Assignment 3: Infographic
Introduction to my thought process at the start:
I
worked on a dataset about the top 10 fashion trend of the century to create a
fashion infographic. To emphasise the “fashion” element, I mimicked the concept
of a fashion magazine for my design – which includes an iconic serif font
header, and usually a figure drawn at the central apex of the infographic. I outlined
the figure of a female and use it as the trail for time given that this is a
timeline infographic initially as shown in figure below.
Figure 1
For
colours, I went for a muted colour scheme - including cream and blush colours that
come with a brownish tint. The colours used highlight a sense of femininity
which matches with the fashion content of the infographic. The brownish tint
also adds a vintage vibe to the theme which is appropriate since the topic is
about past trends. However, the infographic looked too empty in the middle.
Hence, I filled up the middle portion as shown below.
Figure 2
Upon
finishing up a draft, I consulted Tutor Zicheng who mentioned that the vertical
header was difficult to read. She also mentioned that the sequence of my
timeline was counterintuitive, and that I should do something from the left to the
right. I made amendments as suggested. I also played around with the different brush
tools (Figure 3) to create different kind of prints and texture for the outfit
icons.
Figure 3
I
lined my text all around the figure of the lady to bring my audience’s attention
to the centre of the infographic (Figure 4).
I
noticed that my infographic looked a little plain as I have a muted colour
scheme. Hence, I changed the header to a rich shade of burgundy. Burgundy symbolises
femininity, maturity, and creates a sense of vintage. I wanted to bring my audience’s
attention to the title of the infographic, and the female figure to emphasise
the topic at hand. Hence, I chose to use the brighter colours for both the title
and the female figure.
Figure 4
Learning Points:
From
the critique session, my peer suggested minor tweaks to the infographic. She
first commented on the left-hand side of the infographic, suggesting that the
words should be better aligned to fit the curves of the centre figure. Next, she
pointed out some minor flaws in the details of the icons which went by unnoticed
as there were too many details in each outfit.
Tutor
Zicheng mentioned that the infographic was slightly overwhelming and suggested
for me to play around with the text leading and size. She also suggested for me
to reduce the size of the icons, so that the icons would not appear disruptive.
Personal Evaluation:
While
evaluating my own work, I also noticed that the infographic looked slightly
messy given the amount of texts. I tried to paraphrase to cut down words to fit
in a single sentence. I wanted to make the headers of the infographic clearer
as well since the current focal point lies in the word “fashion” but not the
words “trend of the decade”.
With
that, I started editing my final submission by changing the colours of the words
“trend of the decade” such that they look part of the header. I spanned it
across the entire page to make it eye-catching and adjusted the sequence of my
years accordingly so that it would appear intuitive for the audience when
reading.
I
reduced the size of the text, leadings, and icons as suggested by my tutor to
ensure that the infographic was not too overwhelming. I increased the space in
between the paragraphs to enhance the breathing space of the text so that the
infographic is easy to digest. I edited the icons as mentioned by my classmate
and aligned the icons to a single row so that the infographic looked neater.
Furthermore,
I played around with the types of fonts to use. For the header of the
infographic, I decided to use AWConqueror Std Didot, which is a slab-serif
font type. As slab-serif fonts have strong and square finishing strokes, it
effectively commands for its audience’s attention. By doing so, I wanted to
draw my audience’s attention to my header, which mimics a magazine’s header, hinting
the topic of the infographic at first glance. Following the header, I wanted
the subheader to catch the eyes of my audience. Hence, I used the font Futura
which is a san-serif font type. As san-serif font types are clean looking
and good for impact, I decided to use them for headlines stating the trends of
the years. I used an italicised serif font and chose a bigger font size for the
years to capture my audience’s attention highlighting the timeline of the infographic.
Finally, for the body paragraph, I used a serif font type, Baskerville URW.
As serif fonts are more distinctive, it is easier for our brains to recognise
the words making them more readable for smaller sizes. Since the body paragraph
is the most content heavy, I decided that a serif font type would be ideal for
my audience to read.
Learning Points:
The
purpose of an infographic is to convey the information in bitesize portion such
that my audience will understand it at one glance. To achieve that, I spent a
lot of time adjusting the size, layout and leading, placement of the icons. I
also had to play around with the different fonts to achieve different effects. For
the header, I chose a font that mimics the magazine style. For the dates, I
chose to make it italicised to emphasise the timeline. I realised the importance
of blank spaces to make the infographic legible. I also understood the
importance of colours to convey my theme. To create an infographic for this assignment,
I explored Illustrator to find out the different functions I never used
previously. This included the brush function and the text align function.
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