“The reduction of the number of visual elements used and their incorporation in a grid system creates a sense of compact planning, intelligibility and clarity, and suggests orderliness of design. The orderliness lends added credibility to the information and induces confidence.” Josef Müller-Brockmann. (Ambrose & Harris, 2005, pp 53) The use of grid systems in…
Category: Archived Masters Degree
“Words divide, images unite” – Isotype
Otto Neurath states “words divide, images unite”. He discovered that he only way to escape the inherent limits of language was through mathematics, including the mathematics used to represent logic and choice, such as Boolean algebra. Such an approach dovetailed with Neurath’s ideas for presenting social and economic truths in numerical, graphic form. (Patton, P….
Instructions
“Sequentially ordered steps are the centerpiece of a set of instructions, and they typically take up much of the space in the document.” (Johnson-Sheehan, 2007) Instructions are used to assist people perform a certain task. Manufacturers tend to make these multilingual to ensure a wider audience understands the task. This is important not only for…
Sequential Images
Air Line Safety: Air Line safety cards are used to communicate to the public how to safely deal with an emergency while on the plane. These tend to communicate via sequential images without the use of text as the audience is likely to be international. Examples of an air line safety cards: Figure 1: Easyjet…
Communicating to the public…
I plan to work on projects for the community, which consists of minimalistic visual ways of communicating to the public. I plan to focus more on minimalistic symbols/illustrations, which have little (if any) use of words…and possibly focus on multilingual ways of communicating. My initial thoughts of multilingual communications are: Safety posters / Warnings Flight…
Reflective Statement
Upon beginning my research and enquiry module there was one certainty that I had – my main focus was the exploration of my keyword minimalism. When tackling a design project it could be argued that it is important to have a clear idea and focus of your end goal. Having this perception myself I found…
Design is Play
The video ‘Great design is serious (not solemn)’ where Paula Scher explains design as ‘serious play’ and ‘solemn play’. She explains that ‘serious’ design is spontaneous and possibly ‘the first of its kind’ because it encourages invention but not perfection, whereas ‘solemn’ design is socially correct, perfect and common. Scher also states that it is…
Ambiguous Design
My designs can be seen as ambiguous as the symbol lacks clearness or definiteness in the dark sections (dictionary.com, 2013), therefore I wanted to look further into Ambuguity within art and design to see if I can develop this perspective further. With ambiguous design I feel it is very important to get it right because…
Reductionism to Abstract Shapes
Looking at the reductionism perceptive, the representation of the cyclists in my design can be seen as reductionism to abstract shapes because instead of using a detailed illustration of the bicycle and the cyclist I have reduced the shapes to the ‘bare essentials’. Reductionism was developed by the De Stijl Movement, which was formed in…
Katie's Thinking Space 