viscomtwo. museum exhibition titles.

Swimming Technologies


The Science of Swimming

Going for Gold
The technological advances of swimming

Going for Gold
The science behind swimming

Improvements to Improvement Drugs
The science of sleeping

Performance Improving to Drug Enhancing
Swimming advancements


The Olympics


Olympic Swimming
The History

The History of Olympic Swimming

Swimming
An Olympic History

Going for Gold
A History of Olympic Swimming

Going for Gold
An Olympic History of Swimming

Going for Gold
Swimming in the Olympics

viscomtwo. f+s. two.

This is working with representing quantities through sizes of circles. one try that I had for one of my info graphs worked with this same sort of technique.

this is just pretty. a guy mapped out his day through an info graph, The order in which he did everything color coded by task. The man likes his pool.

viscomtwo. icons. twocolor. updateone.

Here are the updated two-color studies. I have quite the selection of puddle icons just to try out different color combinations. I hadn't reached a nice combination in the first round so I tried even more this round. I still don't know if I have it yet, they're still a little iffy.

I'm not feeling the fill icons anymore once I applied it to the rest of the icons. However, I still quite enjoy the split, but they still need a bit of finessing and I'm not totally sold on the colors just yet.

viscomtwo. icons. color swatches. updatethree.

So, Jamie, you said to "use scale, space, and contrast to emphasize those lovely grids". Well I did just that. Did I take it too far? Possibly. But it never hurts to try totally redesigning something if the first round just wasn't working. I set these pages on 11x17 instead of 8.5x11. I put them into three columns, each area getting four sections. The bottom text was broken up into two sections of three. With the text I used a 14, 21, 48, 60, 72 scale to create hierarchy.

Things to think about from here out;

• Should there be text on top of the top images
• Are the images and text fighting for dominance
• Is there too much space given to the top section and not enough to the bottom section

viscomtwo. icons. digital twocolor studies.

These are my digital translations of my two-color icon studies. The top set are of the splatter concept. However in the first set of digital translations, the pooling of water looked more like blood, paint, or ink splatter and less like water on the floor. To fix this, I made this second set look more like my original drawings. So, if anything, I should really call the first set "puddle" and not "splatter" because I don't want a splattering of water, I want a pooling of water. The second set is the highlight. Highlighting certain parts of the icon to give them emphasis. The last set of icons is the transition set but the name probably should be changed from transition to something else because the two colors no transition smoothly, they just abruptly change colors. With the layout, again, I was going with whole grid system. clean. simple. helvetica.

viscomtwo. icons. color swatches. updatetwo.

Here are the final pages of my color swatches. I put them on a grid system that could be repeated three times on a page based on a grid from The Grid System. I love grid layouts alot, here is one gorgeous example of a grid system done spectacularly well. There is something about information put into a grid with a nice hierarchy of information that really makes me happy. I wish I had done Georgia for the header font, the font I use here on my blog for all of the italic text. I'm still no master at this but the more I do it the better I'll be, right? Practice, practice, practice? Practice makes perfect? Let's hope so!

viscomtwo. icons. color swatches. updateone.

Color swatch layout?

Possibly.

Helvetica Bold & The Golden Rule Grid.

i will not give up my helvetica.

sources: the grid system.

viscomtwo. icons. color swatches.

here's a little quicksie looksie at my color swatches in progress. lotsa more color swatches to do by friday, and not to mention to design this prettily, can't ever forget thattttt.

viscomtwo. icons. two-color studies.

update. I've been talking to a lot of different people from the other section about this stage of the process, adding the second color. If you're lookin' at this blog post to see what I did, lemme give you this advice: do not let the color change the icon. Instead, let the second color add to the original icon.

So we have now entered into the beginning stages of adding color and a second layer of information to our icon sets. Above are the ten different styles of color I tried out. Clicking on the images give you bigger versions. With my icons, I had issues with coming up with ways to add a second color to my one-color icons. My entire object is one continuous contour line that makes up the entire object and because of that I had to be creative with ways of adding that second color. Some ways worked better than others. Each set of styles are labeled a-j and each set is the horizontal row of whistle, suit, and medal.

Sets a, c, f, and i are the four sets that Jamie picked out as being the strongest of the ten. With those four in hand I will continue my two-color process forward. Though with sets a & f she wants to see two different versions.

Sets b, d, e, and i all had issues because of the way I added that second color, it ended up closing up the continuous line and really took away from the overall feel to my icons that really made them strong so immediately we crossed them off the list except for i. I will redo set i but just pull the line away from the icon so it's still close to it but actually touching the icon itself.

I like the style of set j with the offset icons but it really is just too distracting from the icon itself and Joseph put it best: drunk swimming.

I really liked set c a lot, so I actually ended up taking it further. My original concept behind it from the very beginning was to make those splatters with watercolor and then scan them in and take the outline of the shape and apply it to the icon. Here is one of those watercolor tests:

So I scanned in three sheets of these and then picked out the most successful splatters, those being the most compact and iconic splatter shape. With the three best picked out I applied them to the vector icons:

So I applied them to the icons but through feedback, and my own observations, with the way I went about making the splatters they went too far into paint and ink splatter and less into water splatter, or puddle of water. I really like this direction and all of my icons have open white spaces for me to be able to apply this affect to. Plus, I love the aesthetics of the water color and it is a nice effect that I would be able to implement later on in the series. And that isn't to say that I can't apply the watercolor to my icons if I don't end up going down this route inevitably, it's a nice concept that fits well with my icons overall. This is what I was getting at in my latest type post about texture reenforcing meaning and giving additional meaning to what is already there.

All-in-all I have some very solid roads to go down and choose from for this part of the project and that excites me a lot. From here on out I love these two-color studies digitally.

viscomtwo. icons. reflection.

I started out this project with a fairly good mindset as to what I wanted to do. I went ahead and chose something that I knew pretty well having swam on the boys swim team all four years of high school. I have a pretty nice understanding of how everything works and I also have a love and a passion for swimming so why not combine two of my loves in one project?

At the beginning of the creation process of the icons I was having a rather rough time making my objects less drawing-esque and more iconic. For some reason it just didn't fully click in my brain but once it did I whipped out a nice set of eight different styles of icons.

I loved the continuous line set. Not only was it a style that no one else was doing, but it also fit my story. Having my story be all about the swimming race and then having all my icons be one solid, continuous line fits magnificently perfect. However, the icons themselves are still not perfect and I more than plan on going back to them over the rest of the project to keep tweaking them, improving them, and even adding new icons to them.

I would say the starting block is definitely my weakest icon, as Jamie pointed out to me. All of my other shapes, for the most part, all have a solid form to them, not a lot of white spaces jabbing into them like my starting block. I will hopefully find a better starting block to reference my icon for that object to get it more solid like the rest. I would also love to have all these icons be as slick and smooth as the whistle. The whistle was my first, and still the best, icon of this set. It was the one that really set my direction into production.

viscomtwo. icons. going for gold.

My icon set, is about a swim meet. The objects I chose for this project were(in order from left to right in the image below) jammer(swim suit), cap & goggles, starting block, whistle, stopwatch, towel, medal. Below are the icons at 1/2 inch scale.

While thinking about how I wanted to draw my icons I had many different ideas. Everything from geometric shapes to cut outs. However, when it came down to choosing the route that I wanted to go with, it was without a doubt the single line route. My story revolves around a giant pool of water so the concept of having all of my objects made up of one continuous, fluid line made the most sense. I wanted to reference water and fluidity of it through that aspect of these icons.

Here is the linear process of my stopwatch.

Larger images after the jump.

viscomtwo. readingfour.

Generate and cull. The term cull, for me, goes back to when I worked at an orchard this past summer. They grew hundreds upon hundreds of peaches each summer. We then sorted them and we had ripe peaches and culls. Culls were still good, just ugly. They would have dents in them, holes. This, in my opinion, correlates pretty well into design with what the article said. Create a gigantic amount of ideas and iterations and then go back through them all to figure out which ones work the best and which ones are ugly, dented, and bruised. You always want to pick out which designs convey the message the best, yet are, or have the possibility to be, aesthetically pleasing. The article also went on to say that if you feel you have a creative block, just start sketching everything or anything that comes to mind so you can see what you're coming up with and using what little bit you can get out to inspire you further. don't worry about how stupid or ugly they are, as long as you get the ideas out to inspire you.

sources: agrayspace.

viscomtwo. F+S.

I was on FFFFOUND! the other day and was parrousing through the pretty images when I laid my eyes on this gorgeous piece. This is roughly the same sort of idea that I am working with. Drawing the woman figure in as little amount of lines as possible. The inner leg/groin region caught my attention because even up until now I still have not full accomplished my splash and the way this artist handled that area is nice and very well controlled. I will reference this sort of concept while progressing with my splash.

sources: ffffound!, rosenworld.

viscomtwo. readingtwo&three.

I made a post a long time ago about a very famous set of pictograms. Yet, when Jamie asked me which post I made had the pictograms, I couldn't have told you to save my life. When I made that post I didn't know the term pictogram(at least I hadn't made that connection, which is something I am trying to work on...). Pictograms are exactly what we are creating right now. We are working our way towards a cohesive set of information graphics that collectively(and possibly singularly) tell a story. We are creating them to try to inform the reader successfully through image alone.

The NYPL Lion article is an example of what we are going through right now, yet for a much large client. It is interesting however to see the process of how the icon was created/updated. Most times you dont get the pleasure of seeing the process, you only get to enjoy the finished, polished product with no inner meat to be seen.

VISCOMTWO. Sketches.

Okay, so it's no surprise that drawing isn't my forte. But these are my sketches for the icon project. To fully view it click on the image to get the full size(not the best quality ever). The paper in the center of the image are the intentional drawings of the five objects that I picked to draw. My five objects I picked from my list of 10 were splash, stopwatch, suit, goggles/cap, whistle. All the sketches around the center drawing(minus the smaller papers above and below the center paper) are all intuitive drawings of the objects. Faster sketches that take less time to make and that focus less on form and more on the feeling of the object.

From this point I pick three objects of those fave(probably the suit, stopwatch, and whistle) and refine them and then create a set of iterations with different styles applied to them.

VISCOMTWO. Icon List Update.

going for gold
suit
swim cap & goggles
starting block
whistle
stop watch
splash
lane lines
flags
medal
towel
*i was going to post documentation of my intuitive drawings but a) they're bad and 2) i'm having a b' of a time getting them to document well. some of them are too light of drawings, others are fine however.

VISCOMTWO. ReadingOne. How to Think.

Ed Boyden makes some pretty good points in that blog. His idea of never read passively was something that I actually spent time working on over break. Always be taking in information while you read. Learn how to take those ideas and apply it to what you already know. Also, the idea of drawing big is definitely something Jamie taught us at the beginning of last semester, but I seemed to stop using, though picking that back up probably would be a pretty good idea. All of the things that were in that article are very useful, but the thing that really stuck out to me the most was to take risks. You'll never know what you can't do until you try it. So try things, take risks, do something that you wouldn't normally do.

SOURCES: TECHNOLOGY REVIEW.

VISCOMTWO. Icon List.

GOING FOR GOLD
speedo
goggles
swim cap
starting block
whistle
splash
water
lane lines
stop watch
flags
medal
towel

TO WOO HER
shower
dress
pots
pasta
plates
utensils
doorbell
candles
rose
kiss
dress
pillows