Information Design Lectures & Practical Class Exercises

Week 1 - Week 4
Chan Meiling / 0337771
Information Design/  Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylors University / Lecture and Practical Exercises


INSTRUCTIONS


LECTURE (Ms Anis)

Week 1

6/1/2021

Ms Anis and Mr Shamsul started off the first class by briefing us on our upcoming exercises and assignments. Assignment Brief Ppt Slides

Ms Anis then started briefing us about our first exercise which is the quantify & visualize data exercise. She showed us some examples by sorting out pens based on their colours, caps etc. 

8/1/2021

Ms Anis us brief us again about our upcoming exercises and assignments. Besides, she also mentioned and explained about the FLIP presentation task. Each group will have to prepare a presentation and two groups will have to give the class a lecture every week. 

Week 2

12/1/2021 (Flip 1)

Week 2

12/1/2021 Flip 1

The topic for Flip 1 is about types of infographics. Group 1 and 2 did some research on infographics and stated the reviews and experiences on creating infographics of different websites, for example, Canva, Venggage, Visme etc.

What I've learnt in this class is there are 3 parts of infographics which are the visual, content and knowledge. 

Besides, there are also 9 types of infographics which are classified into:
- Statistical
- Informational
- Process
- Timeline
- Geographic
- Comparison
- List
- Hierarchical
- Resume

Flip 1 ppt

15/1/2021 (Flip 2)

The topic about flip 2 is about the L.A.T.C.H principle, introduced by Richard Saul Waurman by group 3 and 4.

L - location
A -  alphabet (names of objects that are organized in alphabetical order)
T - time (chronological order)
C - category (information are categorized into different groups)
H -  hierarchy (certain criteria, ascending or descending)

After listening to the explanations by both groups, I find it easier to understand and it would come in really handy when it comes to our LATCH exercise.

Flip 2 ppt

Week 3 

19/01/2021

Today, Ms Anis gave us a lecture about information visualization. In her lecture, she talked about the importance of data visualization and the history of it. Something she said in this class really caught my attention and stuck in my head which was the phrase ''Good infographic delivers information at the first glance.''

21/01/2021(Flip 3)

The topic of Flip 3 is Miller's Law in Chunking. This presentation by Min Yuk's group really caught my attention as they gave many good examples for example the use of chunking in Spotify, PUBG etc which I find really interesting. 

What I've learned is chunking refers to the process of taking individual pieces of information and grouping them into larger units and chunking leads to more focus and faster progression, ultimately leading to more comprehension end-to-end.

There are several steps to the chunking process. The number of steps used will depend on the type of information we are chunking.

1. Break larger amounts of information into smaller units
2. Identify similarities or patterns
3. Organize the information
4. Group information into manageable units

Flip 3 ppt

Ms Anis also brief us on our project 1 which is infographics of recipes by choosing a video from the Pasta Grannies youtube channel. She showed us how she analyzes and observes while listing and breaking down the pieces of information which is helpful for me to learn how to break things down faster.

Week 4

29/1/2021 (Flip 4)

This week, it's my group's turn to prepare the flip presentation. And our topic is the Manuel Lima's 9 Directives Manifesto.

The 9 manifetos are:

- Form Follows Function
- Interactivity is Key
- Cite Your Sources
- The Power of Narrative
- Do Not Glorify Aesthetics
- Look For Relevancy
- Embrace Time
- Aspire For Knowledge
- Avoid Gratuitous Visualisation

I think these manifestos are really important when it comes to understanding and creating a good design.

Presentation Slides by our group:




PRACTICAL CLASS EXERCISES (Mr Shamsul)

Week 2

This week, Mr Shamsul demonstrated us how to create simple animation using effects on after effects. He then gave us our first in class exercise which is a kinetic typography exercise. We are required to use the audio that were provided by sir and come up with an animation.

Kinetic typography exercise

Week 3

This week's practical class, Mr Shamsul showed us how to create a simple animated chart or graft to display data using the trim path tool on after effect.

In Class Exercise

Then we are also given a task on creating a weather forecast animation video with the informations they were given by sir.


Weather Forecast Animation Exercise

Week 4

This week, sir gave us our feedback on our weather forecast animation exercise. Besides, he also demonstrated us about creating pre-composition on after effect so that it will be more organised while editing our animation videos later on.


FEEDBACK

Flip Presentation: 

For our group's presentation, Ms Anis said that we did cover the topic we are presenting well which are the 9 Manuel Lima's Manifestos, she also said that the examples given are good and easy to understand.

Kinetic typography exercise:

Mr Shamsul said that he like the front part of my video animation but at the end it is not as expressive as before and it could be better.

Weather Forecast Animation Exercise:

Mr Shamsul said that the overall animation is good but the timing can be a little slower so that people will be able to have more time to read the informations.


REFLECTIONS

Flip Presentation Lectures:
After listening to all the lectures presented by all our classmates including research for the last flip topic for our group, I honestly think I have learned a lot. I got to realised many things that I haven't before which is so important while breaking pieces of information down or coming up with a design. I think all the flip topics that were chosen are really useful and it is actually closely linked to all the exercises and projects that we are given to, especially in this information design module.
I think most of the groups did a really great job explaining and all the flip topics and it gives me a good understanding about for all the topics covered. It taught me a better approach to display pieces of information in a clearer, more appealing manner, which is crucial for a design student.

Kinetic typography exercise:
For this exercise, I've got to learn to use after effects to animate text. While doing this exercise, the front part of the exercise was easier for me as it has less words in a sentence so that I could express the words. However, upon reaching the ending part, the sentence was long and I struggled quite a bit on how to emphasise on words in those long sentences and sir also did mention while giving feedback that it could be better. But overall, I think I got to explore and learn many effects which was quite a fruitful learning exercise for me.

Weather Forecast Animation Exercise:
In this exercise, I did it slightly different then what sir requested as I watched and followed some examples of weather forecast videos I have seen. It was quite a mess while trying to figure things out as we did this exercise before sir showed us how to create pre-composition. I also got to explored transition tools while doing this exercise.

Comments

Popular Posts