Information Design/ Wayfinding/ Instructional Design: Invisible Cit(y)ies
Brief
A new edition of the Invisible Cities book by Italo Calvino in a wayfinding form and a focus on typography must be created. With it being a wayfinding project navigational elements such as maps can be used in the visual identity. With the focus on typography, there is less focus on illustrated elements and more on typography as image.
Details
Based on the accounts in the book Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, this design focuses on visualizing particular stories in a new map book. The focus of this design is in the wayfinding elements, emphasised by the map setup, and on typography to bring the imagery of these cities forward. The original book was focused on having a detailed account of the story tellers journey and experience throughout all these cities. This design is focused on the descriptions of the chosen cities and not particularly on the storytellers experience in these cities. The way that these particular cities where chosen was by focusing on the elements which are Earth, Water, Fire and Air. Once these cities are chosen, the design of the typography is used to bring forward exactly what these cities are about or inspired by. A lot of ideas are explored and researched in this design of ways to use the text to bring forward the images of the particular city. These ranged from exploring using typography to create map imagery to also using images and illustration in letters to give readers an almost exact representation of the cities. These ideas were explored further leading to map imagery created with a compass, lines and typography which are the names of the different cities explored by the storyteller from the previous place to the next. The compass is an element added where the directions point and lead to the particular elements as the cities. This map focus brings forth the idea of young adults who are interested in fantasy book maps being the target market as often maps are created for these types of stories and the idea that the storytellers recollection affected the descriptions and that these might not be actual places that look as described. Instead of using images, the typography of the names of the cities is used as image. Colour is also one of the elements used to emphasise the imagery given by each city. The size of the A3 landscape pages was used as this is the usual shape of map books. In this redo I focused on making the elements more dynamic and with the colour palette of the cover and documentation I focused on the idea of invisibility or blending.
Deliverables
- Concept Development and Research
- Strategy
- Specifications
- Final Outcome
Specifications
Final Design
