group project, mapping ideas

Mapping ideas

We first started by collecting words that represent the experience when playing the gaiss game so the words were
Challenge-tough
Funny- start laughing as a group because it’s difficult to get it right
Traditional
Outdoor
Frustration
Competition
Group aspect- several people share the fun


Then we started analyzing three different words that mostly highlights the meaning or the essence of the game and the experience

Challenge- the more it’s tough the more they want to try playing to reach the level of satisfactory
Traditional- importance, revive, timeless game functional don’t need a lot of stuff simplicity, priceless, role model, familiarity
Funny- laughing at a loser when breaking the rules the fun of picking on someone when losing


Based on that we had the idea of stop motion as a medium because it’s a step by step game and in a sequence we wanted to show challenge but we were falling in the mistake of being too pragmatic our plan was to show a foot and a rock going forward but loosing then needing to go back again to step one to show challenge and difficulty


After seeking advice knowing that a persuasive video could be more targeted to the young children audience whereas the poetic communication is often for older people meaning the parents for such a game we wanted to show difficulty and challenge to the children temping the to try it by showing the struggle of a girl playing and inviting them to try the challenge

We came up with this idea considering our time limitation before that we want to have another concept of a stop motion of the person playing but transitioning to different location from past to future to tell them that it could be played wherever whenever

sign application

using the idea of plexi-glass as a medium to keeping up with the theme of the space being clean

adding color

here is my initial color scheme that I've chosen









and this is the more improved chosen the bright neon colors to contrast with the dull pastel colors of my space and they are inspired by the shopping theme of my section

refining and finding the suitable typefaces

1. this is the collection of icons that I've tried to finalize yet they still had some issues with the system









2. while being critiqued by both the class instructor and having a discussion with another teacher outside the class about systems in icons I started understanding more and knowing what could make an icon not belong to the system there are several points or elements to think of
- the most obvious problem is whether my icons should be flat or dimensional choosing one of these and keeping it consist ant which is what was lacking in the images shown above the shopping cart and the shopping bag are dimensional while mostly the other icons are flat
- the quality of the icons' edges whether they should be pointed and sharp or having them all with a rounded edge which I was trying to achieve but wasn't completely solved yet in some of the icons
-the consistency of the thickness of my stroke depending on the style of my icon for example in my icons I have to keep it consistent and not vary from one icon to another but from critique and observation other students who have chosen Arabic calligraphy style to there icons their strokes vary from thicks and thins but still having it consistent in all their icons
- lastly is the percentage of black I have as a fill color in my icons so for example if one icon has 70% black then it should be as consistent in the other icons which was still lacking in the alarm tag icon and the shopping cart icon

by such notes I tried to improve my icons as shown in the following:









and for arabic type I've searched for the most suitable arabic type that had similar counter space, x-height, stroke weight, and the proper legibility as well as their syntactic formal relationship to the icons. I've struggled with finding a suitable Arabic type then I was recommended to look through the GE fonts for suitable Arabic typeface

in case you were wondering what are GE fonts they are called Graph East fonts which from their name are designed to suit arabic typeface but they are designed to mimic the feel of latin typefaces in their shape, line quality and so on so far they are not available in the vcuq system but they are available in a few forums that I've looked at mostly arabic forums

GraphEast
جراف ايست

finding my system

since I tried a variety of sketches and tried to diverge in my first problem through class two important elements seemed to be the most functional and related to my place which is villagio
-one being or having clean quality in line drawing
- two having to exaggerate and highlight elements in my icon, but why exaggerate? a question that was raised. villagio interior is very well exaggerate in some areas and try to show an over the top theme whether it was in it's fake interiors + exteriors or in it's rules and it being very orderly and clean

so based on these two main elements in the system for the icons I tried explore with the following problems:

here are problems that are taken from the book:













the first row is dealing with the problem of people standing in the middle of the way.
second row is leaving carts outside the shop.
third row is dealing with bumping bags.

I've then sketched a few of the generic problems:

sketching

during this phase we started creating a list of words for each problem before drawing the icon
for example my first problem was retail alarm censers making people be aware of it so I've started looking for the possible indexes and objects that could represent it so there were a few
a. the alarm tag
b. the alarm censer
c. the alarm tag with a hand
d. the alarm tag with a t-shirt
then I collected a few photographs of possible angles that could work and start tracing, exploring, understanding what angle could work best which has more potential and then simplifying further more and refining

sketches of problem 1. alarm sensers:

class discussion

what did my group discuss about my work and did they guide me:
so my group thought that the problem of the platform was working I just had to think of a scenario that would show the people facing this problem I already had the cart bumping the platform shown with images but I have to now create a scenario and photograph it with using people tripping because of it.
a few of my group members disagreed on one of my problems which was people bumping into each other especially when carrying shopping bags out of my observation and me being part of the audience in villagio this situation happens quiet often which sometimes can lead to disturbance for the other person who was bumped some get mad.
my group discussed what other possible problems they could see in villagio for example not having directions for knowing where the toilets are unless you reach a toilet and see the sign next to it same issue with shops.
for next step I'll be trying to look for problems in the shopping area not only next to the gate (Aisha Al Naama, Al Hussein Wanas, Nawar Al-Mutlaq, Wafa alsaffar)

phase 2 process b

after process b it was discussed on how I have to think out of the box and always be "politically correct" I was completely lost but tried to get a few problems that can work in the future as problems that can have a design solution " creating sign"

so a few problems that I observed were people either tripping from the platform in the center of where people circulate or having their carts bump into them.

another problem I found was people having to keep their carts outside the shops but there is no sign for that

the other problem is the queue of the carts coming in from the entrance people have to move aside and make place for the man to push the queue of carts back to the supermarket in villagio

also the abayas getting stuck in the cart wheel

after collecting such problems in class we discussed on what could work as a problem that would have a design solution or not

two important things that were told to me to put in mind that helps me to understans this projec and know how to filter my problems are
1. knowing that the space really deals with the problem often
2. knowing that it is not a personal problem like I've once suggested that for all the females that go wearing high heels get blisters and pain from walking long distances in villagio, this is not a problem that most people deal with therefore there is no need to look at it as a major problem in a shopping mall. also like the abaya getting in cart situation

phase 2 process a

in the beginning of this phase I looked for completely random problems like signs and mistakes I didn't what exactly was a proper problem, a few of the things I observed in the beginning is the misplacement of signs for example the comming soon cinema is placed where starbucks is as well as the exit sign pointing towards the brick wall there was also another problem with type in the arabic sign which was the missing dot so the arabic word translated as embarrassing instead of exit but after class discussion I understood that the problems should relate to my audience so in my case my audience are bilingual therefore the misprint in the exit sign is not a big issue also after in our class discussion the first time it was mentioned to think of problems related to
object+place
people+place
people+object+place
didn't know how to really understand it until our last discussion

Aisha, Villagio

brief process

I chose to observe villagio specifically from sephora to the shops before paul restaurant.
through my first visit there I haven't noticed much except that it mimics another country through the interior showing an outdoor theme, but in the second step of the process we had to observe again and write a list of words that represented the place and group the images based on the words I chose to define my place as the following:

orderly+clean and safe



bringing the outdoors indoors+fake



the idea I chose to convey in my final poster is the orderly very organized and clean feel of villagio, also showing the fake feeling that villagio has through it's interiors by using a few illustrations with still showing that it is a shopping mall