Task 2 -Mapping

       What is a map?

My first idea was to check it out in a thesaurus, which I did, and it opened my eyes a bit for this task, because I was quite stuck on how to do it at the start. How do I challenge the brief? 

       

         Yorkshire sculpture park

During the trip, we walked in the direction of a key that we threw in the air. We did this to not just go right or left, and explore different parts of the park. I created several maps, just to explore the different possibilities of this task. When we were done with the walk I sat down and began to create different types of maps, I created a list of the sculptures and soundings so that I would not forget them later. During the trip I took pictures so that we could make a collage or more traditional map. During the trip I collected several leaves because I had an idea of making the colours of the trip. We did not end up using that idea, but the idea of following the colours of the leaves is quite intriguing to me. While we walked I saw these old rotten tree trunks which I brought back some pieces that had great texture, and nice straight lines. Could I have gathered something else? probably, I should have gathered something that wasn’t that obvious, I wish I thought a bit more outside of the box for the trip itself. During the trip it was really windy and we made a number system to categorize the sound and the wind during the trip. So we knew exactly how it was where we were.  

       Planning and sketches

On Wednesday day we met up and brainstormed a bit more. Because we were not quite how to do this right. We got together and we just experimented, with different mediums. I tried out paint and stamping gradients and anything that could be interesting. But I wonder if we could have worked a bit more loose with the task, then we would have a different result.

I took inspiration in the route we took and played with the parameters of the lines. Because I wanted to find new angles form our route. I did one with paint and string that I pulled because I have seen that online and I always thought it looked cool. From that, I for some really cool lines, that you can see in our finished product. 

I had created some rough sketches in illustrator and some other work in photoshop with the photos and inspired by our experience in the park. So that I would have something digital to work with too. One where I played with depth to show our trip in to the woods. I used the picture of a old tree to show the age of the park. I created some work inspired by Liam Stevens and Bauhaus. Bauhaus has alway inspired me to create something contemporary  and simple that can withstand the test of time. I found this one picture by Liam Stevens that just inspired me, to create something simple without complicating it. 

       Signs & mapping

How do we translate sound into a visual end product? We could have used some symbols that would show that it could have been music notes, or we could have made sound waves to show sound, but we wanted a quite refined design at the end. With the choice of ledger lines we can easily show levels, either within the route or with sound there are many ways to take this. 

We decided to create Ledger lines to resemble music sheets so that it might be possible to understand that it is a map of sound. Not just a route. We decided to work with what I got but add on to it. First, we copied the first shape and flipped it over to create more lines. We continued to add lines and we created a system for the lines with the density first. So we knew where to add more lines. We decided to do do the density to show the sound because loud sounds are associated with chaos. 

After we created the main figure that worked with our theme, we went ahead to make it more interesting, with something eye-catching. Because at this point it was just vertical and horizontal lines. Pete talked to us and helped us to see that we could try and play with the rules we made. Flip it and add other shapes, which we tried, and we ended up doubling the number of lines. We did this change because it was loud and windy on Tuesday. We introduced circles and hexagons, but they did not work as well as we thought, so we introduced arches instead. They are lighter and we were looking for something to represent the other sounds other than the wind. The arches showcase the waves of communications between us and other surrounding sounds. How do we show the different levels of intensity of the wind? We made a system so that the thicker the line the greater the intensity of the wind. We did this because a bolder line has more impact than a slim one. With differentiating the intensity we created a more impactful end product with more dimension. That way we created the depth that we could find in the park. 

      Testing

We spent the last part of the Thursday making it out and testing the design, there we found out that it would be nearly impossible to create the precision that we wanted in tape because we needed different sizes of tape width witch we could not get right with tape. We used vinyl instead, that was a good choice because we got to have a lot more control over the end product. During the testing we found out that yellow did not have any meaning to the design, so we found the red vinyl because it is an impactful colour that represents adventure and exploration. 

       Crit 

In our crit we got feedback that our key could have been more through, which I agree with we were running out of time. So I see that one we did not disclose why we chose the colour but I have done it here. We also got feedback that we did not disclose why we put it in the ceiling. Our reasoning for the placement in the ceiling is because of the wind is the air element. Therefore to create a slightly airy feeling to the design, we decided to put it there. 

We got feedback that we could have done it bigger, and in retrospect, we could have done it bigger. So it would have had a bigger impact if we would have made it bigger. I think that we should have spaced the lines out a bit more, to create more space. We did not get this feedback but in retrospect, I would have changed this if i was to do it again. 

We got one feedback that said that the start and end of the map was not clear, I do agree to some extend but, it would have become a bit too obvious of a map. We wanted to create an abstract map that could be understood the way we wanted but was not limited to one route.