Final university project grade = 1st!
Still in the apple store on Regent street. Single solitary tear just hit the keyboard. Not sure if that’s because I got a first, or because I will forever remember that I used a Mac to find it out. Thank-you Apple store.
The website for the final year degree show has now gone up. The exhibition is called Studio309, and will take place from this Saturday 14th until next Friday 20th June. Details of opening times, and previews of work can be found on site. If you’re in Huddersfield or up north then stop by and take a look. It’s free!
Anyone else think the logo looks like pieces of Meccano and a couple of flat head screws?
PRINTS ARE NOW UNAVAILABLE.
Just a quick note to say that I’ve just set up a prints page for the One week of the Guardian data visualisation posters. They’ll be a very limited print run so if you’re interested in getting your hands on one, the series, or more then you’ll have to be quick!
I’ll be taking orders via email until midnight on June 15th. They’re £12 each, printed on thick semi-gloss paper, and are all signed and numbered on the reverse so you know which one you bought!
Remember kids, having the series is like owning Pokémon. Gotta catch ‘em all.
UPDATE: 12:30 25/June All posters were delivered to the post office this morning, and should be on their way to you shortly!
UPDATE: 10:30 24/June I’m sick as a dog at the moment. I have all the prints, all packaged and ready to ship. I managed to get a couple out yesterday, but the rest will be going out no later than tomorrow morning.
Sorry they’ll be a day or two late. This ‘not man-flu’ has knocked me off my feet.
One of the mandatory requirements of this project is a story/information board to explain the what why and how of the project. Instead of just having something informative but separate, I’ve thought about placing it on the reverse side of the visualisation posters. This way there’s a little project information included with each piece so viewers can understand what’s going on.
The info poster below is a larger view of what was included in the supplement prototype packaging that I posted yesterday.
For each piece printed, the preview image of the storyboard (this one being the Thursday visualisation) would be the preview to what’s printed on the opposite side of the page, thereby allowing the poster to be hung either side for a more informative view, or a more visual view.
Instead of just having posters up for sale and available, I’ve been thinking about how I would round off the project, and go about getting the posters (and the knowledge that they exist) out and available to wider audiences. As far as the internet is concerned, this page and the project can get stumbled, dugg, reddited, and so on and so forth, which is great, but this is still just a fraction of the amount of readers the Guardian reaches on a daily basis. So how do I put my work infront of the eyes of the millions of readers of the Guardian, keep it there long enough for it to become a talking point, and encourage people to look at it?
Well one idea I had was a supplement piece, with accompanying package containing a fullsize A1 print every week for six weeks. This way the One week of the Guardian project is contained in it’s own package, with accompanying information which tells the story of the project, and a poster of a piece of work to encourage people to collect the whole series.
Inside the envelope, the A1 print would be folded down to A5 size, 4 folds in half each time. Printed on the back of the visualisation for that day would be a storyboard with project information, the same for each day so that if a reader jumped on board half way through the issues, they would still know what’s going on.
A rough scale of things would look something like this.
I was thinking it might be nice to have these supplemental packages published next year on the dates they were created, as a time capture looking back one year ago using data visualisations. A hypothetical fantasy, but a nice one I think.
The past few days I’ve been thinking more about how to present the final pieces at the assessment and the graduate showcase. One of the ideas I’ve been toying with is to insert the posters into a weekend supplement or a center page pullout. I’ve been looking around for ways to emulate newsprint, and so far the closest I’ve come is to use a plotter printer, on ~50gsm paper.
The texture of the paper is not unlike newsprint, though there’s a larger grain to the paper, and it feels just slightly thicker. It’s difficult to see I know, but my digi-cam is a cheap useless one that’s about 4 years old, and photography isn’t my forte.
To see it up close it looks as though it came straight out of the paper, which is great, and after handling it my hands were inky black! Not sure I’ll be able to mass print these though as printing it on the plotter has to be done overnight. Perhaps a limited edition of 10 if people want? I know some have already contacted me via email about getting prints, and if demand is strong enough then I guess archival ink on semi-gloss might be a better choice.
Just thinking that it might be nice to see these pictogram headlines concepts I did adopted into a functioning platform for use in public spaces, and perhaps even incorporated into a news website.
The idea would be that a simple application would pull headlines from the BBC News website, or any website, and seperate the headline into individual words. It would then check a database to see if there is a pictogram associated with that word and display it. This would loop for all words until the headline is complete. If there is no pictogram for the word available, then it will just display the word and update an online list that symbols for word ‘X’ are needed.
Here’s a couple of examples mocked up with stock photos to see what I’m talking about.
Pictogram Headlines
A quick concept idea for using headlines displayed as a series of pictograms. This proposal could be installed in a number of public spaces, train stations, bus depots, airports, etc. on large screen visual displays. The headlines in pictograms would cross multiple language barriers, and carry the English alternative underneath. When people are used to seeing them then they will eventually be able to quickly see the news just by using the pictures.
Anyone have any thoughts? I know I’d find it more interesting when at a train/bus station to have rotating headlines.
OK so I’d really appreciate some input if you’ll indulge me. Not much, just a couple of lines.
I have a presentation in a couple of days about this project. I’m trying to put together some sort of list of frequently asked questions in order to give a better presentation of the work. I know what my aim was, and I can understand the choices I’ve made being as I’m the one that made them, but is there anything about this project that you don’t understand or would like further clarification about?
This is your chance to get stuck in and really tell me what you think. If you need your memory jogging work can be found via the designlab.
What don’t you understand?
Thanks.
I just thought I’d post this little update as I’m currently about half way through a 6000 word minimum illustrated report on the work I’m doing for university.
I think I’m a pretty concise person. When I write anything I usually try to get to the point pretty quickly, and don’t like to spin anything out too long unless it’s funny or there’s a payoff at the end. I have to say, there’s only so much ‘padding’ you can add to a description of what I’m doing and why. Most of the descriptions I write about my work are those that I’ve taken the time to explain in 100 words or less, thereby being concise and to the point.
I’m not going to say ‘bullshitting’, but ‘padding’ a report, is hard work. Nobody wants to read anything unnecesary in a report document, but 6000 words minimum is 6000 words minimum.
Well the end is pretty frikkin’ nigh. This is the final news day of the series as The Guardian doesn’t issue on Sunday.
Todays visual plots all of the headlines in the Guardian on a grid, colour categorised and ordered as to their position in the paper. Relationships are formed for authors who appear more than once. The idea of this was to create a simple layout where patterns become apparent, where heavily coloured sections are representative of special dedicated sections within the paper, and authors can be tracked through their articles.
Incase you didn’t notice, this was more of a type based graphic. 
This is one day in a series that takes the news from one week of the Guardian newspaper, and visually represents it as a series of static visualisations. You may also be interested in:
