Information Design Project 1: Instructable Poster

16/01/2022 - 27/02/2022 (Week 3 - Week 8)
Evaleez Voo Lian Yun / 0350275
Information Design/ Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Project 1: Instructable Poster

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Lectures

Week 3: Miller's Law (Chunking)

History

• George Miller, a psychologist, performed a research in which he found what he believed to be the limit of the human ability for processing information.
• Most people stored ~7 things in their short-term memory

What is Miller's Law?

• To understand what another person is saying, you must assume that it is true and try to imagine what could be true of 
• Pause our personal judgements about the interpretation of words by others.

Chunking

• The process by which the mind divides large pieces of information into smaller units (chunks) that are easier to retain in short-term memory
• Helps users process, understand and memorize more easily
• Allow the brain to increase the channel capacity of short term memory
• Each chunk MUST be meaningful to the individual
• Example:
• Data where there are no obvious pattern
• Data with a lot of information

Chunking (Infographics)

Fig 1.0 Chunking in Infographics (24/01/22)
Source: CommLab India

• Content is divided into chunks
• Helps viewers to easily understand and memories the information
• Elements:
• Colour
• Numbering
• Labels
• Layout types

Chunking (UI/ UX)

Fig 1.1 Chunking in UI/ UX (24/01/22)
Source: ux360.design

• Having more than 7 elements can confuse the user
• Information on the credit card is being chunked into
• Expire date
• Number
• Security code
• Holder name
• Negative space can help signify where bits of web content are separated from one another
• Visual hierarchies (bolder text, highlights, bullet points, etc) can be used to ease viewers' absorption of the information.

Fig 1.2 Chunking in UX/ UI (24/01/22)
Source:wowmakers

Chunking (Processes)

• Creates shorter and simpler descriptions on how it relates to each other
• Improves comprehension
• Takes bits of information to combine them

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Instructions

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Visual Research

Besides references from the lecturer, I also browsed through Pinterest for inspiration.

Fig 1.3 Visual Research 1 (25/01/22)
Source: Pinterest

 The poster above uses a very simplistic style in their illsutrations but the composition is very eye catching. From the use of colours to the different texture they laid out, it certainly gives a clear yet concise way of teaching you how to make soup.

Fig 1.4 Visual Research 2 (25/01/22)

This poster caught my eye because of how fun it looked. It has a very hand drawn type art style which gives off a comfortable, safe space. Goos for people who want to learn on how to make pizza! Besides that, the colours are also very vibrant and pleasing to the eye.

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Idea Exploration

The first thing I did was to choose the right video to create an instructable poster. We were tasked to use videos only from "Pasta Grannies". After going through some of them, I chose Nicola's Sfincione video as my main topic. 

Sfincione is a speicalty in Bagheria, which is a town in Sicily, Italy, located approx. 10kmk to the east of the city centre. It uses ingredients like anchovies, breadcrumbs and primo sale cheese which are rarely seen in regular pizzas like the old school margherita.

Fig 1.5 Process 1 (26/01/22)

After watching the video, I listed down the ingredients and process used in a Google Docs for easy access. Some things I noted were the very long cheese names - Primo Sale, Caciocavallo. It would take up a lot of space in the composition unless I make the font super small - which will lead to unreadabilty.

Fig 1.6 Sketch 1 (02/02/22)

This was the first sketch I made, it's tiered like a burger. I quite liked this design, but the angles in the word descriptions would end up looking very messy and I wasn't too confident that I could pull this off.

Fig 1.7 Sketch 2 (04/02/22)

The second sketch was more 2D-ish than the first one. Nicola was very fun and energetic in the video, so I wanted to add him into the composition. I drew a chibi version of him carrying a big pizza knife along with the Sfincione by his side. Then I just arranged the instructions and ingredients at the bottom. Since he is Italian, I also added an Italian flag behind Nicola.

Fig 1.8 Sketch 3 (05/02/22)

When Sketch 2 was done, I tried out a few different compositions for the same elements. I also asked for an opinion from the public (aka my housemate) which one is better and she said the third sketch catches her eye more. To be honest, I liked the 3rd one much more too (2nd one gonna have middle child syndrome soon ( ͡⊗ ͜ʖ ͡⊗).

Fig 1.9 Process 3 (10/02/22)

When I was happy with the sketches, I moved onto illustrating it with Adobe Ilustrator. I decided to try a different perspective with the 2nd sketch just to see if it would change my mind. Besides that, I remembered in the "redesigning ugly infographics" project that too much graphics is not good too. So, I attempted to list the ingredients instead. However, it made my composition look very mundane.

Fig 2.0 Process 4 (15/02/22)

After illustrating the main elements, I arranged them according to the sketch. I added rounded squares and triangles so the viewers couls understand the process better. However, something was still missing.

Fig 2.1 Process 5 (15/02/22)

 

In the end, I switched the top parts into fully green and bottom to red (also coincidentally creating an Italian flag!). With this I finalized everything and switched to Adobe After Effects to start animating.

Fig 2.2 Process 6 (25/02/22)

Not gonna lie, I didn't have much time to animate this, mainly because of the workload we received from other modules and the sex education video in Project 2 (this took way too long istg but I learned how to animate walking and floating in space! So no regrets I guess). 

Fig 2.3 Process 7 (25/02/22)

In the first page animation, I decided to let him walk on a brick bridge (super mario reference + he introduced a kneading tip which was to "walk the dough". Also, the reason I chose a beach scene as the background is becasue Bagheria has nice sea views :>. For the audio, I found an Italian song from Sicily with a really nice beat, perfect for an energetic person like Nicola.

Final Output

Instructable Poster

JPEG:

Fig 2.4 Final Output (26/02/22)

PDF:

 

In the final poster, I used a more pastel background to complement the brighter colours in the individual elements. The green, red and white in the background signifies the Italian flag - where Bagheria is located in. I chunked the information into dough ingredients, dough making process, toppings and Sfincione making process, with the amount of each ingredient and its name framing each element. Besides that, I also utilized L.A.T.C.H by showing a step by step process with arrows and numbers.

 

Animation:

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Feedback

I didn't manage to ask for feedback (because I was not done with a lot of stuff), I'm sorry :(.

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Reflection

This assignment was not bad. I prefer the one with Pokemons more :p. But, my biggest take aways in this is the usage of colours, subtle ways to indicate processes and chunking a load of information into a 2048 x 2048 piece of canvas.. Besides that, I also improved in terms of After Effects. Although my love hate relationship with AE still stands, I am not that scared of it anymore. So, cheers to that!