Pictogram mock up plans

My wayfinding system will be placed around the city centre. Each location's pictograms will be placed at another nearby locations, with directional cues to point in the general direction, with the distance also included. 

Whilst walking my planned route, I got the chance to discover ideal places to implement my system - taking advantage of big blank walls and empty pavements where my signs would be seen. I created a plan for each sign and calculated distance and direction from each sign to the corresponding location. These are displayed on my site map.

The system will be placed as follows:

Kirkgate market pictograms placed outside City Varieties Music Hall (0.2 miles)

Briggate pictograms placed on a high wall in between the markets and Corn exchange (0.1 miles west)

City Varieties pictogram placed on a blank wall next to the Markets (0.2 miles west)

Corn Exchange pictograms placed within Briggate (0.1 miles east)

Location for Kirkgate market:

Location for Briggate:

Location for City Varieties:

Location for Corn Exchange: 
(lots of blank spaces in Briggate to place pictograms, exact location to be determined) 

As well as a place for each location I would like to place all my pictograms together in a place not related to any of the locations - a blank space such as a pavement. From here people can use the pictograms to go to whichever location they choose, and then they can continue their journey on from each location.

Pictogram process

Each location will have more than one pictogram. These pictograms will be used in the form of a puzzle and each puzzle will need to be fairly easily worked out in order for my wayfinding system to work. Because of this at least one of the pictograms for each location will need to be quite obvious. This stops my way finding system being too abstract, as if this happened then it would not be successful or be able to be put into use.

The other pictogram(s) I plan to be more abstract to keep the puzzle working, and the system to still require brainpower for people to successfully follow it.

For initial sketches I looked at making my icons more modern - using block shapes as my symbols. I chose to discard this idea when I looked at Walter Crane - however I still wanted to make my symbols appear more modern than a regular Victorian illustration.

Briggate (road to the bridge):

 Leeds City Varieties Music Hall:

Kirkgate market:

Corn Exchange:

Directional cues:

Initial Pictogram sketches

To start creating my pictograms I gathered relevant pictures for inspiration on my starting point. I began with Briggate. 

The pictures I gathered were from the Victorian period, including illustrations and photographs.

In my initial experimentation I created a few variations upon the origin of the name Briggate (road to the bridge) in different styles. I also created a pictogram to portray a shopping street but felt that the name idea worked better, as it would be more relevant to a rebus puzzle. Taking inspiration from the Victorian style of illustration and creating sketchy pictures did not work well in my opinion. I experimented with a more modern style of illustration using block shapes (top right of below right page) but this didn't suit my project either. 

From here I looked back upon my research into Victorian Illustration to get inspired and was immediately drawn to the emblems created by Walter Crane.

 

I was inspired to create pictograms in this style instead of purely just illustrations of relevant objects. I think this method will give me a more consistent way finding system with all symbols different but contained within the same (or potentially similar) shape. These will make it easy to identify the signs as within the same system.

Beginning to create emblem style pictograms instead of stand alone illustrations proved to work better in terms of the system seeming stronger and having a more confident style already. Once again I attempted to incorporate the Victorian style illustration within the emblems and it worked better but the sketchy style looks a bit scruffy in my opinion. In contrast, the simpler symbols to the left look bolder and more confident - but do not fit as well with the period. I aim to try and mesh the 2 styles, and perhaps produce pictograms in a cleaner version of the Victorian illustration style.

Wayfinding Interim Crit

Presenting my initial ideas on the buildings I plan to include as well as my decided inspiration - Rebus puzzles - proved to be successful in the crit.

My peers seemed to understand the method I am going to use.

Feedback:

• your pictograms could be placed onto the end of one building, with a directional element pointing towards the direction of the next building. For this I will need to find good spaces within the city centre near to each building to mock up my signs.
• you could produce your sign onto a piece of wood, painted on like sign writing. For this I can research sign painting and relevant methods, as well as discover what I would need to produce these signs.
• For your directional signs you could use the hand symbols used in victorian times, for example in parlour games.
• You could also take inspiration from the pictures in the Rebus devices, and echo the style of the illustrations on it. For this I can research Victorian illustration.

Final Tate Exhibition Poster

My final outcome is a poster for an art exhibition held at the Tate Modern on the theme 'Twisted', which I intended to be an exhibition on unusual architecture. I wanted my poster to be in keeping with the Tate's existing identity so I used a very similar typeface. I also used the same basic template - with the venue and date at the top, logo at the bottom and extra info at the bottom left. 

I also wanted to incorporate the element of negative space as in the Tate posters, so I included a white bar running down the very right of the poster, which the title cuts into. 

                         

For this poster I stayed within a grid. I opted for a hierarchical grid with the title and photograph the main elements in the composition. Within the grid though you can see 3 clear columns breaking up the page.

Making and Breaking the grid

Making the grid:

Grids are used in graphic design to bring precision, order and clarity.

Vignelli, who is a renowned Modernist quotes in his canon 'Nothing could be more useful to reach our intention than the Grid. The grid represents the basic structure of our graphic design, it helps to organise content, it provides consistency, it gives an orderly look and it projects a level of intellectual elegance that we like to express.'

There are a few basic grid layouts.

 

A manuscript grid is the simplest of them all. All the text on the page sits within one box which takes up almost the entire page. The grid provides no hierarchy and the text flows from one line to another. This grid is used for continuous text such as manuscripts and book layouts. 

 

A column grid is used notably in websites and magazines where text needs to be clearly separated. The grid is flexible as the columns can accommodate text or images. You can use as many columns as needed however it is easiest to limit the number to a few in order for the page to not appear cluttered.

A modular grid is a column grid, but with horizontal columns across the page also, creating individual boxes, otherwise known as modules. These modules can hold separate information, making the grid extremely flexible. The modules can be resized accordingly, with smaller and large modules alongside each other - smaller modules make the layout more precise but too many modules however can make the page too cluttered.

A hierarchical grid is a grid that relies more on intuitive placement, with the grid conforming to the needed information, rather than the other way round. One piece of information or an image may need to be far larger than any other element on the page.

The grid was a major element in the Swiss design style. But by the 70's post modernists were at the forefront of design, stretching the grid to its limits and breaking it.  

Josef Muller - Brockmann's Swiss Style poster vs Wolfgang Weingart's post modernist poster

Breaking the grid:

If you want to you can completely disregard the grid and create your own rules. A perfect example of this is the designer David Carson.

David Carson is very influential in the world of experimental typography and as art director for the magazine Raygun he produced many covers displaying his style.

Carson rejected the grid preferring to create his own rules in regards to layout and appearance. As is evident from his Raygun covers he used a basic grid to start with but deviated from it in order to create his signature style.