Back to Portfolio Strategies home page

Being able to visualize an idea by drawing is a fundamental form of thinking as well communicating. Some simple exercizes that are a part of the foundation typography class develop the fundamental skills that are needed in the advanced assignments like this display design one. Linked here is a pdf of part of the sketch book assignment that includes drawing basic letterforms in space – under the premise of visualizing a theatre entrance. The basic principles and examples are very relevant to any display design assignment. It also, as a bonus, contains some images of kiosks from the Bruce Mau exhibit.

link to pdf

For students working on visualizing exhibition designs, (particularly the group I met with this morning who are addressing the impact of the Olmsteds’ work on the urban environment) I wanted to share images of two exhibitions at the Chicago Architectural Foundation, as examples of exhibits that tell stories about Architecture. ( I apologize for not being able to credit the exhibitors or the designers).

One of the more significant challenges of design is to visualize large quantities or very different numeric values. This example shown below, that depicts the number of hate crimes recorded in the US in 1997 was done at Bradley University several years ago, and is still, to my mind, a good solution, in that it allows the viewer to visually compare the numbers 5, 25, 745, 1390 and 4321, and also depicts each event as an individual mark. It is a statisical chart that also makes an emotional statement.