ISTD: Trails of Thought
colliding particles of the mind
colliding particles of the mind
Brief
This project is a response to the ISTD brief ‘The Train Standing at Platform 2’ for which I needed to ‘take a metaphorical journey on the theme of connections’. I chose the non-linear journey approach ‘by connecting seemingly disparate themes…remembering however, that you must demonstrate the logic of the connections’. My aim was to create a print based, infographics style final outcome. Infographics is something I had not done before but wished to try my hand at; to show versatility and the my ability to handle different types of projects.
Solution
Thoughts, if left to themselves, are like colliding particles of the mind, in a blank, white space. The viewer is taken on a journey through stream of consciousness thoughts/free associations. The trail of thoughts starts with two quotes by Kenya Hara (from his book Designing Design). The quotes refer to a red dot on white, and through it Hara’s use of the circle/dot as a symbol with a story to tell, an empty vessel which the viewer fills with their own meaning. This project was influenced by my dissertation on the role of the circle as a symbol in logo design.
This project is a response to the ISTD brief ‘The Train Standing at Platform 2’ for which I needed to ‘take a metaphorical journey on the theme of connections’. I chose the non-linear journey approach ‘by connecting seemingly disparate themes…remembering however, that you must demonstrate the logic of the connections’. My aim was to create a print based, infographics style final outcome. Infographics is something I had not done before but wished to try my hand at; to show versatility and the my ability to handle different types of projects.
Solution
Thoughts, if left to themselves, are like colliding particles of the mind, in a blank, white space. The viewer is taken on a journey through stream of consciousness thoughts/free associations. The trail of thoughts starts with two quotes by Kenya Hara (from his book Designing Design). The quotes refer to a red dot on white, and through it Hara’s use of the circle/dot as a symbol with a story to tell, an empty vessel which the viewer fills with their own meaning. This project was influenced by my dissertation on the role of the circle as a symbol in logo design.
Approach
The overall look of the final outcome was inspired by the image I used as my starting point – a red dot on white. I wanted the design to be clean, elegant and simple with a limited colour palette consisting of red, white, black and grey. I intentionally chose this approach because it is very different from how I usually work. My work generally leans towards being quite illustrative, with lots of colours and decorative detailing.
The overall look of the final outcome was inspired by the image I used as my starting point – a red dot on white. I wanted the design to be clean, elegant and simple with a limited colour palette consisting of red, white, black and grey. I intentionally chose this approach because it is very different from how I usually work. My work generally leans towards being quite illustrative, with lots of colours and decorative detailing.
{cropped close up of the top of the scroll}
Theme
Through this project I explored the role of the designer as the author and the concept of authenticity, or truth within design. The multitude of software available gives us the means to prune and polish anything and everything, and shape it however we like. Our ability to manipulate, edit, and represent data in a certain way raises the question of authenticity, whether we are being true to the data.
{cropped close up of the bottom of the scroll}
Data Treatment
The data of this project was collected from a 20 minute recording in response to the Kenya Hara quotes which are set out at the beginning. The hierarchy of the piece became an unravelling string of thoughts in the form of a timeline. The recorded data allowed me to track the thoughts over time (to compare duration of each thought and of the pauses in-between). Time became one axis and for the other axis I chose to look at the ‘degree of association’ – how closely or loosely the thoughts link back to the original concept a red dot on white, thematically or visually. 
{the infographic scroll in its entirety}
