AbuHammour Sinage Color Scheme and Application

I simplified my color scheme by using only 2 colors ,and increased contrast by using black as the background.I chose to use a light box for the application because its attracts attention and relates to the lights of the stores.

Colors for the Fruit and Vegetable Market

To find the right colors for my icons I went back to my mood board and picked out some of the colors that stood out the most and some of the colors that I felt would give the feel of the market. Here are some of those colors:
I then tried applying these colors to my icons and felt that this combonation of colors works best:The two colors used above came from my mood board I felt they went well against one another, for they carry a good contrast that keeps the icon clear to read.
The sample icon, above, shows an attempt of how the icon can be placed with the text on the the sign.

Color Scheme For AbuHammour

Color scheme The color scheme I chose was derived From the mood poster we did ,Grey from asphalt...etc,with the emphasis on the signs to be seen it's brightness so it's seen Execution:my first thought was apply my system to standard reflective metal signs. But after the critique in class,I am now leaning towards having a light box signs instead ,where they resemble the signs that fill the station.

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:

Refining

this is what i have after the last critique. i have tried my best to establish a system by having a zoom up of the problems and also balancing it with the black and white spaces. i have somplified qute a few of them and erased excessive details. However the type is still not revised and i have to still look for more expressive type.

experimenting

so the next thing i did was trying icons and refining it in order to get the communication cross.
since the band aids did not work so well, so i took a start from showing how the garage bag, the blade cuming out of it and pricking a hand. But after the critique i realized this was not following my system.
the glue on the floor. i tried to show more zoomed up of it by showing more of the sole, trying to follow the system of showing a very close up of the cutting marks on the table. after the critique i realized that the shoe showed a lot of details in comparison to th rest of my icons and so it needs simplification.
now instead of my toilets i now tried to show the icon of showing electric danger, hence i showed bare open wires. in this the diagonal of the wire follows the system of the same way my cutting marks has a diagonal of the table.
Now instead of showing the printer i now concentrated towards just showing papers scattered around, however according to the critique this looked more like an organized pile of papers
And lastly since my water tap and droplets were all solid color, i tried to experiment more with the lines. however according to the critique this no longer showed a tap and instead looked like an open shower.

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.