In the Home Stretch & Back on Track

Below are a few screenshots from this week of iterations and they have come a long way. I can confidently say that I am out of my funk and am back on track and excited to finish executing this project. These screenshots show my work from Monday (10/5) which are still a little rough to Thursday (10/8) which are much more developed. After talking to my peers and Hannah this week I have decided to veer away from using “map language.” This is because the nature of my system and the language I am using. Students will have all the steps laid out for them through my system- banners in the CC, directional signage along the route and around campus (along with hand-holdy and straight to the point language)- that adding a map into that would be superfluous and unnecessary. Through my system I am assuming that students will find out exactly where they need to go and rely on a secondary map for assistance in direction. This is also exactly what I would do/have done as a college freshman. I am kind of giving them all the tools they need to get the information, they just need to start getting themselves to the physical polling place. In terms of design, I have developed line drawings representing all of the buildings in each banner, along with corresponding “you’re on the way” slips, a “you made it poster” at the polling location, AND a system-wide poster to go along with it. The intent of the system-wide poster is for students who are seeing signage around campus but who have not necessarily seen it in their dorms. For example, a freshman going to study at the Union who hasn’t been to the CC in their dorm recently would see this poster at the Union along with a “you made it sign.” However, let’s say they don’t live in one of the dorms that votes at the Union, they would then see the system-wide diagram and be able to find the polling location for THEIR dorm. Then they’d go home and see the signage at their dorm which would confirm this information. 

Looking at these posters now I am excited to see how I can develop this even further. I am aware that I don’t need to necessarily have every line drawing for every dorm done, but moving forward I am planning to do enough to confirm that this signage is effective for every location not just every dorm that has a polling location across the street. The straight-shot visual I created works well for those, however since I am not including any geographic components in the banners, I think this can be applied to every location. Though this does make me think, if I have eliminated all geographical components from signage (banners, flagpole slips) would it be useful to have some sort of indication of this in the system-wide poster? This is something I want to develop more. In my sketches I was thinking of including more line drawings so that maybe if there’s no geographic location at least maybe there would be a visual, however it did not fit. Maybe including the address would be useful if students are looking up the polling location? This is something I want to grapple more with before the project is due- do I include geographic/map-like language in the system-wide poster if not present anywhere else?

Moving forward I would say this is my main question. I think my banners and posters are set in terms of composition, color, etc. though it is the thinking part that I still need to refine. I need to make sure that my system is still effective regardless of the absence of a map. My plan is to also run it by a few other freshmen this weekend and make sure it is readable to them. I did show the system-wide poster to a couple peers and they said it read well/was understandable, but then again they are college juniors and those building names mean a lot more to them than new freshmen who have probably not gotten the chance to explore much. So I need to keep this in mind for the system-wide poster. I hope I can convey as much information as is needed. That is my main priority for the last stretch of this project as I think the design is complete, it’s just the INFORMATION itself that needs to be extremely well thought out and intentional. 

[this is kind of a ramble so I apologize]