Maps: Space as Data

Documentation of Module 2 Formstorming

Hannah Sancho

Project 2

Module 2

This Module saw us expiriment with map editing software such as Mapbox, refining our knowledge of Illustrator, and dabbling in Touch Designer. Compaired to the previous project and its modules, I felt like there was a lot more freedom given to us this time, which resulted in everyone creating plenty of unique work. While I did not end up going with the birvariate map or laser cutting routes for this project, learning about the processes and possibilities associated with them were fascinating. I created a projection mapping video using After Effects for my final design to apply my previous knowledge of the program while combing new techniques I gained from the tutorials.

Week 6

This was my first time using mapbox, so I played it mostly safe and adjusted the light presets just to get an idea of what the program was capable of

This is another test with the light presets in mapbox. This is set to Night and I found out that the roads aren't fully shaded and stand out against the rest of the dark background. If I wanted to style a map I probably wouldn't use this setting, or at least choose appropriate colors instead of the current one.

In response to the previous iteration of this map, I darkened the the road color to make it look like it was effected by the shadows. This makes the map feel harmonious. This looks nice by itself, but if I wanted to bring attention to the roads to say something, the previous iteration might be better for that.

Another iteration of the same map. I made the roads a lot darker, and it almost looks like it's the same value as the surrounding water. Whereever roads and rivers intersect its hard to differentiate the two from afar. Could potentiallt be an interesting effect but it's not the most readble design out there.

This is a monochrome versuon of the map around Oakville. When I look at this it reminds me of printed maps and even newspaper. The color theme is set to monochrome, but if I were to make a map myself like this, I could bring attention to certain areas by adding color to them so they stand out.

This was just seeing if I could imitate the style of the map of the brewery shown in class. I didn't use cartogram at this point so I tried to match colors using my eyes. I was drawn to that exmaple due to the style choices and wanted to see how it could look like in a map I styled.

This is just a combination of the previous map and the and the dawn light preset. This gave the map a nice warm look and harmonized the colors better. If I were to create a warm colored map something similar to this set up could work.

I tried to push what colors I could make the map and ended up using a pastel pink/blue/purple combination since I don't see maps come is colour. The screenshot is zoomed in an area with a lot of green space so purple is the dominant color. To compliment this, I made the roads a darker purple to match.

Using the previous colour palette, I zoomed into the campus just to see how the map reactis with some of the smaller details like individual buildings and such since the campus has plenty of them. I feel like from afar the purple is too harsh, but I like how it's handled when there's multiple shades of greenspace.

I took this screenshot in Japan to see how these colors would look in a different area. Something interesting is how mapbox creates shadows for its 3d buildings, which are obvious in this photo. These shadows are able to adapt to the light preset of the map as well. If I make use of the 3d view or data visualization this would be something to consider for the overall storytelling.

I started using cartogram. I followed one of the examples in the tutorial that used a black and white image, and the result ended up looking like a dark mode monochrome map. It was interesting to see how cartogram instantly updated the map after uploading an image.

I download a lot of images for color inspiration and moodboards, so I spent a lot of time with cartogram since it was an easy way to see colours in context.

I put this image in since it's a great example of how the style of maps say something about its environment without needed to use words. From a distance I would assume that this map would be in some sort of desert or a very warm environment, but its just around New York.

This was a test to see how cartogram would handle more abstract images without a lot of close colors. This map isn't something I would chose to go forward in this project with, but's fun to see unusall maps

Like the fall themed map, I put this one in this activity since it feels like an actual environment. The use of the dark greens makes this feel like a forested are in nature. It also feels somewhat classy since I see a lot of this viridian green on luxury products like bags and shoes.

I didn't realise that cartogram could configure an uploaded image in different ways so I tried to test out how they all looked for the same images. The colourful option made the map a muted teal with some grey accents for the green space.

I adjusted the palette options myself for this version. I ended up with this rusty looking map and I thought all the colors and values were subtle but not unoticable map, making for a version that's pleasing to look at.

I had a moodboard I prepared for a personal project and decided to test how cartogram would respond to multiple images. There were neutral colours mixed with a lot of pink, so the overall map is slightly rose tinted.

When I switched to the dark mode for cartogram, it sampled less of the pink and took on the greens and yellows from the moodboard. This almost looks like a kind of camouflage.

When set to the light option, all the offwhites and pinks were sampled, which resulted in a mpa that doesn't have a lot of contrast making it hard to read.

I've made a lot of art where I had to consider the palette and mood myself, so I wanted to test how cartogram interpreted the decisions I made in my work. This piece is mostly purple with some red accents on the subject, and the map reflected this also being dark purple with the greenspace sampling the red.

This piece uses a lot of light pinks and some purples. This map also ended up using the dark purple as the base, but since parts of this piece were blended together, there were options for the accents so its a lot smoother than the previous map.

This map ended up taking in a lot of the browns more than I thought. I imagined more of the lighter colours would be smapled since there's more hues in the lighter areas.

This drawing actuall has a lot of colour variety, so I was surprised when the map ended up mostly pink with the water being yellow. Anything on land is close to some sort of darker pink so the bright yellow water stands out a lot.

Another purple and pink map, but this one is similar to the previous map, where land and greenspace are darker than the bright-coloured water. The contrast between the two creates an interesting effect that could be used in a future concept.

Week 7

This was created by using the cycling data GeoJson file provided in the tutorials. I applied to a map I created to test out brighter colours on and edited the palette accordingly.

The cyclying data only cover roads, so I tested using the coyote encounter data to expirience with the visualization options. This version used a heat map with one of the default palettes, and the green and purple stand out against the muted blue, giving a clear indication where the most activity has occured

Also using a heat map, I changed the palette on this one to unusual colours. The palette used for the heat map clashes a bit with the palette, but it does allow it to stand out.

this map used data driven circles on a monochrom map to bring more attention to the colours and data associated with it. This is my favourite version of the map since it's the easiet to read and looks clean.

This was another expirience with the blue and purple map, but using data-driven circles. I don't usually see white used for this kind of visualization since a lot of maps I see are lighter in colour, so I used it here to see how it could impact the look of the data.

I have never tried laser cutting anything before, so learning this was a new expirience. I prepared my vector file in illustrator first using image trace to get the icon I uploaded in the right format. I could not find a good quality image, so I had to mess around in photoshop before doing the image trace, but it ended up coming out close enough.

After sending it to the laser cutting room, me and my group got to see the pre-cutting preview for the phone holders, and some adjustments were made in order to make sure they printed properly. I know going forward that text has to be converted before printing and the design can only be pure black or it won't printer properly.

The glass on on the machine allowed me to take some pictures of the process. The laser cuts things layer by layer, as pictured, and did that until the entire design was created.

After the design, the laser went through the template lines and cut out the phone holders through the wood. The wood that my group used for this was actually a bit thicker, so it had to go throught a second round to cut through completely.

Once it was done, the phone holders could be popped out and assembled. We were told we could sand it if the pieces didn't fit properly and to prevent stray wood from sticking out if we needed to.

This is an image of my phone holder disassembled. I didn't expiriment with the different kinds of cuts the machine could do so its mostly just the engraved for the whole design.

The phone holder, assembled. it's quite sturdy (since it's made out of wood). Being able to see something I made get real is always interesting and its the sort of thing I want to do more of.

phone on the holder. Overall this part of the activity was very helpful and gave a good run down of the process required if I decide to choose this for the final design.

The first projection mapping tutorial was mainly on masking and using the corner pin effect in after effects. I have expirience using this program, so the steps were easy to follow. I've done something similar for a personal piece.

We had to create solids and use corner pin for all 3 visible side of the wall template to create a base to copy onto any effects we wanted to see on the wall.

I knew I wanted to use my knowledge of after effects for this part of the activity, so I played around with some of the generative effects in order to create some watery patterns that would move according to it's evolution. My settings are inlcluded in the picture.

I like to stack a bunch of effects on adjustment layers to create something that looks interesting. I gave the effect colour using colour vibrance, gave it a blobbier effect using cc glass, and edited the values using curves and levels.

I wanted two different designs for the front and back walls, so I used a similar process as the last design to create the one picture. to make it different I changed the noise type and adjusted the wdith to be streched out, then added similar adjustment layers.

This is an image of everything put together in the timeline. The designs pasted fine, and for the side wall I used the blue pattern set to soft light to make it look like the back wall is being reflected onto the side wall.

After following Steve's tutorial, this is a screenshot of the final tree. Honestly this was hard to understand at first and following the tutorial took a lot of patience

The process of adding designs is a lot different from after effects. I still had to trace over the original image, but this time I had to get all the doors and windows in the shape as well. Then the texture had to dragged into a specfic spot in the menu and then manually turned on in order to appear in the preview.

This is a preview of the node tree that I was inspired by from a tutorial I found online. This pattern involved a lot of node stacking, which made a bigger difference than I assumed it would make.

This is the direct result of projecting the effect using the Kantan mapper. I didn't figure it out during the tutorial, but I would've liked to learn how to warp the effect in some way to match the perspective of the walls on the template image.

I worked in the same file in order to compare and contrast different patterns from various tutorials. This is a screenshot of how long some of the node trees got after finishing a pattern. They can get very long and complicated, but after using the program for a bit, they become easier to understand and changed for a different look.

This was the result of following another tutorial, this time to create a colorful diamond pattern. This involved a lot os parenting and even use of 3D objects, and I'm proud of the result in the end. This image shows how it looks projected onto the template. Adjusting the nodes of this effect is interesting since even small changes can completely alter how it behaves.

Spatial Workshop 1

This is a small lounge outside the campus that’s relatively hidden. Before this workshop I honestly did not know this place existed. It seems to be a place where people should be able to relax or study, but it looks pretty dreary and a bit oppressive since its stuck in the middle of multiple high walls. The furniture here also looks like an afterthought, almost looking out of place considering their placement and how they stand out against the greys of this area.

This is one half of the marquee. This is more of a lounge area since there's couches for resting and various tabletop games. When discussing this space with my group, we all agreed that the overall placement of the furniture is odd and seems like it’s struggling to pick an identity. The tables are too small to use practically, and the games are placed too close to some of the couches.

This is the other half of the marquee, where people can order food. Overall it looks fine but there are some details that could be improved. Generally this just supposed to a place to eat and maybe work but some of the layouts for the table are off. The counter area is also a bit off since there's a disconnect between the screens on the wall, and it’s had to gleam what kind of food they sell from a glance.

Spatial Workshop 2

To improve the lounge area outside, we suggested that we scrap everything and do a complete overhaul. The lounge chairs, the benches on the sides and circle tables are replaced with rectangular and square tables sorted to allow for individual and group seating. A greenhouse-like building was also suggested in order to allow for shelter from the elements for all seasons. The stone path was also extended to match the area, and the walls were also cleaned up

For this area, the main change was changed the couches to more chair and table seating areas, and moving around some of the furniture to make it easier to move around for people who want to sit down and people who want to play games. This gets rid of the identity issues since it cements this area as more of a lounge space more than before.

The screens were brought closer together to better visual harmony, and there was a suggestion to make the menu screens display more obvious pictures and graphics so people can see what this area sells at a glance. The seating was also re-arranged to make getting around easier and to make all the furniture less disconnected.

Project 2

Final Project 2 Design

My final projection mapping video is a 15 second long video representing the creative process a designer in IxD may go through, condensed. Everything was made natively in After Effects, combing shape layer animation and layer stacking. By creating various precompositions and using the corner pin effect, I was able to make my visuals appear like they are projecting onto the J-wing itself. The visuals are not literal, and each scene in the entire video is meant to play off of each other to tell the full story.

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