What is Line - THE FINAL

Finally, the final.

I chose to go with the black background because it makes the lines stand out much more. It also makes the data more visible and the key easier to read.

I also asked a few of my friends after showing them the previous draft in white and they all said black was much more interesting to look at. The contrast is what makes it so eye catching.

I have printed this out on A2 Satin paper. ideally i wanted it to be Glossy but the college had none left! I know Glossy can look tacky sometimes, but i think this would have been a piece which it suited. The precision of the lines and the small type are in keeping with the idea of perfection and clarity and glossy paper achieves minimum bleed. But satin will do i suppose..

What is a Line - Data is in

While taking the photographs in the City Centre i realised my project didn't really have much context. So after taking photographs in the City i walked up to Hyde Park and did exactly the same thing but pointed the camera at a nice calm section of a field with a few pople running by and sitting at benches. The comparison between a City environment and a natural environment gave my work some perspective. It was now simply a look at what to expect to see in a City compared to a Park. Very simple, but thats where i ended up. I like way it is very uncomplicated in a sence of being conceptual, yet the actual final outcome completly over complicates the simplicity of the sebject.

However after going out and taking the photos, then analysing them by counting up the numbers of people, cars, buildings, dogs, birds, trees, bollards, clocks etc.. in the frames i did not have much time left to actually create the final outcome. Wonderful time management there...

So i turned to Data Flow again for some quick inspiration. I simply looked through the whole book and picked out a few of my favorites and ones which were most relevant to my data. I had a pretty clear idea in my head of what it would look like, so i began mapping it out on photoshop. "Why not illustrator??" i hear you shout. Well i am not confident at all with it, and i and very much at home with photoshop, and considering the time left it may have prooved fatal to my design if things had gone wrong.

So here it is.. a few stages of development and variables.

What is a Line - This Project Needs Rules!

Yes rules! We have been asked to write out 3 rules which our projects must obey. This is not a bad thing, of course, it just sounds bad; like a brief within a brief. But really it will be quite helpful i imagine. It will give me a chance to stop my ideas wandering off towards the end of the brief, a chance to nail down some really focused problems like type, layout, colour, stock ..etc.

My 3 rules will be;

1. Line must be used to represent or indicate data.
2. Text must be small so as not to interfere with the idea of the 'visualising data.' (in relation to size visuals however).
3. Key must be included to explain where the visuals may become confusing.

What is a Line - epiphany!

Well i say epiphany, it wasn't really my idea...again. Fred to the rescue...

I was stumbling over several design sheets wondering how i could make all this information about the flight-paths of aeroplanes interesting when Fred peered over my shoulder and simply said "why look at the sky? If you look up there all you will see is planes, why not point it at the world, that's much more interesting"... or something to that effect, and gosh darn he was right.

Pointing the camera at the world opens up hundreds of possibilities; after all a lot more goes on on the ground than in the sky. He said why not just document everything you see. I combined this with what i was previously doing with recording data within a frame and i was on to my next stage of development.

However i could not simply just sit about with a camera taking photographs of the same spot and random times. So i set up a system which would mean i got consistent and fair results. I decided i would take down information over 6 different time lengths;

1. 5 mins
2. 2 mins
3. 1 min
4. 30 secs
5. 10 secs
6. 1 sec

I would take a photograph every 10 seconds for 1. 2. 3. and every 5 secs for 4. 5. 6.

All i had to do then was decide where i would take photos from. I decided i would have it somewhere in the city centre as there would be a lot of variety of things happening. So i needed to find somewhere that wasn't so busy it would be impossible for me to record all the data but somewhere with enough happening to get the impression there was a lot going on. So i had another few words to add to my project. I was now

'recording data within a frame, at a specific location and over a specific period of time, representing the data with line.'

What is Line - the data and a few experiments

I thought about how i could represent the data i had collected. The problem was i had so much data, such as time, duration, altitude, direction, movement across the frame; all to be represented on what i hoped would be a single final graph/diagram/map.

I came up with these small ideas.

I didn't want to use CAD to begin with because i felt i could focus on how i was going to actually figure out how to represent all this data better in my head while not having to faff around with computers and the little problems you run into which halt you in your tracks.

After pretty much sorting out a few possible visuals i looked elsewhere to see if i could find some inspiration.
I sat down with a pen and paper (and Mr William Asken) and we began having a verbal brainstorm. To be honest he was having most of the ideas AN IDEA MACHINE!! But as most people have figured out it is a lot harder to have great ideas for your own work than to have great ideas for other work.

Here is the progression of the things i looked at...

Flight paths in control towers at airports. Thought the thin line point was nice. Also the bright green against the black.

This is quite interesting and relevant really. Flight paths mapped out over a specific section of New Zealand. Not to sure about the way the outline has been done though. This wasn't intend as a piece of art or design, but without the outline it could be mistaken for Pollock perhaps. Not that his work doesn't involve talent of course...

Def Con the warfare game. The arced lines represent missiles being fired at countries. Pretty cool. But it is really visual i think.