TASK2- YSP MAP

WHAT IS A MAP???

Random ideas: 

Pick up rock fragments from the ground?

Record the sound along the journey?

Draw a line to record the journey, turn it when u turn?

Use words or shapes to represent the environment? 

Use plastic to replace paper to represent water?

Dots to represent population density?

Use colours to represent the weather?

Winds? Sound waves?
Put the sounds together to form trees?

For this task, we are going to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. We flip a coin whenever there is a branch as we walked. Our group decided to turn right for tails and left for heads. We ended up flipping the coin for 5 times.

FLIPS AND TURNS:

TAILS (RIGHT)

TAILS (RIGHT)

HEADS (LEFT)

TAILS (RIGHT)

HEADS (LEFT)

Randomly making colour palettes of the trees we saw in the park. The colours ended up being so autumnly and it really matches the weather on that day. Maybe we can use this colour scheme for our map so that there will be a consistency of colours? These colours will be the base of the map and we can use contrasting colours for the symbols to make them stand out?

REFERENCE & INSPIRATIONS:Mulholland Drive: The Road to the Studioby David Hockney (England, 1980, Paintings, Acrylic on canvas)

-2-D + 3-D

-Different perspectives

-Curved lines, grids, patterns

-Vibrant colours

-Made use of the noise of the city to create a map

-Cut papers to create the shapes of the sound waves

-Put them together the from skyscrapers = a city

Picture taken from an art exhibition in Hong Kong from few years ago.

Contour lines? 

Thought it’d be cool if we put coordinates onto the map?

PROCESS (FAILED):

Examples of sound waves that we recorded throughout the journey. We recorded a 5 second audio at each stops. They look really different as the wind intensity varied. Wider soundwaves are produced when there was a bigger wind and the trees rustled as the wind blew.  

Putting sound waves together using the overlapping method.

I joined the tips of the sound waves and made a zig-zagged shape out of it. They ended up looking like trees. Thinking of using the negative space of the outcome…

Then we cut out the sound waves shape and planned to cut it into half horizontally and make a wind-intensity-burger-like structure.

The lines in the middle show how big the wind was throughout our whole journey. When the intensity was high, the lines are packed. When the intensity was low, the lines are distanced.

However, the outcome looked too complicated with too much information in it. Therefore, we decided to give up the idea and turn it into something more minimal and simple.

PROCESS (FINAL):

We then cut out symbols that we designed. The designs are mainly made of lines. Our group mates came up with this brilliant idea of using the number of letters in each words as the number of lines in each symbols. (trees:5 lines, cloud:5 lines).

We put up the symbols that we cut onto the windows. 

RATIONALE:

VERTICAL STRUCTURE – developed from a list of findings as we walked 

LINE SPACING – the closer the lines, the stronger the wind intensity 

NUMBER OF LINES – represents the number of letters in each symbol’s name 

ARROW DIRECTION – dependant on flipping a coin in order to randomise our path HANDMADE QUALITY – reflects the subjective, personal nature of the map

FEEDBACKS:

Is the idea behind the map communicated successfully? 

Are any references/ research sources explained?

Is there a KEY? Does it help you read the map? How could it be improved?

-very well communicated. Simple details explained every aspect has meaning.

-the key allows for the ideas to be communicated clearly

-visually its nice to look at but it is hard to understand 

-the rationale doesn’t completely communicate the concept behind the work

-the idea is communicated successfully- very interesting to look at. Interesting to have so much information in one. → but think should’ve refined ideas and stuck to one rather than combine.

-the key is helpful 

-might look more interesting made digitally (some maybe slightly obvious)

Is the choices of visual language justified? Relevant?

How could it be improved?

Visual language: colour, line, pattern, shape, scale, composition, etc.

-could be more bold, bigger → think about size

-more consistency between each symbol (using added shapes or same + net others)

-they have symbols in the way they haven’t shown in map

-the minimalism used of material gives a sophisticated appearance 

-the design works really well on the window

-the light accentuates the thin lines

-it is justified but maybe a bit too simple.

-more rational 

→ why did you choose to use the window/ lines/ colour?

→ why did you choose these symbols?

Does the map follow standard ideas/format? What are they?

How could they be challenged/experimented with?

-shows journey in a line -- chronological → objective

-it breaks the norm of a map by using listed imaginary but still follows chronological order

-could experiment with 3-D

Its still flat and gives info like a standard map → the shape and surface gives it something different → 3-D?

REFLECTION:

I realised that the key and rationale is not clear enough for people to understand the map. I agree that the map should be refined as the tape we used for the lines are too thin,which allows light to shine through thus giving people a feeling of unrefined. Also, it will definitely look better if the key is made digitally as this will maintain the consistency of the whole outcome. After the task, I realised that there should be a meaning behind every elements of your design. From the crit, people asked questions about why did we choose blue for our map and why did we choose these symbols as our final work. It makes me think deeper into the meaning and rationale of our task. If there is a second chance for me to recreate the map, I will choose a lighter colour like yellow. This is because the blue that we used didn’t really matches with the aesthetic we wanted to create. The symbols and lines that we created are thin and small, therefore, the colour we use should be something light in order to correspond to the whole aesthetic. Besides, we can try to join the symbols and arrows together to form a horizontal pano-like bar. Our designs are mainly made of lines and there are a minimum of 3 lines for each symbol. I totally agree with the idea of merging them together with 3 lines as the base of the map. This not only shows the chronological order pf the symbols, but also makes the map tp be more neat and tidy.