My infographic as of today...
The large text boxes aren't working... so maybe just keep the portion "UNITED STATES, 1927" within the map, kind of how they are now, and pull out the subtext to the sides of the map, so they curve around the edge of the globe, connected to each corresponding icon with a line or cross stitch dotted element or something.
The floral pattern I have in the background is too contained and bland right now, it's losing the 'real' quality when it was brought into the digital realm. To start, helping it by getting rid of all my vectored line work would make it feel incredibly less 'digitized'.
Instead of vectored outlines, I'm thinking of doing a cross stitch pattern by hand, and scanning it in to apply it to my infographic, including all of the doors and window elements I had in my paper prototype. I'm thinking that would soften up all those hard lines I had with the vectors, and make it feel ultimately grandma.
Then I think I need to add more contrast somehow to my icons, since they are being lost in my map at the moment. Either bring in some white into the icons somehow, or or allow the map portion to become a new and different color palette, like blue, to add a differentiation against my icons.
I'm also thinking about adding in more collage elements into each room, like furniture, rugs, etc, and bringing in pattern into the "yard" areas of the map. I really need to be working more by hand at this moment, and allow myself to have fun and experiment, so I arrive at something more comprehensive.
2 comments:
Good analysis. Yes, more variation, more hand throughout.
The pattern is all the same for each "country/room"? I suggest you mix and match those too.
Now where does this "map/house" reside on the page? It's just floating and centered? Needs figure/ground relation, needs some elements to root it on the page. Pulling your text out and structuring around can help.
First off, let me just say that I am very impressed with your development on your infographic this far. Your great digital documentation is interesting to read and examine. I read your body text and didnt find anything grammatically wrong with it. Your paragraphs are similar in length and offer the same amount of information consistently throughout each icon.
The labeling of when and where for each icons seems to work, but the info for the teacup- "Japan- Late 1500's" stands out because instead of just listing the years or the era (bc & ad) you used the word "late". I think you could leave that out and just make it say, Japan- 1500's.
I think the text boxes should be outside your floorplan because the way it is right now, isnt working correctly. i like the cross stitch idea to connect the boxes to the icons. But i dont know if by bringing the paragraphs outside the map will make them feel too much like separate elements. Try it out and see if it makes the overall feeling way too horizontal and long. That may be a problem, maybe not.
As far as your infographic's overall appearance, I do think you have ideas to lead u in a better direction. Right now, the icons are lost i the map. Instead of using color behind your icon shapes, make it white. That way, the icons will pop, seeing as though you have no other white in your infographic.
Also, I think you should revisit your color pallett. Not remake, but revisit. It works, but there are a couple things a lil off. I understand you are making it look like an old grandmas house, but I think a soft blue would be excellent for the background color around your house/floor plan. It would obviously represent an ocean and add context to your infographic's legibility from further away.
The floral pattern with a soft transparency color change in each room isnt working well enough. Maybe have a different type of pattern in some of the rooms. In a house, the rooms arent all decorated the same! They dont all have the same floor material, which is how your infographic is being read. At first, the map of the world didn't jump out at me. I think its because you connected the house as a single element, which is totally necessary, but as far as a world map goes, it through me off because i know that a map is separated into continents. In your blog, you said that you think from far away it looks like a map and up close, with a smaller read, you can tell that it is a house floor plan. I think its the opposite! When you see it from far, the current colors and layout makes it pop as a floor plan. After zooming in and reading the text details indicating the different rooms and fun puns on the ocean names, I fully realized your infographic's double meaning. Great idea btw, now just tweak it a lil to make it work! You are using a curved shape to contain the infographic, which is smart, but by adding a blue color to the background, i think it will help tremendously. Maybe not. Just try it out!
Hope this helped you some, its just hard to give you advice when you seem to have so many great ideas and progress so far. Good luck! Cant wait to see it tomorrow!
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