AAD II, Assignment 2- Figma in all its glory and lessons learnt

-

 Once things progressed into Figma, I rapidly increased to 14 layers from 9 sketches.  The final count was 18, double the sketches.  I think this is to be expected, a project is always more complicated that first expected, double the layers isn't double the complexity, it just reflects a simplification of the original plan.

 Things I learnt about app development and design:

Do not be wedded to your initial mood board and colours.  They were there to kick start the creative process.

  • Use the assets that are available for free downloads.  They save time
  • Be careful of using the assets that available for free downloads.  They clutter up your build.
  • Arrange you assets.  I have not done this.  It would probably be a fairly short (2 to 4 hour) process.
  • Don't worry about arranging your assets, its more important to get something that works, aesthetics can come later.  It won't take long.
  • Don't worry about discarding assets you brought in or designed, they will still be somewhere.
  • Keep track of where you found assets or you might lose them.

 This was a good project and went beyond furthering my understanding of Figma.  It did help with understanding layout in general, and design considerations.  This could be transferred to print products.  Things like bread crumbs can be found in some books where the chapter is indicated on each page, and of course page numbers.  Both breadcrumbs and page numbers have to be easily understood.

OLE! Read more, read easily!

 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Type 2 Assignment 1- Post 1, Fototype

-
Image
 Composing pictures to blend text with the image is tricky. I started by brain storming concepts for the contents of book (image 1). Is it about people, places, things, etc? Concepts for layouts and spreads. Finally is there a unifying concept? During all of this, and keeping in mind the minimum of 20 photos, I settled on 24 photos in 24 hours in the Medicine Hat area. I wandered around with a notebook and pen and took pictures when I could. The locations for the images range from Medicine Hat to Redcliff to Basanno. Image 2 shows the initial brainstorming list of photos, followed by the first list of photos and times; this was superseded by the notebook. Getting the photos between 0700 and 2200 was easy(ish). I made a conscious effort to keep the notebook at hand and would divert my route when needed and if I had time; for the rush hour picture I just pulled over on my way to school and went up on the overpass.  I was opportunistic, and kept the project in mind when I was in ...
Read more

Type 2 Assignment 2- Post 1, Fontery!

-
Image
 So, we gotta make a font. Influenced by Medicine Hat. I hate driving in Medicine Hat. I'm going to make a font that reflects it. I love Wim Crouwel's work. That's an influence. So, looking at the New Alphabet for inspiration, I stared at its type example for too long. Figured out what the figures, math symbols, and punctuation represented. Eventually I started thinking how it related to Medicine Hat transport routes. I realized it didn't directly speak to the traffic, but it did look like roads curving around. While I was doing rubbings of type, I was walking roads, looking down, and realized that the road markings would make an interesting basis of the font. Turns out there are rules for road markings ( https://open.alberta.ca/publications/highway-pavement-marking-guide-2nd-edition/resource/14df908e-9c5d-41f8-82f9-09ac12b5d99a ). Here's the main page I used for my rules of the road. Once I had decided on road lines, I started doodling lines and shapes I see on the...
Read more

Type 2, Assignment 2- Post 2, Linery of White Line Fever

-
Image
 So now the rules for the lines were decided I needed to draw them. I went through a few iterations. As I was inspired by the New Alphabet I kept my marked up guide next to me. I started on three handraulic versions. The first one was during my ideation, see previous post for those doodles. It was more to decide if I wanted solid, outline, negative space, etc. Didn't go far. Then my first alphabet, in my notebook. I was still working out line weight and if there were curves (there weren't in the end). This is also where I decided on the name, White Line Fever. The madness that comes over you after driving too much. The second one is closer to what was done. No curves, but still working on line weights. My final version was done in Fontlab. Of course I let my 10 day license lapse before I took a screen shot, but here is my type specimen. Lessons learned: Taking on new software is challenging. Taking on new software that has a relatively small market is harder as tutorials are sc...
Read more