RESEARCH
Shown above I have inserted photos of every one of my mind maps from my research phase. The first one is showing the experience of swimming with dolphins. I was excited about this, until I realized there wasn’t much that could go into this feeling, and it was almost too specific. The second set of mind maps is the experience of Thanksgiving day. When I originally had Thanksgiving Day in the center, I was told that was too vague, so I changed it to eating Thanksgiving Dinner and gave it more specific elements. I enjoyed this one, but it was not my favorite out of all of them. Next I have the experience for the Fourth of July. Again, I was told that “Fourth of July” was too vague, so I created a new mind map for “Fourth of July Fireworks”. I was disappointed to realize this didn’t give me a lot of different elements to work with, so I moved forward. My final mind map began as “Amusement Parks” which I realized, again, was too vague. From here I thought of the most exciting part, Riding a Roller Coaster. There were so many different senses and feelings that went into this, and I felt it was my best option. The final photo shown is my final mind map and each of the different feelings/senses that I explored, and how I could potentially show them.
ITERATE
Shown above I have attached the photos of my iteration notes for each feeling/sense for my sensory abstraction. Shown first is the blur of the motion, and seeing the track infront of you. I wanted to make this feel wavy almost, and not have rigid lines. I wanted to have fast movement, to show the fast motion of the roller coaster. I also changed the thickness of the lines as they went up and down to create contrast. For the second image I am showing the yells and screams while being on a ride. I wanted this part of my design to pop out at you, and really give the illusion of something loud happening. This is where I began to brainstorm for what I could do for my 3D element, and this is where I decided I would want to incorporate it, to give a bigger sense of something loud. I knew that the color would have to be a high saturation, because a low saturation color would just take away from it. The sharp edges are supposed to represent how screams can screech and not be pleasant sometimes. The third image is showing the wind and “whoosh” while riding a roller coaster. Like the first image, I wanted this to be more fluid and flowy, and have lots of movement. When I think of wind being shown, I think of it swirling through the air, so that’s what I went off of for most of my iterations for this one. The fourth shown is the “tick-tick’ of the ride and the noises the ride makes. For the “tick-tick” I wanted movement, but not all at once. This is why I created designs with a steady line and then a part of it moving in a different direction, and repeating that. The fifth image is showing the excitement and thrill of being on the ride. I wanted the shapes for these to be more organic, to make it more fun and playful. A lot of the designs I came up with ended up being very similar to other feelings/senses that I already did, so I just went with those other ones. The Sixth image is the anxious/nervous feeling of being on the ride. For this I made each image with harsh lines and fast movement. I wanted them to feel uneasy to the viewer. Lastly I have listed the Hot handle that you touch while on the ride. I came up with some designs that to me felt like touching a hot object, but again these turned out very similar to some other designs I had and I felt this wasn’t the most important part of the roller coaster.
IDEATE
After deciding on which elements I wanted to incorporate from my iterations, these are the three main options that I came up with. The first one is showing the element of the motion/track infront of you for the background, with a lower opacity. In the top left corner, I added a design from my “tick-tick” iterations. I felt this design gave the feeling of that noise and slight pullback when you go up the hill. The top right corner holds the “scream” portion, along with the 3D element here. I wanted this part to be bold. The bottom right has the anxious feeling, and I intentionally made the line weights thinner as I got closer to the corner to create contrast. The swirls connect the two corners represent the wind and “whoosh”. For my second design, I wanted to keep the same kind of idea, but switch up the designs inside. For the top left, I added the wind/whoosh inside the design instead of having it connecting the corners, and I found myself liking this more. For the top right, I made the scream bigger, as I felt it should have a bigger presence. The bottom right has a different style to for the “tick-tick”, and I wanted to experiment with how the different iterations looked inside. I originally was going to go with the first two, but then I decided that I should experiment with color and how I wanted to use it. While playing around with color, I started working with a whole new design. I put the scream in the middle, and everything else went around that. After I added in all of the other colors and designs, it didn’t feel anything like a roller coaster anymore. It felt too random, so I stuck with my middle option, after getting advice from my table critique.
PROTOTYPE
After my table critique, I was told to add another element to the page in the bottom left corner, because it looked like it was missing something. So I went and added this other shape in the corner, with an iteration rooting from the anxious/nervous feeling. Another critique I got was to pick bright colors, but also keep them somewhat cohesive. This is why I kept the two opposite corners similar colors of blue. At our last class of the semester, we got our individual critiques from our instructors. I got a list of things that I could work with, including adding a gradient to the background instead, rethinking the order of each corner, making the lines meet up cleaner, fixing some unneeded white spaces, reconsidering the thick lines, and some other perfecting to some of the separate parts. I went ahead and made all of these changes to my design. I made the background parts a slight gradient(shown in second photo), I cleaned up the lines, I made the lines less thick and I even made some of the color brighter. As far as the 3D element, I decided that I wanted to do something different rather than just stack the same shape over and over on top of each other. I decided to break up the “scream” shape into smaller pieces, and position each piece at different angles creating the illusion of a hills, because that is when most screams happen.
FINALIZE
The photo shown first is a digital copy of my final design. I used all of the suggestions given to me and I am very pleased with how it turned out and how much better it looks than my draft. This project gained a lot of growth in a short few weeks. When I first printed my final copy, my lines turned out like this, even though I used the same colors on top of each other. I was disappointed at first, then I realized that the intent of my background was the motion blur while on the ride, and I realized that it worked out. The lines inside of the thicker lines are abstractly representing the motion blur, or motion lines while on the ride and you see everything pass by so quickly. The lines are random, and I think that adds to the fact of it representing motion lines, because they aren’t perfectly symmetric. The imperfection of the inside of these lines made me like it even more. The first link listed is a front view of my final project. I added on the 3D elements in a way that made them going at different angles, hinting at the various hills you experience on a roller coaster. The broken up pieces are supposed to represent the screams while on a roller coaster, which is why the shapes are different sizes and seem broken, like a screech and how it hurts to hear. The next two links are the two different angles so you can see how it looks from the side.