Project. Timeline: Type in Information Design
Purpose. This project is designed for third-year graphic design students.
The objective is to learn research methodologies, collect data
on the subject of choice, analyze, and represent. The representation
process fosters discovery of relationships between form (representation:
iconic [photographic], symbolic [typographic] or indexical [combination
of type and image]), and meaning (idea: thought, impression, belief,
objective, concept, etc.). The emphasis is on clarity, accessibility,
legibility, interactivity, mobility, fun, and expandability.
Assignment.
1. Comparative Timeline
Working with a timeline as a central organizing principle, students
research interesting information and communicate unusual relationships.
(For example, the correlation of women's hemlines with the ups
and downs of the New York Stock Exchange during past years.)
Students
investigate and collect data and relevant images. They analyze
the smallest parts one by one, striving with each successive
evaluation
to choose the one design alternative that will equal or surpass
in quality the choices made before. They assemble the best small
parts,
carefully unit by unit, until they arrive at a final product representing
numerous static strategic communication decisions. This process
frequently stuns students, as it becomes clear that the result
is greater than
the sum of the chosen parts.
2. Simple Timeline
Working with a timeline as a central organizing principle, students
research interesting information that coveys unusual information.
(For example, the life span of the Monarch butterfly.) Students
follow a similar design process as identified in 1.
3. Family (or Organizational)
Tree
This assignment investigates formal information design theory by
examining way finding — an architectural methodology — applied
in an information design process. The focus is on navigation through
information environments. Richard Saul Wurman’s theory of
information architecture and the concrete relationships of family
or organizational
structures helps students comprehend the basic principle of strategic
dynamic communication vehicles (such as web sites) that they will
be using in future class assignments.
Format. Appropriate to content
and interaction.
Time. 8 weeks, 2 days
a week, 3 hours a day.
Totaling 48 hours class work. |
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