When I heard of this project I was pretty excited about it. When it was mentioned that we have to make a map of the place that we know well my mind immediately went to my school, a place where I studied for the past 13 years.
HAND DRAWN MAP
After making the initial drawing of the map I showed them to my friends asking them if it looks like our school campus. To my disappointment they all said that they weren’t able to recognise it.
FIRST ATTEMPT
So I started working on the second map which resembled my school way better and I also got a green flag from all my school friends. I added some colour to the map for fun and labelled all the details.
Making the outline of the map was pretty easy, although I had to be really careful of to keep all the shapes closed.
CREATING THE ICONS
My goal was to make my map playful and something that would be an eye candy to look at.
Usually we think of schools as boring, so I made it my goal to make it seem like my school was no less than Disney land. I also wanted to highlight all the unique features about my school.
For this I gave more attention to icons and tried to use minimum to no text. I also used bold and bright colours for the icons.
Colour scheme
While thinking about the colour scheme I realised that I closely associate certain colours with my school. My school has a triad colour scheme, with blue, red and yellow, the three primary colours. I believe that there colours constitute the identity of my school. This is why I decided to stick to the RYB colour scheme, with variations in the values and intensity in order to make it suitable for my theme. I also introduced some inter-related secondary colours to reduce the monotony and keep it “playful”.
PLACEMENT OF ICONS
I faced a lot of difficulties when i was deciding the way to place my icons. Not only did I have too many icons but my icons were too details and made my map too chaotic , so I had to discard some of them for easier legibility.
I also developed a few prototypes for the “pin” I would use to place my icons on the map but I did not like the look of the typical tear drop shaped pin on my map, so I decided to go with a plain circle instead.
TESTING PROTOTYPES ON ROUGH MAP
The final task was placing of the icons which turned out to be much more difficult than expected. My detailed icons made my map seem clustered. My initial instinct was to play with the lines of the icons itself.
*with lines*
*without lines*
I decided to leave my icons without an outline because that suited better with my there.
But I gradually realised that the lack of lines made my illustrated map devoid of definition. My solution was to play with the thickness of pin’s on which I placed the icons.
*without lines*
*with lines*
I decided to go with the thick lines. I felt that by increasing the thickness and reducing the size of the icon was able to create more harmony within the map. I was also able to bring more emphasis to the icons which was lacking earlier.
I felt that my map was lacking rhythm. Thus i decided to play with the positioning of the icons
SCATTERED
IN LINE FOLLOWING A PATTERN
However, i decided to go with the original placement because it suited the theme better.
FINAL MAP
Abstraction
My goals was to create emphasis on the school and achieve an outcome that’s harmonious and aesthetically pleasing
Experiment-1
I decided to use the colour red to create emphasis. While the hatching is used to create harmony within the art piece.
Experiment-2
I tried to in cooperate the pattern within the negative space for the second experiment
However I did not like the outcome. Thus I decided to move to shapes
Experiment-3
I decided to us geometric shapes in this experiment. I used small shapes within the school building to create emphasis while the larger shapes were used in the background
I decided to use the following colour scheme, which was basically the muted version of my colour scheme from the map.
However the end result looked chaotic and the emphasis was not strong. But I still liked the approach.
Experiment-4
I changed the placement of the map the shapes. I used larger shapes within the school building and small in the surrounding.
I really liked the outcome
Experiment-5
I finally decided to play with the background colour.
Thus ending up on the following colour scheme.
FINAL ABSTRACTION
The black colour made the outcome look less chaotic. The equal balance between the shapes and the black space on the left and right side was pleasing. The use of the light colour within the school building helps to draw the attention of the viewer.
I am satisfied with my final outcome
FINAL FEEDBACK
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