Research about Upton

In order to work on the map and understand the subject matter I needed to research Upton and it's history, buildings, town layout etc. One of the best ways for me to learn the layout of the town is to look at some maps of the place. This is also a good idea because I have to design a map for the information board I need to make. For all the other information I needed to learn about, I had a look at the main Upton website which can be found here: http://www.upton.uk.net/

The brief and getting started

Okay so I now have the brief. I must design prototype signs for Upton to improve its ease of way finding. I will start by researching the most effective way finding signs. I did some searches on Google to look at all the best signs and the most important signs. Here are a few examples:



There are a huge amount of signs all over the world but the most consistent ones I keep encountering are the ones that are on a pole and point to the general direction of the place in question that you want to go to (they are called pole signs). Because these particular signs are the ones internationally used consistently, I have reason to believe that they are the most effective signs for way finding. They do the job but aren't particularly stylish and could do with improvement. I will try and improve on this type of sign.

From Sunlight to Sugar: Photosynthesis

This is my finished info-graphic showing the process of Photosynthesis. I wanted to go for a simple and straight to the point design which would appeal to a younger audience. The kind of audience learning this process in school. Therefore I used pencil crayons for the colour. I used bright orange for the arrows so they stood out. If I were to improve this design I think I would have made it more clear of the order of the events by maybe adding number or more obvious arrows.

Info-graphic: How much do music artists earn online?

This is an info-graphic designed by David McCandless. It is about how much money musicians earn from online payments/plays etc. It also shows the most popular form of music consumption.

Music is a huge thing in my life and I am a musician myself. I have recently joined a band and we have started producing an album so this is very interesting and helpful and really put things into perspective.

I was however quite shocked at how little the artists earn and how much needs to be bought or played for the artists to earn anything remotely worthwhile.

This info-graphic generated a huge debate about the subject with people on both sides talking about how justified it is for how much the artists earn. People really got in depth with their opinions. I believe the artists should earn more than they do but I think the time has come for music to be completely digitized. I have never owned a CD in my life; my music consumption is purely from the Spotify application. Even though I do appreciate how someone could enjoy the aesthetics of a CD case or vinyl.

Link to website

In terms of how the info-graphic is designed I think it was designed very well. The pink circles are a huge visual indication as to how unfair the proportions are. The colour co-ordination also indicates this well.

What is Information Design

I have chosen to expand on Pie charts. What are they? What are they used for?

A pie chart is a circular chart divided into sections.It is a good way to illustrate the proportion of any given data. In a pie chart, the arc length of each section,represents how large the data is. The different colours represent different data. The contrast in colours allows for a quick and easy way to compare the data. The name is given because it resembles slices of pie. The earliest known pie chart is generally credited to William Playfair's Statistical Breviary of 1801.

Pie chats are very widely used in business and mass media across the world. However, it does have some downsides. For example the more data compressed into the chart the harder it is to compare the data.