Creating My Icons

It took me several different refinements to be able to finally get my system right. I kept jumping around from one idea to the next.


This was my first set of icons. Originally because of the time that I had spent on developing the trash icon, and because of how refined it was, I decided to us the embedded concepts for my system. The idea was that it is clean balanced between curved and balanced between curved and straight lines. But the rest of my icons dont fit in at all and each seemed to have their very on system. But I could look at these icons and take certain elements from each that I could then put into my system to make them work.

Now with this set of Icons i created I was getting closer. I had zoomed in close on each object, made them more equally balanced by color and I added the element of the socks to the legs so I could break up the space more. But during the critique I noticed that I hadn't followed the diagonal on all the images and that they all needed to include and object combined with an action; like the bottle being thrown into the trash, the foot stepping on the flower. I needed to come up with some way that there would be interaction between the bench and the cigarette, and most of all I needed to still develope a good icon for the restroom that followed the system. Also I needed to come up with a way that my walk and run icon could be unified but at the same time could have distinguishable characteristics so that they could be read as separate signs.

For my final set of icons I fixed the above problems by giving them all the same angle, I created a hand that was holding the cigarette to create some sort of interaction, as well as the ball resting on the bench, and then finally I made the walk and run icons exactly the same but added texture to the running to separate the two. Then for the bathroom signs, I illustrated a womens and a mans shoe, this idea I still should have pushed further if the time allowed for me to do so.

Overall while creating my icons I was very frustrated, it took me until the end to understand the idea of a system and especially what exactly my system was. The icons would have been much easier for me to complete I feel if I had spent more time on research and developement through sketches just like I did with the trash icon. But what I liked about my icons is that by including interaction between objects as a part of my system made the icons more interesting and exciting to work with. It forced me to be more creative and to generate ideas that you wouldn't see on a normal basis. I feel that signages systems is definitely and area that Ill still need to improve on but feel like I do have a good basis for it, and also even though I struggled with my system, the fact that I kept working with the idea helped me to learn about the concept within design more, and that was definitely a good outcome for the project.

Jo Bermejo, VCUQ Library, Icon development

After tracing my drawings and simplifying them several times, I had a set that I am happy with and proceeded to make some sample icons. I want the icons to have a rounded edge square based on the pattern of the bins in the library. Here are the first few icons i came up with:

The bin pattern that I based it upon:We had a class discussion and I showed them the initial icons. I was told that the image of the front view and side view of the phone is the one that works the best for my location. The rest either didn't look like they belong to a design school, or are still not simplified enough. I decided to stick to the two mobile phones, and from there I tried to follow a system of simplified objects that were drawn using a grid system. I chose to use a grid to reflect the organization and the orderly characteristic of the library.
Here are the first proper set of icons:

The top set shows the different sections of the library.
The bottom set shows what's prohibited in the library.

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:

searching for techniques that being used there

The Souq is very old and it's made of rocks and mud. I looked at the calligraphy and the graphs. I found that they used very typical hand writing. Even the images is very basic.




I did some experiment on the rocks and other material.
The writing they used is very rough textured ans not professional. So you can see rough edges around the letters due to the material they use to write in .






This is arabic calligraphy pen. This type of pen is very common for classic arabic writing.

Post Critique

After the critique I was left with some very good advice on how better improve my signage system.I got advice on how i could simultaneously streamline my design and communicate my message more effectively.Simply put it was to add lines to indicate amount rather than have an entire separate sign to do so.

For the typefaces I first looked through the Arabic typefaces since they are limited in number and its easier to find a Latin typeface that can syntactically harmonize with Arabic than the other way around.After looking through all the dirty or (gasp!) stencil Arabic typefaces available in Linotype (yes every single one) it was down to 2 . Myopia and Taghiir.
I chose Myopia because Taghiir was too clean.
Then I went on to look at an english typface that can balance Myopia I looked through :
http://www.dafont.com/theme.php?cat=113&page=1
http://www.dafont.com/theme.php?cat=108
http://www.dafont.com/theme.php?cat=109
(gasp!)=> http://www.dafont.com/theme.php?cat=114

(Yes every single one)

Fruit and Vegetable Market, phase 3

The class critique was very useful to me. I was able to hear what others thought about my work.
Below are the changes I made to the icons I showed in class.
Along with the small changes I did some cropping to most of the icons. Before the cropping the icons showed too much, they were more like pictures rather than icons. These improved icons, below, I feel will be clearer to the audience, for they focus on the main point they are addressing.

The critique

After working on the first icon, i tried developing a system for all my icons. I chose each icon to have a object and an index, since the first one i started with included the cutting knife(object) and the marks(index). I also decided not to include a lot of other information and tried cropping it with greater emphasis on the object. i also included a hand in all my icons.

The Critique:
The critique in the last class was beneficial for me. Since VCUQ is a design school, the critical response i received was on the fact that my icon designing was not suitable to represent the space and people. Thereby, now i have the challenge to develop something, which is simplified, communicates well, balanced, has a system and yet represents the mood of the place.