Developing a system

since my previous attempts were not applicable to the mood and place, ie VCU. I now tried by having just indexes of my problems, so that it is more in reponse to my audience whichare basically designers. Yet my challenge was to communicate these indexes well which wouold answer the problems
for example :
the spraying glue on floor. instead of actually showing the spray can used on floor, i tried by showing only the shoe stuck on to the glue on floor.
the throwing of trash on floor. instead of having a hand dropping trash i now just thought of having crushed paper fallen on the floor.
the the cutting on table. instead of showing the exacto knife and hand i simply traced the marks on the table.
disposing of the exacto blades. since i felt tha a cut is an index of this, i showed blood and bandaid. yet not convinced if this communicates well.
wasting printing paper. i showed papers just cuming out of the printer. yet here i felt i wasnt just following my system which was not to show the object that is the printer.
the spraying in classrooms. here i showed the spray all in the air.
the extra ones: i thought of closing the taps properly. here i just showed water droplets from the tap.
and then i thought of doing the toilets. putting just straight geometrical figures so tha not a lot of detail shows and it is in correspondence with the other icons. but still doubtful about it

set of 8 spices

I keep in mind the unity of the icon. But I create the forms I had aproblem with the thickness . some of the looks different because of the scale. I have to groups of spices. One for countable spices and the other for uncountable spices. For example lemon is countable so I draw one lemon..etc.

In the class critique. I was suggested to have all of the spices in a group. So that I don't loose the unity of them. The critique was helpful and aware me of something that I wasn't consider at.

I chose arabic font that has thick and then parts and at the same time it's has basic handwriting feeling. The latin one also has the same texture.

developing the actual Icons

I take a sample of each kind of the original form of the spices. then I explored the surface and the size of each one of them. I draw sketches of each one in different angels. I started with a very detailed one tell the I reached the simple abstract form. For some spices I cannot get rid of the detailed because the actual form is not easy to recognize. So i have to figure out which details I have to include or take of.






I keep in mind the effect of the arabic calligraphy pen ( thick & thin part) plus the texture of the in ink on the rough surface.

exploring with different materials and techniques

I used the sponge roll and dip it in the ink to have a feeling of smudgy textures. each time i try it in a different way . I played with the negative area. it's make a big different when I cover a part or fill it with ink.

writing on the wood and fabric gives fuzzy edges result.

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.

Phase 3 Process

I decided to do Icons for the spices, because there are no labels or title to describe them. Due of lake communication. It was hard to ask the sellers about the spices, so visual communication is one of our mission as a designer.


Other issue is that most spices is grounded -roasted- So it's not in it's original shape. To come up with an Icons for them. I have to search for the original raw shape of those spices.

Sumac

Can you imagine!! It's kind of fruits
this was surprise for me, because I didn't thought that a spice can be a fruit.

Abu Hamour

After my 1-1 critique ,I had a lot of good advice how to better improve my signage's system and quality.I also found a better typeface that ave better texture.

Fruit and Vegetable Market, phase 3

This is what I showed on sunday:
After talking to Maya about my work and seeing what other people in the class created I noted the changes I need to make to my icons.
These changes are:
-create smoother lines
-the uneven floors icon needs to be clearer to show uneven floors rather than a box on the ground
-make some of the white lines thicker or get rid of them
-trash icon: less detail in the trash to continue the unity between it and the other icons
-hands: need to all give the same feel, stroke etc.
-fruits icon: change to fit the feel/mood, not so much detail like in the pineapple
-vegetables: smoother lines
-tap: less detail
-icons may need a box/border around them
-space between arabic words may need to be smaller
-english type needs to change, no serif, needs to be more organic

Villagio Food Court, icons

I tried to make two icons for each problem so that I have an option in the end, when refining the last chosen ones.

These are two examples of icons I made for "Talking softly" icon. Because usually food courts are very noisy and it is hard to hear one another.

Stand In Line

Throw Trash

Arrows

No Left Over Food

Villagio Food Court, Sketches

To begin with my icons I started to sketch them using a a grid from graph paper to make the squares that define the icon.

These sketches include:

- no left over food.

- stand in line

- bathroom signage

Villagio Food Court

At first I started to look at and analyze the feel of the Food Court in Villagio. I was looking at thins such as color, sound, and even the way people behave. At first I started to analyze colors in the Food Court. They are all bright colors such as Red, Orange, Yellow, and Blue.

Then I had a better idea when I came closer to each restaurant. I noticed the LCD of the cash machine that has the money amount in a geometric, digital, shape. So I thought I would use it for my whole signage system since every restaurant has one. So it's the common thing in all restaurants.