there was too much unusable space on the left side and that the right side could use more room.

Moving the venn all the way to the left was more visually interesting, having circles going off the page. There was still a problem with the empty space within the venn and too much chaos in the order of the fountains. Unfortunately, I felt that there was no ‘clean’ solution to the ordering of the icons within the venn and changed graph types completely.

Layout

Changing my graph type led to more open space to place other objects and graphs, which I liked. Originally I wanted the title in the upper right hand corner, to juxtapose the first project.

After mapping the lines and finishing my bar graph, I felt the title needed to move below the line graph, due to the large open space. The body text placement fell into place, but still left too much open areas, considering the tightness of the first project. After seeing this, I added the grading breakdown element to help fill the space.

Project 3Compilation

Spreads

Spreads

Laying out the spreads for the individual fountains was the first thing that I tackled. The grid I set up gave me loose guidelines by which I designed, though I did break them for certain features, such as the vertical placement of the title.

Setting up tabs on either side of the spread allows for readers to quickly find the section they are looking for based on the color of the page. It also adds more of the fountains assigned color to the spread to reenforce the relationship in the readers mind.

Spreads

Having a problem with some of the longer named fountains coming too close to the icon, I had to scale down the size of the titles. In the end, it allows for more space all the way around in a busy spread.

Projects

Projects

Breaking up the Projects, the idea was to give each major element its own page. The spreads felt spacious at times, but the black space really gave the color more pop. The Styles spread recieved the biggest overhaul, with the pipes weaving in and out of the paragraphs on the page.

Projects

TOC

TOC

TOC

The Table of Contents was the most experimental part of the book that wasn’t already designed. Originally I had it all on one page, but as I added more content, I felt it needed to fill a whole spread. This also allowed the lines leading to the colors to expand and be seen rather than cramped on the side. The bar is meant to be reminicent of the individual fountains tabs.