Week 1–3/2
For this project, I have chosen to work on the Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures Virtual Screening schedule. This week, we had our first two deliverables due for this project. The first deliverable group allowed me to experiment with three different types of editing a document, these were: “line spacing”, “horizontal shifts” and “stroke weights.” It was interesting to see how each of these design concepts, on their own, impacted the look and layout of the text. Although these design concepts are relatively simple and something I think most of us are familiar with, I think working with each one on its own, and with the described constraints, helped me to understand the individual power and influence of each on information organization.
Line Spacing:
This was my favorite iteration from the line spacing version. This is my favorite one because I think it does a good job of breaking up the important categories of information, it also seems very readable and easy to parse through for information.
Horizontal Shifts:
This was my favorite iteration from the horizontal shifts. This one is my favorite because it also does a good job of ‘chunking’ and breaking up information. It is easy to parse through because it has a header and then an indent with follow-up information. I think one consideration is that the names of the authors are used as a header, and for those that may not be familiar with them, it may be more useful to use the name of the work/title as the header.
Stroke Weight:
This was my favorite iteration from stroke Weight. I had a harder time deciding the stroke weight combinations and on which lines needed the extra emphasis. I chose this one as my favorite because the ‘important’ information is readily visible, but I think it could be improved in terms of readability.
Week 1–3/4
For the second deliverable, we were given a little more freedom by now having to combine two of these concepts in each exercise. By virtue of being constrained in the first round, the second round felt very freeing and I think it demonstrated the value of not ‘overdoing it’. The one I had the most challenge with was the Scale exercise.
Stroke Weight + Horizontal Shift:
This was my favorite iteration from stroke weight + shift. I think this was my favorite because it was a combination of my most effective horizontal shift from the previous exercises, along with stroke weights to help further define each information category. I like how there is a bold header to define the category, a medium-weight to define the second-order information, and a basic stroke weight to define the rest. I think the variety of stroke weights + the horizontal shifts is a visually appealing combination.
Line spacing + Stroke Weight:
This was my favorite iteration from line space + stroke weight. I think of all the exercises I’ve done up to this point, this my favorite overall. I think it is very readable, and the information is effectively chunked. I also really like how the main header “Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures” has a subscript underneath “Ten Evenings…” which makes it almost look like a logo. I also like that the stroke weights seem more balanced and not too heavy.
Scale:
This was my favorite iteration from the scale exercise. As mentioned, I did have the biggest challenge with the scale exercises, so even for this being my favorite one, I’m still not too sure about its effectiveness. I had a hard time determining the correct type-size combination and contrast that enhance readability.
Week 2–3/9
This week we were given more freedom to play around with the design’s layout. I experimented with color and type hierarchy. I went through multiple different iterations for both my color exercise and my image exercise. I think the experiments I did with color this week greatly helped inform my final design.
Color:
This was my favorite iteration from the color exercise. For this exercise, I tried to follow the color scheme in Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures’ logo. I eventually went with a different color scheme in my final design, but this type hierarchy and general layout informed my final design decision.
Week 2–3/11
Image:
These were my two favorite iterations from the image exercise. I tried to broadly experiment for this one, as my first few iterations were not particularly effective. I initially believed the first one (blue) to be my more effective design, but after meeting with Vicki I realized that it was a bit too busy and had too much going on. I also realized that the color scheme could’ve been more effective in terms of contrast and readability. The second design here (red) had greater readability and use of contrast, but maybe not the most effective image. My final design ended up being a combination of these two iterations, using the color scheme from the second and the layout and image from the first.
Week 2–3/18
Final:
This is my final design. I am pretty happy with how this turned out and I don’t think I would’ve been able to create this if I hadn’t gone through so many different iterations. Each exercise and experiment allowed me to see what was effective or ineffective in my earlier design decisions, and so I used those past attempts to inform this one. The critique was very helpful in making me feel confident in my final design decision, but I wish there were more comments on how I could improve this design. I still have reservations about the banner on the right side, but there were comments regarding its effectiveness so I decided to keep it (I removed it from the mobile version though). I also applied a feather effect to the image (because it was difficult to get smooth cropping).
