120 Year 1 - Visual Design

Visual Design

(c) and reference from https://informationisbeautiful.net/

Week One

You will have a brief to do some research that will be useful to you, and present your findings using a beautiful, visual method. Of course you may argue that these examples (above, from informationisbeautiful.net are not beautiful, but they are certainly colourful, clear, and well organised.

What do you already know about what makes 'good' graphic design? (Discussion)

What makes a good choice of font? Of colour scheme?

TASK 1 ANALYSIS OF VISUALS

Choose 2-3 examples from here to analyse in terms of

Layout

Font

Colour

By analyse, we mean, talk in some detail about why you think those choices were made. Do you agree with those choices? Which do you find works best? Why that might be? Compare and contrast.

TASK 2 YOUR OWN LAYOUT IDEAS

You will create a few (three-four) layout ideas for a visual diagram. This diagram will cross reference the best university course with how easy it is to get onto that course.

TASK 2a

First, you will need to find data.

Use a website such as this one that rates courses, or find a criteria you prefer to judge 'best' course.

Write up the data.

Reference your sources.

Above are two diagrams, one looking at data of: waste by food type, and creating coloured blocks as a % and amending the size. One looks at Marvel films and data of success (based on budget recovered) and year of release.

TASK 2b

You need to come up with some nice ideas for showing the 'best course' data. Will use a big block for how good it is? A bigger (or smaller) road for if it's closer to where you live? You decide.

Perhaps start with notes or sketches to show your ideas. You may 'adopt' an idea from informationisbeautiful site if you need to.

Layout ideas can be rough! You can use Photoshop or Illustrator.

TASK 2c

Get some constructive feedback on your designs. Which do people like best? Do you agree? Reflect after watching this.

Work on the best one some more.

Add everything to your Wix site as a jpg.

Hand in.

Week Two

When a client asks for some design, a music video idea, a website idea, a film idea, it is always a good idea to come up with LOTS of ideas first. It doesn't matter if they're terrible (at this stage!). Much better working on a good idea than a bad one...

Your brief is to create an infographic that shows the paths you could take to different careers that interest you.

TASK 3

L1

Research at least three infographic tools and examples:

Piktochart
Infogram
Canva
Miro

Rate each for

Choice of colours
Choice of fonts
Ease of use
Can you export at high quality to later put on the wall
You can find nice examples (visually lovely)

Which infographic tool would you like to use most?

TASK 3 Research a wide variety of opportunities

L2 & L3

Find 3-5:

Apprenticeships
University courses
Further courses
Freelance jobs
Non-freelance jobs
Work experience companies that you'd like to work for

For each write down key information such as what you need to get on, duration, cost, pros and cons etc

Week Three

TASK 4 Soft and hard skills

Write a list of soft skills you have and those you are keen on developing.

Do the same with hard skills.

Write a list of all courses you've completed in the past, and those you are on right now.

Write a list of all work experience opportunities or work you've done in the past, or are doing right now. Include everything, a paper round, babysitting, whatever it is you've done.

TASK 5 Design pre-production

Create a colour scheme

Create a font sheet

Evidence your work as you progress,

Put all the information together.

Do three layout designs in ROUGH on paper or digitally

Week Four

TASK 6 Final Design

Review / assess / reflect / get teacher checked and proceed when signed off to create your first draft infographic

Review and create a final infographic

TASK 7 Evaluate

Go back and evidence key changes you made as you developed your work, based on

Either

Teacher feedback

Peer feedback

Your own desires and thoughts

eg - I changed the font here because I thought the original was a bit plain, I like this new one (Courier) because it communicates clearly but is more individual so stands out more on my infographic

Answer these evaluation questions (copy and paste and add answers)

Did these units help you understand the opportunities that exist, if so how, if not, what would have helped more

Which part did you enjoy the most

And the least

Are you pleased with the final infographic? Explain

Are you clear on what your own next steps are, once you complete the course?

If not, what would be useful (eg further discussion with Careers Dept, friends, parents, teacher, doing some work experience etc etc)?

Which graphic design skills did you develop?

HELPFUL RESOURCES

https://www.screenskills.com/

https://www.whatuni.com/

https://www.theuniguide.co.uk/