EmilyW.DR

Design Rationale

When I started thinking about what I could do for my final project, I wanted to do it about something I knew only a little about, but wanted to learn more. I decided to do it about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that occurred about a year ago now. I didn't know many details about this event before I started researching it. The only thing I knew was that it was a catastrophic tragedy that I probably should know more about. There was a plenty of quantifiable information that I could easily gather and by collecting and organizing that information so that it would be easy for other people to understand, I too gained a greater understanding of this unfortunate event.

In the beginning, I wanted to do my final piece about all of the oil spills that have occurred in or by fault of the U.S.A. I quickly learned that this was much too ambitious a task for the amount of time that we were provided to complete the project. After some good advice I decided to pick three pieces of information about these oil spills that I could represent together in miniature info graphics on one larger poster. I picked the environment, gallons spilled, and cost. As I started my research I found things in these categories that could've taken years to organize them all so then I decide to narrow my topic to the oil spill that was most recent and the largest yet: Deep Water Horizon BP. Through my research I found reliable sources that gave me a good base of information about the casualties, estimated gallons spilled per day, total gallons spilled per day, total area the oil slick spread, and information about the effects on wildlife. I decide to make a few different info graphics and combine them together to design one larger poster full of information about this spill.

I used a pretty neutral color palette because there is a lot of information packed onto the spread and I didn't want it to be overwhelming to look at. I used a lot of browns to reference oil and a lot of different shades and tints of yellowy orange to pull out the accent in the bp logo. I tried very hard to make good use of layering techniques using hue, saturation, value and also different typographical hierarchy techniques. Since I have a large amount of information represented in different ways, I think layering is the most important part of my design. There needs to be separation between all the elements of information while maintaining a sense of continuity as well. Color, font style, and graphic style hold this piece together and help the viewer process it all as one fluid information diagram. If I didn't use these elements, the information would start to fall apart and even though it's all related it would be hard to draw visual connections through the piece.

There are somethings that I would like to change but due to time restraints I will have to finish the project on my own after class. I would like to add a visual progression of the oil spill. It would be interesting to show how, over time, the oil slick moved and grew and drifted closer to shore on the surface of the ocean. The information and pictures on the 'Effects on Gulf of Mexico Marine Life' chart are taken almost directly from the National Wildlife Federation website so I would like to modify it more to make my own icons for the animals and change the information slightly so that it's not word for word. I might be able to fit it a little better too because right now the typography looks a bit tight.

Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill info graphic seems to be on its way towards success. My ultimate goal is to finish it and use it as a piece in my portfolio when I apply to jobs after the completion of this class because it's my last one! Finally. Woo Hooo!

Bibliography:

Rogers, Simon.."BP Oil Spill-Official Deepwater Horizon Disaster Timeline."datablog. Web 9 September 2010

Buczynski, Beth.. "Gulf Oil Spill-10 Horrifying Facts you Never Wanted to Know." The Environment and Wildlife Cause. Web 27 May 2010

NWF "How does the BP Oil Spill Impact Wildlife and Habitat?" Gulf Oil Disaster. Web 20 June 2011

Emily

Design Rationale

Rachel+H+R12

This is definitely the most in-depth artist statement I've read. The article states the artists inspiration, the thought process, the art making process, materials used etc. The author did a good job briefly explaining the Big Bang and how each component of the sculpture directly relates to the scientific data. I cannot even imagine the amount of research the artist must of conducted before taking on this massive challenge. I would think that explaining the sculptures in words to an audience, especially people unfamiliar with the details of the Big Bang, would be quite a difficult task as well. In this case, I believe it is absolutely necessary to have an artist statement with these sculptures, nobody would know otherwise all of the precise calculations and research that went into the pieces unless you tell people. The statement clarifies the artist's intent and gives the audience in-depth background knowledge that is vital to the understanding of the An End to Modernity.

EmilyW

Which one is better?

Specht_N R12

This article particularly struck me because of the artist's ability to take a complicated physics analysis about the big bang and turn it into a beautiful sculpture that visualized the unattainable. The task to create a distilled visual version of the creation of time and space and the resulting affects, and the amount of measurements and data that needed to be calculated for accuracy is mind-blowing. The use of the lamps to portray the life-cycle of the quasar's was affective because of the dimming and brightening of the lights to indicate movement through time. The choice to create chandelier like spherical structures that hang from the ceiling allows for the viewer to see the universe from an three-dimensional outside perspective. The use of glass pieces to represent outer galaxies is also interesting because of it's natural reflective surface. Much of the sculpture is made of reflective material, probably since we view objects in space as the light that has traveled through space.

JordanO_R05

There are a number of interesting suggestions made in this article from Tufte. I think some of the most interesting points come from the comparison between the old train schedule from New York to New Haven and the redesigned schedule that is on the next page. Tufte makes a lot of good points when he is talking about the old schedule and the wasted space that creates a great deal of empty paper. I am a firm believer that white space if used effectively will make you design stronger, and stand out more in the benefit of the designs context. In this case the white space is miss used and forces the rest of the information to be cramped into little columns that puts the legibility of this schedule in question. With these columns being so crowded already there is an over abundant amount of information stuck into them. There are 24 AM’s and PM’s as the author states and this is a great deal of over repeated information. I think the separation of these columns and information in them is the biggest mistake in the old version of the schedule. Related information is to far apart from each other making your eye create a lengthy visual line to find the related time. In relation to that there is another problem created when the information is pushed out to the edges of these columns. They create the visual appearance that the information on either side of the line is the information related to one another and not the information that is in the relating column. This is a visual trick and is easy fix as far as alignment goes.

When you take a look at the new version of this schedule you see a totally different style of table, and a much more effective one for that manner. You now have a clear distinction of which way you are traveling. Are you traveling from New York to New Haven or New Haven to New York? It is easy to distinguish which line you will be taking and where you are headed. The second difference that makes this much easier to read is the fact that the weekend and holidays section now has its own distinct column. The two categories have a separation now and are laid out in exactly the same way making them easy to understand and legible to the viewer. The loss of many of the rules greatly help reduce noise in this chart and keeps you moving down the information that you intend to find. The columns are now nicely space in relation to one another now. There is a clear distinction between departure and arrival and then the secondary column similar information relating to weekends and Holidays. I add that I think the typeface that they chose to use for this works great. A newspaper print typeface is a genius idea for compacted information.

There are many other great points to pull out of this article. I chose to primarily focus on one example being the train schedule. There are many great things just to be learned form dissecting this pocket schedule. I plan to keep these ideas in the back of my head and use them in future design pieces of mine. I also am now interested in finding more cool newspaper fonts such as this one. They might come in handy someday.

JordanO_R11

When dealing with the price of admission at museums there are a lot of things to be considered. The value of this experience is the most important aspect in my opinion. Will you be experiencing a top of the line, first class learning environment, or will you be walking through a run down piece of ancient history. A complete highly maintained museum environment is one that I would be willing to pay more for than one with broken exhibits or missing information.

In the case of the Milwaukee museums that we visited we experienced two very different environments. On one hand we went through the Milwaukee Public Museum. This mine as well have been a time capsule in it self. This museum has not been clearly renovated for quiet some time. There are a few newer exhibits that are poorly plopped in to this museum where they could find the space to fit them. The butterfly garden and the IMAX Theater are about the only modern looking aspects in this facility and everything else appeared to be very dated. The level of quality definitely faded as you moved up the stairs and the age of this museum really started to show. Information was displayed in a terrible manner and the types of information display were not cohesive in any manner. Maps were displayed in 3D, 2D, and in a variation of other forms somewhere in between. Typefaces were a mess as nothing seemed to be cohesive throughout the museum at all. The most disappointing thing is that some of the information seemed dated and in some cases has been removed for one reason or another and now stands incomplete.

This leads me over to the Discovery World museum at this point in time. I went there expecting a more interactive and up to date experience and that is surely what I got. Before I leave my last point of missing or disappearing information I will note that this was also the case in Discovery world. On a number of occasions the signs with the information about items on displays were completely missing. With that point set aside I hade a much more enjoyable experience at Discovery world. The exhibits were modern, and up to date. The information was relevant to modern history and the facility was new and felt more welcoming than MPM did. This would be the museum that I would choose hands down to take my children to someday when I have them. They will be lucky not to fall asleep in MPM. That is of course of they don’t close that building down in 10 years to remove all of the cobwebs and dust from their 60 year old displays. The design of this building was a bit confusing in the aspect that it was split into to sections that were not connected to each other, other than the main walk way and were very separated from one another. However the signage and exhibits had wonderful design and were much more legible and to the point that the ones at MPM. All of this leads me back to my point of the price of admission. I was able to get in free to MPM on the Monday that I went. I would gladly go to this museum for free anytime. When you are going to ask me to pay the same price of admission that I would pay at Discovery world you are going to loose me for sure, unless there is a reason I need to be at MPM. The only reason I was able to get in for free was the fact that I lived here in Milwaukee County.

In one more note about the reading. I think that the price of student admission should be free to little charge. This goes for all ages with proper identification. I find it surprising and yes, discriminating that they would only grant this admission to younger students in some countries. I am sure the same goes for various areas of the United States, but this needs to be fixed. The price of knowledge for those who truly seek it, deserve it at a price they can afford. A college student regardless of age is going to have finical restriction in most cases. Give the students a free admission once a year if anything. It would be a great service to any education system worldwide.