The changes from the previous version to the final were just tweaks to some detailed areas. Awkward rag, caption placement, and things like that. I’m very happy with how this project progressed. I feel like something clicked on in the typographical part of my brain, and everything just made sense.
Here’s what the magazine looks like on the iPad:
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In this round, I’ve added captions to my photos, and tried to fix my rag. Although I think I might’ve overdone the rag, though. Too much variation between lines, I think. The rag just feels stiff and robotic to me, which, come to think of it, might be a good thing, considering my topic. We’ll see how it goes over. But I think for the reader’s sake, maybe it should be more fluid and relaxed to be a bit easier on the eyes.
Or then again, I could be over thinking it, as I sometimes do.
Here’s how it all looks as of now. Keep in mind it looks better printed than on the screen. Must be those pesky serifs cramping my style. Or just the fact that pixels suck sometimes.
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Here’s the next round of iPad mockups. I’m showing all of the user interaction I can think of right now. If I come up with anything else, I’ll be sure to add it later.
Here, the user would be swiping the top half over to see more information in the next frame:
Swiping text up to read another page (notice the scrollbar indicator thingy changes to let you know where you are in the document):
Something I noticed when I was playing with the class iPad was that the orientation of the device influenced the number of columns in the layout. So I decided to show mine doing the same thing. My layout switches from two-column to 3-column when you switch from portrait to landscape.
Scrolling through pages of text:
Pinch & zoom makes image frame larger, and it can even take over the entire screen to make viewing images and infographics easier.
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Idea #1: Scrollbar/indicator on the right side of the screen, which scrolls through the article text separately from the images on top. The user would scroll through pages of the article by swiping the text up or down, and scroll through the images by swiping the image area left or right. I left some room on the side of my infographic for a reason. This would be where a popup window would show up when the user clicks in an active area of the infographic. Supplemental information for the selected area of the infographic would show up in that area. For example, if a user tapped the name of a processor, more information about that processor would come up in the space to the right of the infographic.
Idea #2: Scrollbar/indicator is the separator between the image and text, and shows where the user is in the slideshow (as opposed to the top example, which indicates where the user is in the article). The user can zoom in on the images or infographics by using the pinch gesture. This allows the user to clearly see the details of the infographics and images, without zooming in on the article body text.
While I’m still here editing this post, here’s the verdict from my critique:
I should use the proportions from the second layout idea (where infographics/images take up half the screen), but keep the vertical scrollbar of the top group. This will keep my infographics large enough to read. And I’ll also keep the functionality of the top group. That makes the whole experience more interesting to the user.
Also, I need to make my text bigger. What I thought was pretty big is actually not. Darn technology messing with my type size.
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I’m overall pretty happy with the progress on this one. It’s going well.
But I’m having issues with color yet again. That yellowish color does not want to print consistently. It looks fine on my infographics, but it’s greenish on my small text, even though there’s no cyan in there at all. Bah! Maybe getting rid of the little bit of black in that color will fix it…
And my rag is all weird and stuff. That’ll get fixed soon.
There’s a bunch of other tiny issues that will be resolved soon. (Image color & cropping, author name placement, page number placement, etc.)
But yeah, overall, it’s going well. I haven’t had to stress out too much over this. Which is nice, because I’ve got enough stress in my other classes to make up for it. Har har har.
…Oh, and I’m getting rid of all that Univers in my infographics. I don’t use it anywhere in my article. So now the typeface count is down to two. Chaparral for body text and VAG Rounded for headers, infographics titles, and all the other display-ish stuff. No more, no less.
Boo-yah.
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It occurred to me that I need to give credit to the author of my article. Duh. I should put his name in my opening spread.
In case you were wondering, I got the bulk of the info from here: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/hacker.htm but my opening paragraph is from here: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#what_is
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The opening spreads were pretty fun to do. So I made a bunch. I ended up using the last one (with some modifications, of course) for my article.
My article spreads:
That last page has a disproportionate amount of whitespace. Maybe it needs more text. Maybe the whole document needs more whitespace… I’ll move things around to make it all happy.
And I think I need to use either more or less photography in my layout. Right now, the opener feels so disconnected from the rest of the article. Adding more photos throughout (or taking the opening photo out and replacing it with some of my vector stuff) would unify the spreads (and possibly help with the whitespace issue).
I’m trying to stick to certain rules about my design. I’m a bit looser with my magazine rules than I was with the rules for building my icons, but there are rules there. For example, I can’t put any text in the lower row of modular space (AH! There’s a pullquote down there! Gotta fix that!) because that’s where my ethernet cable is. And there must be at least one pullquote for each spread. I’m still playing around with the pullquote color, though. Right now, the rule for pullquote color is that it must be the opposite color of whatever colored thing it’s closest to. (Kind of a sloppy rule, perhaps… but I’m working on it.)
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I realize my secondary information on my poster could be treated a bit better. As some of my classmates pointed out in critique, I could separate the lines of information so that some of it would align with the next little block of white in the middle of the page. Grounding my secondary text would fix the whole “floaty” feeling it has. It’s just kinda hovering there. It needs to be tied to something.
A designer’s work is never done!
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This round of posters isn’t the greatest, but it comes with a surprise!
Postcards
So, the surprise is that the above postcard will end up being my poster! Flip it around 90 degrees, and there it is!
See? It’s better than my other posters. Nice!
I obviously need to make a few tweaks here & there… (The title of the show is upside-down! …in addition to a few other things…) But I’m sure it will end up pretty great. I’m excited about it! Yay!
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Last time, I had some trouble with holding onto my concept. This time, I brought it back!
The two vector posters come back to my concept because they allude to Strausfeld’s love of simplicity. Her name on the left one acts as a backbone to the building, which speaks to her structured way of designing.
The left one is my favorite. I’m moving forward with that one, but integrating some aspects of the one on the right, like the placement of the building in the frame.
The one above is an attempt at an infographic kind of idea. While it’s not the most successful of these posters, I do like the introduction of the red type (using the brick color from the vectors). That will probably carry over to my next round of posters.
These all come back to the idea of simplicity and recognizable/identifiable shapes. Strausfeld is great at keeping things simple and accessible, so I tried to work with that in mind. I like the idea that the text can become an extension of the building, activating the space around it and integrating the type and image to create the illusion of one form (or at least multiple unified forms).
Admittedly, I am a bit bummed that I don’t get to use my more iconic view of Vanderslice. I really like that photo. Maybe it’ll be useful in another project. Oh well.
Sidenote: I love how my work has progressed throughout this project so far. Looking at my first poster ideas, I definitely see how there was potential for improvement. I’m very happy to see that I’m starting to utilize that potential and improve upon my work. Yay, growth!
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