Project 3: Icons

Project 3: Project Statement

Kubota Garden Project Statement
Design Team Tokuzato & Holmes

Kubota Garden is a twenty acre park located in the Rainier Beach neighborhood of Seattle. It was pioneered by Fujitaro Kubota, who built a successful gardening business in the 1920’s. The Kubota family generously granted the public access to visit the beautiful garden featuring waterfalls, steams, ponds, rock gardens, and an expansive collection of plants.

Visitors to the garden have increased over time, which is now owned by the City of Seattle and maintained by the parks department. Seattle Parks Department is looking to update the wayfinding signage in the park. The goal is to enhance the user experience of the Garden by highlighting all that the park has to offer.

The Kubota Garden will be featured in a campaign to showcase Seattle area Gardens and Parks to visiting tourists. The wayfinding project is planned in advance of the campaign to prepare the Garden for increased traffic in the summer of 2010.

The target audience is older audits of varied ethnical back grounds. The Japanese manner of the garden should be maintained in the signage. Thought should be taken to accommodate people with limited sight.

Fresh Fish Design, of Seattle, has been hired to redesign the wayfinding signage. The final presentation in due December 15, 2009, and should be printed at 300 dpi on 11x17 paper. The design team should document the design detail to be manufactured by the Seattle Parks Department.

Week8: Reading Homework (Chapter 6)

1. Summary of information, topics covered
Chapter 6 talks about the information graphics case studies of Alejandro Tumas, The New York Times, Funnel Incorporated, White Rhino, Nigel Holmes, and The Wall Street Journal. Humans are visual learner. Info-graphics is turning something complicated into a clear, appealing, explanatory diagrammatic, and to five audiences a better understanding of information. You have to have good information to make effective info-graphics and it could help to start with more information than you would need to create it. A Whiteboard sketch gives the client something to react to, and allows them the opportunity for everyone to agree in the end. Good info-graphics tell the story with as little words as possible and helps people to read. It is important to pay attention to the use of colors and typography. You need to know the subject and have a desire to be a good designer. Complicated finance fields often hire someone who has background in finance, math, economics, or journalism to teach them to create an information design.

2. Two links germaine to topics covered
http://blogof.francescomugnai.com/2009/04/50-great-examples-of-infographics/
Here you can find a lot of good examples of infographics including some example we have seen in the class. You can see the how they create good images with text, use of colors, and kind of information other designers use.

http://flowingdata.com/2009/03/13/27-visualizations-and-infographics-to-understand-the-financial-crisis/
The website give you 27 visualizations and infographics to understand the financial crisis.

http://www.nigelholmes.com/
This is a website of Nigel Holmes who is one of the designer in the chapter 6. Here you can see some of his motion graphics, diagrams, charts, maps, and other information of him.

Project 3

Team Kayano and Laurie,

Laurie and I are proposing an improved way finding system for the Kubota Garden in South Seattle. The project will consist of new icons, improved map with garden areas differentiated in color, and trail signage.

Week7: Reading Homework (Chapter 8)

1. Summary of information, topics covered.
In Chapter 8 it talks about the wayfinding system for effective environmental design with some case studies for reference. Templates can give a structure to help viewers deal with information. It is important to use consistent and literate signs, and you have to address any exceptions. Viewers won’t stay interested if there is long text, but images can help keep their attention. Interactive information is also great options to get the attention of people and give good information. When you are creating the system, you have to have the big picture and see situations in sequence. Symbols need to be self-explanatory. Color is one of best tools to attract the viewer’s attention and show hierarchy. Creating some storyboard scenarios to see how some people would navigate the area would help designers to create a wayfinding system better because it is all about user experiences. The audience is usually very diverse, and the design should appeal to all of them. Environmental design could involve with a complex team but at the end of the project members have to agree to the final goal. Photos can help the design to be more emotional and to better speak to audiences.

2. Two links germaine to topics covered.

http://www.fd2s.com/work/

You can find a lot of projects of wayfinding here, and there are some examples of what this company offer as wayfinding and environmental graphic design that give you good ideas for the project 3.

http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/symbol-signs

This is one of the pages from AIGA site that talks about symbol signs. The symbols could guide people to find their way, and the page has some of the symbols used internationally and you could download them too.

3. Five potential clients for Project 3

1.Kubota Garden

Images of the garden

Idea site for sings:

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=和風%E3%80%80サイン&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Sign Board:

http://3219.cc/img_server/co_img1/plusmarks/user/2009/m_pka3.jpg

Map:

http://www.library.pref.nara.jp/gallery/ezu/map/img/map009.jpg

http://blogimg.goo.ne.jp/user_image/0d/e6/86f72c3cbfb2c13e2090042f22de7982.jpg

http://www.k4.dion.ne.jp/~skipio/04Kyoto/clip_ninna001map.jpg

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.lib.kagawa-u.ac.jp/www1/kambara/tenji2006/12-35.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.lib.kagawa-u.ac.jp/www1/kambara/tenji2006/2006-7.html&usg=__GkM_l7z8p_TjSt-Glq6oUlLIBRs=&h=440&w=463&sz=34&hl=en&start=182&um=1&tbnid=tqWDE9cCqodJMM:&tbnh=122&tbnw=128&prev=/images?q%3D%25E6%2597%25A5%25E6%259C%25AC%25E5%259C%25B0%25E5%259B%25B3%25E3%2580%2580%25E5%258F%25A4%25E3%2581%2584%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN%26start%3D180%26um%3D1

http://www.library.pref.gifu.jp/map/kochizu/data/02.html

2.Woodland Park Zoo
3.Art Institute of Seattle
4.West Seattle Junction:
http://www.westseattle.com/site/maps/businessdistrict.asp?area=The+Junction
http://wsjunction.org/
http://westseattleblog.com/blog/

5. Seattle Aquarium

Week6: Reading Homework (Chapter 5)

1. Summary of information, topics covered

Chapter 5 talks about how the most effective information designs in print should send a clear communication to audiences. Its topics are Carbone Smolan Agency, Smart Design, Addison, Pentagram Design, And Partners, and Simon & Goetz Design for case studies. It is very important to understand capital. The packaging of products and their labels need to be modern, but easy to understand and reflect the price of the product, saving spaces at retail stores when products are out side of the box, and give the consumer good information. Too much complicated text is hard to understand, it is clearer when you use plain English and typography. You could use different sizes, colors, and other styles to main information to create hierarchy. Grids also help to uniform and clarify the information. Simple geometric images catch the viewer’s attention easily. Visual information is a product that can show the emotions that appeal viewers.

2. Two links germaine to topics covered

http://www.designbygrid.com/

This website has a lot of examples, articles, tutorials, and resources of grid designs. One of the article from this website shows good examples of grid layout that show how effective grids are to unify and separate information.

http://www.designtaxi.com/article.php?article_id=418

This page talks about including emotions into the design. The emotions that are involuve a relationship are short, and personal add aesthetics, usability, and reflection to the design.

Project 2: Project Statement

Project Statement

Company.
U.S. Census Bureau is part of U.S. Department of Commerce. The Census data reflects the growth of the population as well as the changing values and interests of the American people.

Problem
The current U.S. Census website has spreadsheet fast facts but is not attractive and old fashion. It needs to provide some visual information for the audience so they can read this information more efficiently.

Opportunity
We can create a world map with fill colors that show the population change, and make the information design interactive in Flash.

Solution
The design should be simple so a broader range of the audience can understand the information. For example, the grayscale shows a decrease of population, and the reds show an increasing of the population. Usage of the map and interactivity to narrow the map into regions gives the audience a better understanding of the information. The website will be interactive using Flash, to give the audience more detailed information, but it can easily be transferred to a print format because of the simplicity.