Introduction+Research:
A Series of projects including dashboard designs, a 2-part poster set, and a motion graphic. The main topic we were given was homelessness and from there we could focus in on a more specific subtopic of our choosing. This project started with group research where we collectively searched for resources that would help us when we started our individual projects. In addition we did an empathy exercise to help us better relate to our topic, as well as interviews with a homeless person or someone who has recently been homeless, an expert in homelessness, and someone from our intended audience.
After some initial research, our group decided to go with the topic of youth homelessness and sex trafficking with an intended audience of government workers that work with homeless youth. We then presented our findings. (Which was presented to you guys) and from there we broke off separately to do more individualized research and develop our system.
Dashboard:
A Dashboard is a snapshot of visual data. The goal of this part of the project was to create 4 cohesive screens for a tablet device that translates complex data and present it in a manner that’s quick to understand and that draws attention to the important information.
At this point I was still trying to come up with the visual system that I was going to use for all of the pieces. At this point I was still exploring, looking at creative ways to represent the data while still being easy to read and cohesive with the other pieces of information.
Poster:
The second part of this project was a 2-part poster set, the first poster was supposed to highlight the issues of homelessness. The second poster was to discuss what is currently being done regarding homelessness. We were asked to develop a narrative based on the information that we already collected from our research. We were to look at what information was standing out and if there were any common or repeating themes. After that we started in on our sketches for the posters, looking at the space and how we could visually represent our data in a way that went along with our visual narrative.
For this portion of the project there were so many things to consider. Not only looking at the data visualization and how that is represented, but also how that ties in with the illustrative part of the poster that help the viewer move through the intended narrative. There was a lot back and forth moving things and looking at visual hierarchy. There was also a great deal of data research that resulted in pieces of data that said a lot, but did not necessarily correlate with each other. There was a lot of struggle to find a balance between including data that I thought was important and having to constantly go back through my narrative and see if it really supports what I was trying to say.
Farther along in the process our group had a discussion about the potential to change our intended audience to better correlate with the information that we found in regards to sex trafficking. I decided to go ahead and switch my audience and research focus from a government worker to large businesses and their employees. This was reflected in the visual illustrations that I used which resulted in going more towards an office space.
Motion Graphic
For the final piece in this project we were to create a motion graphic based on our narrative using the tools we’ve already learned in After Effects. The goal was to use the content of the dashboard and posters to inform how we visually move through the story that we’re trying to tell.
Every piece was supposed to build off of each other. Taking elements from the previous and using them to create a visual system throughout all of the projects. However with the change in audience and how the visuals representation of the information was chosen during each stage, the visual look of my projects are very different and not cohesive. So this is a jumping off point to go back and reevaluate each part and really create a system that works within each medium of a dashboard, poster and motion graphic.
