Category: COMM 165

GROUP DESIGN RATIONALE

For our final project we created a matching game using a few of the important concepts we learned about in Comm 165. We completed many matching quizzes over the course of the semester, so we thought this was a good way to tie in that method of learning. There are five categories, and cards that have aspects specific to each. Players will then match the blue (aspect/definition) cards to the red (category) cards.

The first category that we created for our game was “Mind Maps”. Mind mapping is a topic that we focused on for a while in this class. There were periods of trial and error in the beginning, and students were not grasping the full concept of mind mapping. When creating a mind map, one must draw attention to the subject by placing the subject in the center of the page. Once the subject is crystallized, the mind map must consist of themes that relate to the subject radiating from the central focus. These themes must be capitalized and underlined. They should also be one worded themes to avoid overloading your map with random words. These branches should form a connected nodal structure, bringing the map together as one.

One category of the game we created is storyboards. Storyboards were something we learned about and focused on in class. We created our own storyboards as one of our blog assignments. For this category of our matching game, we put the aspect/definition cards as “moment to moment”, “action to action”, “subject to subject”, “aspect to aspect”, and “non sequitur”. We chose these as the aspect/definition cards to be matched with the red storyboard card because these were a big focus for us in class when we learned about storyboards. These were the transition names that we learned about, in order to create our storyboards using them. We formed our storyboards around these transitions, choosing photos that together would create one of these. Since these aspects were a big part of our learning about storyboards, we felt they were perfect for our game.  

Another category our game focused on is “Explanation Graphics”. This method of visual and sensory learning works well together with the material we are learning because it is interactive, repetitive, and features multiple themes and topics discussed in our Comm 165 course. We included critical aspects of this concept such as Schriver’s Model of storytelling which describes combinations of words and images within a frame: a) redundant, b) complimentary, c) supplementary, d) juxtapositional, and e) stage-setting as well as Gestalt’s Principle of proximity: things that are close together are perceived as being grouped together. These definitions tie together with Explanation Graphics in regards to reflecting the different storytelling/narrative modes and demonstrating clear, concise information.

For the category of simple tables and graphs, we wanted to make sure to include the many different aspects that this category includes. There are many different options for what you can do with a table or chart, so we wanted to make sure to include all of these options in this category, which is shown in the option that includes pie chart, bar graph, and line graph. However, there are many qualities that tie all of these different visuals together, and these are shown in the options of displaying quantitative and qualitative data. The combination of both types of data is something that was stressed in our blog post on simple tables and graphs, because the having both types present and working together is integral in having a successful chart or table. Finally, the most important aspect of a table or graph is that it provides an effective and simple visualization of the data, which is the final match for this category. We felt that these four statements summed up the category of simple tables and graphs well.

The final category of our game focused on flow charts. A flow chart describes a process, system of model through shapes and lines. Earlier in the semester, we created flow charts explaining the advisement process to new students. A flow chart begins with a topic or idea, such as the advising process. This idea is put into a rounded rectangle. This shape is called the terminator, as it signifies the beginning and end of the process. In between the terminators are rectangles and triangles that help explain the steps. The rectangles are used to show the steps in order and triangles are used to pose a question. From these triangles stems arrows saying yes or no. Depending on the individual’s answer, this determines if they need to go back a step or if they should continue through the chart. Flow charts are useful in communicating the details of a task or process, documenting each stage of a process, and acting as a blueprint of a process. When learning about flow charts, we learned about Occam’s Razor Principle of Parsimony, which says to “never increase beyond what is necessary the number of entities required to explain anything.” This idea was helpful when creating a flowchart because it is important to simplify the ideas in order to not complicate the process. All of these statements were included in the game we created, as they are important to understanding a flow chart and how it works.

Mind maps, storyboards, explanation graphics, simple tables and graphs, and flow charts were important topics that we spent a lot of time learning throughout the semester. When creating this presentation, there were many decisions to be made. Upon beginning the assignment we made the decision to create a matching game because we felt it was the best way to explain and test a person’s knowledge of the topics. We then decided to use more than one matching card for each topic to enhance the information being provided. We originally were going to use one information card per topic, but felt that each topic needed more explanation. The audience for this assignment was someone who had never taken the course. By creating a matching game, we are providing the information, while also giving them a tool to test their knowledge once it is learned.

INDIVIDUAL REFLECTION

With our final project, we were really working to create a visual that summarized everything we have learned so far this semester in a fun, creative way. We wanted the project to be very easy to understand, but also interesting and engaging, since it is a game. With the presentation in mind, we wanted to make sure that it was something we could talk about clearly and understand when we were presenting to the class. We also wanted our project to be different from the others, not just the first idea that popped into our heads. We decided on making a matching game, because we felt this fit the project guidelines perfectly.

The biggest problem we encountered with this project was the logistics of the game itself. Once we decided that we wanted to a matching game, we had to decide how we were going to make it. It would be easy to make a small scale matching game, but we knew that this was something we would be presenting to the whole class, so we wanted it to be large and legible for many people at once. We began by using poster boards and cardstock for our different categories and definitions, which was fairly easy. When it came to putting it all together though, we had to spend quite a bit of time trying different things out. We went through many different theoretical options of how the game would be played, whether we wanted to tape the blue cards to the poster board or cardstock, whether we wanted to hand out the blue cards or have people come get them, etc. We ended up decided on handing out one card to each person, and letting them come up and place the card on the correct poster board, where the category would be.

Our “AHA” moment came when we decided what we were going to do for the project. As mentioned previously, we knew we wanted a fun, simple, creative visual, so we decided to go with a game. This would make it interactive and fun, while still being educationally valuable. We decided on a matching game, because we thought it tied in everything perfectly. Also, matching is something that has recurred many times in this class over the course of the semester, in both quizzes and exams, so it was a concept that is familiar to the class. It was a very logical way to organize all of the information to be seen at a glance, but is still challenging to put together. Once we decided what we wanted our visual to be, we were able to move forward and work very well as a team to complete this project.

All parts of this project related heavily to what we have learned in class. Not only was the content of the game directly taken from material we have learned in class, but the process of putting the game together required us to draw of concepts we have learned throughout the semester as well. It was easy enough to look at definitions and facts and put those together, but the challenge was using the visual forms and concepts we have learned to create a final visual that was successful. As a culmination of the class, this project required us to draw on everything we knew, and not necessarily use it all, but decide what worked best for our situation.

With more time, I think our group may have invested in better quality materials and higher production. We created this game by hand, and while I am proud of what we have created, there is always room for improvement. However, better quality production would have cost more money, which was something that did place a limit on us. With that said, I am very happy with the way our final project turned out.

I wanted my visual resume to reflect as many aspects of myself as possible. I thought about all of the things that are on my normal resume, and tried to find a way to incorporate all of those things into this visual resume. I wanted it to be very organized and easy to follow, but also interesting to look at and engaging. As with any resume, I wanted the important information to stand out to a potential employer taking a quick glance, with the less important information still easily accessible.

The biggest problem I encountered while making this visual resume was trying to get it to all fit on one page. I knew that I wanted to have a mind map as my central form, with each branch featuring a different form of visual information. It worked at first, but I quickly realized that I would have to very carefully place my information and move lots of things around in order to make everything fit on an 8.5″ x 11″ surface. While this was not a constraint for the project, it is something that I have been told many times about a resume, and it was important to me personally to have it all on one piece of paper for easy viewing.

My “AHA” moment came when I decided that I wanted to have the mind map as my central form for the resume. At first, I was having a hard time figuring out how to tie everything together so that it was all connected, and when I realized that I could do it as one big mind map, it became very easy. As mentioned, it was still difficult to make sure everything fit on the page in the mind map form, but the mind map gave me a lot of freedom to move things around on the page however I needed to make it all fit.

To complete this visual resume, I had to draw on almost everything we have learned in this class up to this point. I had to think all the way to the beginning of the semester when we learned mind maps, right up to the graphs we did a few weeks ago. I made sure to create each visual form in the correct format. One of my favorite things that we have learned about in this class is the concept of Occam’s Razor. I really like the idea of not using any more information than necessary to present an idea. I personally enjoy looking at things that are clean and simple, and creating things like that as well. This theory makes a lot of sense to me, and it is something that I have incorporated into my visual resume, as well as all of my other assignments. I also considered my use of color to show importance.

I’m very satisfied with how my visual resume turned out, but if I had more time I would just add a few more branches to my mind map. Each branch that I have added presents a lot of information, so adding more would only be beneficial to the overall resume. I could have maybe added a line graph for another set of information, or provided a timeline of my time here at Roger Williams. However, I feel that what I have created provides a very full picture of myself and my academic career, so I am not worried that I am missing any important information.

For my infographic, I decided to work with the topic of food, specifically food groups and the recommended servings for each to maintain a healthy diet. As a college student, I want to make sure that I am eating well to keep my body healthy. This can sometimes be difficult to do in college since we are very busy and don’t always have the power to make ourselves food. I did some research into the recommended food to each, how much, and how often. I compiled my research from https://www.gosh.nhs.uk/children/general-health-advice/eat-smart/food-science/food-group-fun and looked at what aspect I wanted to focus on. I made a mind map of all the possible routes I could take, and felt that a graph would be the best way to represent multiple sets of information. I then sketched out a bar graph to provide a framework for myself to go off of when I moved to a computer generated version.

I decided to focus mainly on how many servings of each food group you should eat a day, while also integrating some information about what a serving size is for each category. This information provided my qualitative information, so I also included to quantitative information on the side to inform the viewer what each category does for your body. I wanted to infographic to be very clear and easy to understand, while also being interesting to look at. I didn’t want to overwhelm it with information, but I did want it to be a useful piece of visual information.

The only problem I encountered was decided how to include both the qualitative and quantitative information in one image, and making them cohesive but not confusing. Ultimately, I decided to keep the information separate but in close proximity, so that if you looked at one section you saw the other. I also decided to color coat the categories so that they were tied together, and so that it is easier for the viewer’s brain to make the connection from one section to the other through the concept of affinity. In this way I was successfully able to create my infographic at one view, involving quantitative information, qualitative information, and the task/process all in one, cohesive, presentation.

My “AHA” moment came while I was mind-mapping. I was unsure how I wanted to present my information. A food pyramid is a very common way for food portions to be displayed, and I knew that I wanted to do something different, I just wasn’t sure what. While I was mind-mapping, I was thinking about the different forms we have been using in class, such as tables, flow charts, graphs, storyboards, and collages, and settled on a bar graph. Once I thought about this form deeper, I realized how well it suited my needs, and I was able to run from there. It was very important that I first collected my information in table form, so that I was able to visualize it and put it into graph form.

This assignment really challenged me to draw on everything we have learned so far this semester up to this point. I had to consider all types of visual graphics we have learned how to create, and analyze which ones would be most beneficial for my situation. With things such as cognitive load and

With more time, I think the only thing I would change is doing a little more research. I am very happy with how my infographic turned out, but it can never hurt to be more informed. I only used one source, but I’m sure that if I had looked at more sources I could’ve had a more rounded understanding of the information. For example, the website I looked at recommended 4 servings of carbohydrates per day, but another website may have recommended 5. Even so, I believe that my infographic was successful in conveying my message of the recommended servings of each category of food per day, according to my source.

This infographic can be very helpful in showing all people what they can do to better their health when it comes to food, which I believe is a very important story to tell.

Here at Roger Williams, I am a graphic design communications major, with minors in marketing, and public and professional writing. Keeping track of three different paths and what I need to do to complete them can be overwhelming. Putting it all into a table was helpful for listing out each specific thing that I have done and still need to do, but putting that same information into graphs helped me better wrap my head around the progress I have made and how much I have left. For this reason, all of my charts are titled “Credit Progress”.

This is the story I decided to tell with my tables and graphs – my credit progress. My focus was on the gap that exists between what I have accomplished, and what I have left to do before graduating in two years. My goal was to make the information clear and simple, so that I could look at it and easily understand where I currently stand in the process of completing my degree – just as Tufte would like. I also wanted it to be easy enough for other people to understand when they look at it, such as my parents or advisors.

I encountered quite a few problems while completing this blog assignment. First, it took me quite a while to understand how Professor O’Connell’s spreadsheet worked, and how I could adjust it to make it most useful for myself. I spent a good amount of time poking around the cells to find where the formulas were from and went to, what abbreviations meant, and where all the information was linked to. Once I figured this all out, I was able to get rid of what I didn’t need, and input my own information. Also, I had a little bit of trouble figuring out how to make graphs on Google Sheets, since I had never done it before. I often had the wrong information displaying in the wrong way, so it took a good amount of trial and error to figure out what I needed to do to create the graph the way I wanted to.

My “AHA” moment came after I had put all of my information into the spreadsheet and began to see the totals of my completed credits and the amount of credits I still need to complete. Since I am about to complete my sophomore year of college, those numbers were pretty even. However, there were a lot of different numbers going on, and I needed an easier way to look at them. Since I only have two years left, it is important to make sure that I am on track to graduate on time, and by putting all of this information into graphs, it made it much easier to comprehend. It is important to have a clear cognitive thread, so that the viewer doesn’t have to work too hard to understand what they are looking at, and can make the links between different kinds of information in their mind.

I used my larger, full class spreadsheet to get down to the simpler information in the table shown above. This was the information that I wanted to work with to make my graphs. I first made the two bar graphs. These two graphs are sectioned by category (major, minor, CORE, etc.), and I used color to differentiate the two types of credits, completed and required, in order to make the gap between the two very obvious. It is a little more difficult to understand the bar graph where the lines are next to each other, because the graph where the colors build on each other, it is much more clear and concise what information is being shown where. Then I decided to make my next graph a line graph. Similarly, this graph has a point for each category of study, and uses blue and red lines to show the different amount for completed and required credits. Since the points of data are connected in a line, this graph is much more successful in showing the overall picture of the gap between the completed credits and required credits. Finally, I combined the two types of graphs, using a line above bars to show the gap. I think that this is the least successful graph, because it is confusing for the mind to look at two types of shapes displaying information.

All together, my table and graphs form an infographic. While separately, each element is just numbers or colors, all of the information together creates a kind of story that amounts to an infographic. An infographic, fathered by William Playfair, is just that. Since it is important to cite sources, here I will note that the source of my information for this blog post was Roger Central (https://collselfsrvprod.rwu.edu/Student/Planning/DegreePlans?hideProxyDialog=false). This is an important practice so that I don’t run into issues of copyright infringement.

If I had more time, I would have met with my advisor to make sure that I had all the information that I needed. I am pretty confident that my courses are accurate, but with more time I think that it definitely wouldn’t have hurt to double check. I also would have spent a little more time learning how to create graphs on Google Sheets, just so that I am more informed for the future. It was also somewhat difficult to put all the information together into a single image with Google Docs, so I would work a little harder on that.

With my flow chart, I was trying to make the registration process as clear as possible. It is a very complicated system, and I wanted to make it appear as simple as I could. I tried to keep each individual step simple, as well as the overall chart. However, I still wanted it to be very informative for anyone who looks at it.

My biggest problem in making this flow chart was decided what order to present the information in. I personally feel as though everybody goes about their registration process in different ways. Some people know their entire schedule when they go in to meet with their advisors, when others don’t have a clue what they want to do. Some people have to declare minors in order to get into certain classes, and other people don’t even know what their major is yet. Some people have good relationships with their advisors and feel comfortable asking them questions, while other students will figure it out on their own, or by asking someone else. With all of this in mind, it was tricky to find a way to represent every single persons situation in one flow chart.

My “AHA” moment came when I decided to take a step back from the details and personal situations, and just make my flow chart based on the cold, hard, necessary requirements. Basically, the bare minimum that you need to do to be able to register for classes. When I started to look at it that way, it became much easier to create my chart. I defined the beginning and end of the chart and the necessary steps – such as meeting with your advisor and getting everything approved – and put those in. Once I had that skeleton, I was able to better think about the things I personally did in between each of them, and so I was able to add that information to make the chart better.

One of the most important parts of making this flow chart was making sure that I was using the correct shapes and lines and symbols at the correct times. By referring to outside references, I was able to do this. This is important because each specific shape has a specific connotation for a step in the process. For example, the rounded rectangle means start or end, while a diamond signals a decision. In this way, the shapes are almost setting the stage for the text. I was also focused on making sure that each step was legible, and that it had enough space in the box to be read easily.

If I had more time, I would’ve spent a little more time getting comfortable with Google Drawings. I am very used to using Adobe programs, and have never used Google Drawings before, so I felt a little out of sorts while making my flow chart. I think if I spent some more time learning everything that you can do on Google Drawings, I would’ve been able to make my final chart a little bit cleaner and the process of making it would’ve been much easier.

My explanation graphic displays the life cycle stages of a plant as it grows from a sprout to a fully matured plant in the ripening phase. This graphic also contains text that informs the viewer about what kinds of nutrients are most important for the plant at each stage. This can be very important for someone to know if they are trying to grow a successful plant. I got my information from http://www.saferbrand.com/articles/plant-growth-stages, and viewed many different graphics in order to gain a good understanding of the topic. I believe that my graphic is complimentary. The viewer can gain a good understanding of the way a plant will grow through viewing the image, but you really need to read the text at the bottom to understand how to make that happen. Likewise, the information on the bottom is hard to understand and relate to without seeing a visual representation of the stage.

I chose to create my graphic is this format because it helps to alleviate the cognitive load. Since each step builds on the previous, it helps to reinforce the information for the viewer and remind them what is happening so that they don’t have to remember everything on their own as they take in new information. Being able to see each step in one quick glance allows it to all immediately be part of your memory at once, as a whole process rather than separate steps.

With my graphic, I was working to create a simple, inviting image that would be useful for people who wanted to grow plants more successfully. I wanted to make sure that it was very easy to understand so that anybody could use it. However, I still wanted it to be informative and worthwhile.

The biggest problem I encountered was how to create my final product. I debated drawing it by hand, but ended up deciding on using Adobe Illustrator. This way, I was able to make my graphic extremely clean and colorful. However, even within Illustrator I spent a good amount of time figuring out how to best create the image, and make it appear clean without being to mechanical.

My “AHA” moment came right at the beginning of this project. I spent a few days thinking about what I wanted to do my graphic on, and I was very stuck. I wasn’t sure how to make something that wasn’t just a how-to, but was still informative. I was looking at the plants in my room (which I am struggling to keep alive) and was curious about their growth process. It was then that I realized that this could be something that other people also wonder about, and that it could be useful for me to present it in a visual way. Once I decided on this topic, it was smooth sailing.

I knew that I wanted to create a complimentary graphic, because I feel as though those are the most informative. I wanted my graphic to have two sides to it, both explaining something, but being even more powerful together. While creating my graphic, I was also very aware of my alignment and general positioning of my elements, in order to make the image procedural without being repetitive. I was also focused on the legibility of the text, since it is an important part of the graphic. By juxtaposing the flow of the images with the flow of the text beneath it, it makes it clear which stage belongs with which information.

If I had more time, there isn’t much I would change other than making the final graphic a bit more detailed. It was very tedious to create all the leaves and roots on each plant, so if I had more time I would go back in and add some more to make it more interesting and realistic.

Storyboard #1

This storyboard depicts the process of a little girl seeing a perfect apple hanging in a tree, her reaching up to pick it, grabbing the apple, and then having it in her hands. The first transition is moment-to moment, because the apple remains the same but time passes as the girl reaches her hand up. Next is an action-to-action transition, as the little girl picks the apple and pulls it down. This transition features a single subject – the apple. Lastly is an aspect-to aspect transition, as the story goes from just the hand holding the apple to the whole girl holding the apple. There is not much concept of time in this transition. I think that all three of these transitions work very well in making the story clear but simple. They place the focus on the right object and action.

Storyboard #2

My second storyboard displays a scene of a father and his daughter praying at a grave together. It shows aspects of both the father and the little girl as they pray, and ends with the grave to provide context. I changed the second image of my storyboard between my sketch and my final because I was unable to find a photo that worked well of two people kneeling together. So, I substituted for a close up of the hands, which provides more emotion. The first transition is aspect-to aspect, as both images feature the man, just different parts of him in the same time span. The second transition is subject-to-subject, as we move from the father to the daughter. The reader is involved here by making the connection that the two people are together, which may not always be super clear. The last transition is scene-to-scene, as we go from the two people praying at the grave, to just the grave. Deductive reasoning is used here to assume that this is the grave that the people were praying at. This storyboard requires a bit more assumption on the part of the reader, and while I think it could be slightly misunderstood because of this, I still think that it is successful in getting the main point and the emotion across.

With my storyboards, my main goal was to create clear, interesting stories that weren’t too complex. I wanted the reader to be able to follow what was going on without getting too bored.

One problem that I encountered while making my storyboards though, was figuring out what pictures I needed to fill in the gaps, and finding those pictures. I spent a good amount of time searching the internet for photos that looked as though they went with the photos that I chose, and made sense. The biggest problem that I had though, was determining what kind of transitions I had. There were many places where there were multiple choices that seemed correct, and I had to think for a while about which one was most accurate.

My “AHA” moment came partway through doing my first storyboard. I was thinking too large. I was trying to create a whole story, instead of just a short burst of a scenes. Once I realized that I needed to reign it in and think smaller, it became much easier to create a storyboard that made sense. Having this in mind made the second storyboard much easier as I was trying to connect two images.

This storyboard assignment really made me think about the way that information is presented, and how the tiniest adjustments can change the whole meaning. I had to think about the many different options I had for presenting my story, and which way would be the most successful. In my first storyboard, I used repetition of the image of the apple to hone focus there. Since no words were used, I had to rely solely on the images to get a message across. My first storyboard included casualties, as the events had an effect on the events that came after them, and included logogens as a result. My second storyboard was made of imagens, in the way that they were each part of a whole relationship, but not necessarily in any hierarchy. Having completed this assignment, I now see how important transitions are in a story, as we can see in McClouds story. He talks about the importance of images in a story, and I can see that now as well.

If I had more time, I would probably just spend more time looking for more accurate pictures. I feel satisfied with what I created though, and would not change much else even with more time.

With my “How-to” graphics, my main goal was to make the process as easy as possible to understand. Making english muffin pizzas is a fairly simple task, but if you know nothing about the process then it can be very confusing. I wanted to keep my steps simple and clear, while also providing enough information for the viewer to be able to understand everything they need to know. Since the audience is children, I wanted to make it fun and colorful as well, in order to keep their attention.

My biggest problem when it came to this graphic was simply drawing each thing. It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to depict the sauce, the cheese, and the baking sheet involved in the recipe. The oven also took a little bit of time to make right, and appear like an oven without being too detailed. I added some linear perspective – where “projections of parallel lines converge on the picture plane” (Ware pg. 92) – to the oven to make it appear more realistic. I used my first draft as a way to practice some of the drawings, and was able to better refine them for my final draft. Showing the movement of things was also a challenge, because it can be hard to show the movement of something in a static image. The clearest option is arrows, but I also didn’t want to overwhelm the image with arrows. I used my draft to help decide where the most effective places to use arrows were.

My “AHA” moment came when I was doing my research. I was looking at different infographics and videos of how to make an english muffin pizza, but then I looked at some recipes. I realized that my how-to graphic was basically just a recipe in image form. When I read the process step by step, it helped me to realize that I needed to present my graphic in this step by step manner. Thinking about it this way set me up to make a successful how-to graphic.

In Chapter 5 of “Visual Thinking for Design”, Ware talks a lot about how the relation of objects to one another in a graphic plays a large role in how the objects are perceived. So in my how-to graphic, the way each step is related to each other affects how they are seen as well. The amount of eye movement required to take in the information, and the way different information is connected can greatly affect the meaning that is absorbed by the viewer. In Chapter 6, he goes on to explain further how the makeup of each individual object affects this understanding as well. As mentioned earlier, adding perspective to the oven made it much clearer. The concept of geons plays into this because it is “the idea that the brain contains mechanisms to identify three-dimensional structural components of objects”. If the geons aren’t right, it can make it hard for the person to understand what they are looking at.

If I were to do this again, I don’t think that there is a ton that I would change. I am satisfied with how the final draft came out. One thing that I would do though, is make some elements larger. In my graphic, I tried to keep everything relatively accurate in size in relation to other things, but I do think that it could have been beneficial to enlarge some aspects, such as the sauce or cheese or the pieces of the english muffin pizza, in order to add more detail and make it clearer what things were. It could have also been a good tactic in helping direct the viewer’s attention to the right place.

With my map, I wanted to define a clear route from my dorm, which is Stonewall Three, to the Global Heritage Hall. As a graphic design major, the majority of my classes are held in the Global Heritage Hall. I also have many meetings held there, and enjoy spending time in the atrium visiting Starbucks and doing homework. Overall, it is the place where I spend most of my time on campus (aside from my dorm). It is not a far walk, but certain factors including winter weather, and the recent construction on campus have required me to seek new paths to GHH, and here I am showing the route that I find to be best. I wanted to share this because I think that it could be useful for some other people. Since there are many paths that can be taken to GHH, I had to use decision making to determine which path I want to take. Within my map, I show a path that goes over the bridge by the pond, past the gazebo, through the Gabelli School of business, and right across the street into GHH.

The largest struggle that I had when it came to making my map, was making it to scale, and somehow conveying the three dimensional space between buildings in all directions on a flat piece of paper. I began with my starting and ending points. I then tried to mark the two most prominent landmarks of the walk, which are the bridge and the school of business. Setting these four pieces in place helped me to more accurately scale and place the other landmarks of campus in relation to each of these. I started my map drawing two dimensional buildings, but as I went on I began to try to add a bit of depth to the buildings to help the reader better understand how the space was working.

I think that my “AHA” moment came with this idea. As soon as a drew one building with a little bit of dimension, I realized that I needed to have a point of starting perspective to build off of for the map to make sense to the eye. Once I had that point of origin to go off of, it was much easier to create my map and work with the space and scale effectively.

When it came to the decisions I made about the design of the map, I decided to try and keep it very simple and only highlight things that needed to be, because as Ware says “There are strict limits as to how many colors can be used effectively as codes” (pg 77). The most prominent color, pink, was used for the route itself because it stood out and wouldn’t be mistaken for any other natural landmark. I used blue to highlight the pond, since the bridge going over it is one of the most important parts of the route, and blue makes the pond very recognizable as water. Finally, I used green to highlight the grassy areas around the school of business, another important landmark, to help the reader discern which way they should be going in relation to the grassy areas. Green is another color that also helped make the grass recognizable as grass. This map displays both parallel and serial processing, since the route as a whole can be looked at and understood using the landmarks to create a whole mental image. However, it can also be taken piece by piece as you go along the path. I also used salience in my map, to make the important landmarks and turns stand out to the eye through color. Finally, as McCloud argues in chapter 5, different styles of lines can create different feelings in an observer, so I tried to keep my lines simple and clear so as not to be distracting.

If I had more time, I would spend more time making sure that my scale was perfect, since I loosely estimated with the tools available to me. I would go out and measure certain areas so that it was perfectly accurate.

I decided to zoom in on the area of my map that focuses on the portion of the path around the business school, since this is the portion that has changed recently. Due to the construction, you can no longer go left around the business school, so I wanted to emphasize the fact that I now go through the business school.

With my second mind maps, my main goal was to be much more successful than I was the first time around with this assignment. Since we were told to try and solve a problem, I decided to focus on something that has been a present issue in my life – whether or not to go abroad next spring. I wanted to create new mind maps that completely explored this problem, and would help make it clear to me through a physical visualization what a good solution was. I wanted to make sure that I touched on as many areas of consideration as possible. When I moved to my second mind map, I decided to explore the different possible locations that I could go abroad, so that if I decided to go abroad, I could use this map to determine where I wanted to go.

The first problem that I encountered was what problem to talk about. I solved this fairly quickly though because the issue of going abroad has been a present decision in my life currently since it is housing season. Once I had to move onto the second mind map, I again found myself unsure what branch to focus on. I decided that location would be the best option because it would have the largest impact on my abroad experience.

My “AHA” moment came for me as I began to think about how I would structure my mind map this time around. I wanted to be sure that I could have long, chained segments of thought, while still having room to explore many different aspects of the problem. I realized that I could do this by branching off from the center with my four main areas of thought, and take those each in many directions. Once I started doing this, I realized that it made a lot of sense. Writing the words on the line really allowed me to take it in many directions, and continue to expand without every hitting a dead end. Having a few main ideas worked well to start, but by the end everything appeared just as important because of the way that everything tied together. The first time around with this assignment, I was unsure why some of the requirements were as important as they are, but now that I see my finished projects, and can see how clean and clear they are, I understand why some of those details were so important.

It was very easy to relate a lot of the Gestalt vocabulary to the mind map process and creation. Qualities such as proximity and common fate play a large part in how the mind map is laid out and connected. Mind maps can also be described at semantic, because the form of the mind map plays a large role in the meaning it portrays. Similarly, it is also syntactic because there are many relationships to be found between the parts of the form as well. The use of lines and putting the words on lines allows continuance to be displayed in the mind maps, which allows us to show connection between two or more things while each still appears as it’s own.

With more time, I probably would have done some of my own research into the process of going abroad and each individual location. For these maps I was going off of personal opinions and things that I knew from other people or sources. However, I do think it could’ve been beneficial for me to have some outside facts to strengthen each branch.