willemshepherd_project1_process

Mind Map of a Logo
Project 1 :: Process Work

Mind Map of Logo see the final project back to my  wikispace Starting off, I wanted to make a map of the creation of a logo, from the beginning to end, from the designer to the client. To do this, I started by looking at the company, which the logo pertained to. My earlies sketches of the structure of my final map started here:



This is an image of the first layout of the company, in which the final cyclic nature of my layout is already apparent, from the beginning, I was very focused on the company as a central idea that my mind map would surround. I found that because of the connections of the different layers could connect in a way that had no start or end, I could connect all three layers together quite easily by focusing on key elements.



This is an image of all the key concepts of the three layers, demonstrated by the separation into columns, designer, company and client. This collection of words greatly simplified the creation of the map, as all I had to do was write these three groups of words in illustrator and start arranging everything from there.



This image shows my struggle against the tyrannous oppression of the flow chart..., anyways, I found that the process of design, as I have been often conditioned to think, is a start-finish activity, when in truth it is the opposite, it is a dynamic process that can jump from almost any point to another, going from start to middle, middle to start, and maybe not even finishing. This I believe I accomplished demonstrating by making it into a circle.



Though this is labelled as the design process, it is really a combination of the company, with the brand and product, and the client, with experience.



This is a more intensive look at the mind map on paper, with the connections drawn in as lines with arrows, but without the circle-like. In creating this, I realized the importance of RECOGNITION in the overall mind map, as I had not thought of it before. In this I also found that I was creating main categories with sub-information that related primarily to that main category, such as scope, with television, web, and print, though these three were present in other parts of the map, they mainly applied to this main subject. Drawing the lines in this mind map helped with the final as I could refer to it and see connections that I had missed when transferring it to the computer.



This is where my primary breakthrough happened, when I went to talk to Pat about the mind map in a review, he suggested that I separate it into the three processes of Designer-Company-Client. This more flowing approach was applied to the map and was present in the rest of my designs including my final mind map. I also was suggested to try to create the process into more of a start-finish approach, starting from the designer, finishing at the client, but I found it was more connected while in a circle, but could still more or less have a start and finish.



My first layout on the computer was not in a circle, but more like a mind map, This design was catering more to a print idea than the connections of the mind map. I wanted to take the three different layers and print them on separate sheets of vellum, thus creating a three layer printed mind map that could be flipped through to clarify the separation between layers and the main concepts of each layer.



This is the same text as the image before, but I have added background elements to try to connect the layers within themselves and make it more visually "together." This was printed with the transparent vellum, but I immediately found that I would need transparencies to have any affect that would work. This created a huge problem and I had to go straight back to the drawing board, basically scrapping this idea, though not the structure of the three layers, entirely.



This is the first layout in a circle, I started with the type aligned so that it could be read easily, though I found this cut up the visual appearance of the overall piece. From the beginning I had certain elements that I wanted to keep in the final, such as the sign, signifier, signified, and the organization of the circles.



This arrangement of text was a huge improvement and allowed me to make the connections easier, and cleaner, as the previous idea left jagged and awkward type arrangements. I like how this is immediately easy to tell what belongs to what, as it has a simple hierarchy that is apparent without supporting visual elements.



I decided to use circles behind the words to help differentiate the three levels from each other, as well as within a level, the two levels of importance.



I tried using black as the background because I thought it might be an interesting visual element but it took away from the look of the piece entirely. I immediately went back to the white background.



This image is basically the final, with the grid that I created to make sure that the text was aligned in the right place. I had originally created this to create boxes around the type, but decided not to pursue that visual look, and stick with the simple and structured arrangement I had already started using.

see the final project here