I am a bit late posting this project, but I still want to put it up here anyway. This is a timeline/infographic project that was the second half of the self-portrait project. The assignment was to create a timeline infographic about how we got to where we are today in the BFA program. Who influenced us personally and academically? What were significant milestones or accomplishments that happened along the way? Although I think the layout to my design is clean and well done, I feel the infographic side of the project turned out very, very weak. I believe I over-thought the assignment; I took statistics in high school, and I cannot look at data the same way ever again. The anxiety of dealing with percentages and graphs overwhelmed me. I became intimidated with how to represent information, and, at that, what would I show? The timeline itself is straightforward because it's my life... but (to pay homage to the play Rent) how do I measure my life? Before I answer this question, let me go in a different direction.
My very first idea for the timeline project did not work, and I believe I know why. When I took 2D Design, my professor at the time showed us an episode of Ted Talks that dealt with infographics. I remember seeing a piece done that consisted of circles scattered in clusters everywhere in different colors and sizes that created a very visually striking composition that still easily conveyed information. Drawing my inspiration from this piece, my original idea was to have phrases I tell myself scattered across my composition in varying opacities and sizes. For instance, when I feel overwhelmed, I may tell myself on any given day, "I can do this", and I do, and it's successful. Or, I panic and tell myself, "I can't do this, I should give up". What's funny, though, is that no matter how many times I feel like I'm not good enough or can't do something, I always manage to find myself trying to overcome and persevere through it anyway. So, even when I think I can't, I can. I wanted phrases like this scattered across my board--the positive motivations larger, more numerous and brought to the front while the insecurities were at a lower opacity, not as numerous, smaller, and brought to the back. I believe we all have these inner dialects with ourselves, and it's the drive to keep going--to persevere--that makes us successful. But, this was to be my design, and my timeline would be aligned to the left side of the composition--a much smaller part of the layout.
I believe where I went wrong with executing my idea was due to several basic reasons. The first reason, my board should have been oriented horizontally instead of vertically. This would allow me to span more space and make a more dynamic statement for my phrases. Also, I should have built my phrases first instead of my timeline, because my timeline ultimately took over the layout and left me very little wiggle room for my phrases. Also, by the time I started composing my phrases, I had already saturated my timeline with copy; by adding even more copy with my phrases, the composition turned into a typographic nightmare.
So, I scrapped my phrases and tried to come up with another idea for an infographic. Desperately wanting to avoid cliches such as, "I drove 50,000 miles; drank 1400 cups of coffee; and had 20 sleepless nights", I wanted something deeper. How do I measure my life? How do I measure my success? It just wasn't coming to me. What defines me? Blank. To play it safe, I put one pie graph on my layout of my frequently used typefaces and that was it. Because of the composition of my board, I could not in good conscious add more to my board without feeling like I made a visual mess. I felt it needed more--that is was unfinished, but... with the design being as is, that was all I could do.
So, I turned it in, and here it is. But, scroll down for my final thoughts and how I now know I measure my life and success.
But! To finally answer the question: how I do I measure my life? While talking to my professor after class, I realized what I had been trying to convey the entire time. I am where I am today because of hard work and perseverance. Without those two (which are arguably one and the same), I undoubtedly would not be here. My personal relationships take hard work, my job takes hard work, my school takes hard work. My parents always taught me that nothing worthwhile in life would come easy (I mention their influence on my timeline for the year 1990), and it hasn't. I relish the hard work I put into aspects of my life because it makes the rewards all-the-more satisfying knowing that I earned every precious moment of my life with because of my passion for it.
With that said, although some may see it as a very tongue-in-cheek, sarcastic approach to the assignment (which it is not meant to be): I almost feel that if I were to redesign this project, I would have my timeline smaller at the bottom of a horizontal board, with one large solid circle flooded a passionate red color with a single word underneath it: perseverance. The circle would be my pie graph; I am here today because of 100% perseverance.
That is how I measure the successes of my life.