Information Design - Exercises

03.02.2025- 17.03.2025 / Week 01 - Week 07
Ilhan Rayan bin Khairul Anwar / 0361205
Information Design / Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media
Exercises

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INSTRUCTIONS

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EXERCISES

Exercise 1: Quantifiable Information

For our first exercise, we had to gather a set of objects that can be organized through a quantifiable factor. We then have to present it in a layout or graph visually.

Figure 1.1: Raw Data

For the objects that I would use for this exercise, I decided to go with Lego Technic pieces since I have an entire drawer filled with them so it would be interesting to see what I could do with them. I went with three different pieces since I had a high quantity of them compared to other the other pieces in my storage.

Figure 1.2: Data Sorted

I sorted the data into three simple categories, which was colour.

Figure 1.3: Data Arranged

I then arranged them neatly in their respective categories and added in the names for the specific piece that I used. 

Figure 1.4: Data Presented Visually

To present the data visually, I decided to do something simple and tried to create a Christmas tree using the black knob cogs as the tree itself and the red and blue connector pieces as the lights.

Figure 1.5: Presented With a Story

To present this as a story, I decided to depict the pieces as ships going to war with each other. The story I had in mind with this was that despite both sides coming from the same place, they eventually fell apart and fought each other regardless of their similarities with one-another. I wanted to try and tell the story of how pointless wars can be since we all come from the same place yet we have so much hatred for each other.

Exercise 2: L.A.T.C.H Infographic Poster

For the second exercise, we had to design an infographic style poster that utilizes four of the five L.A.T.C.H principles inside of it. L.A.T.C.H stands for Location, Alphabet, Time, Category, and Hierarchy. Because we were allowed to make our poster on any topic we wanted as long as it contained the pre-requisite principles, I decided to do mine on the history of Optimus Prime.

Figure 2.1: Optimus Prime Spreadsheet

I started off by researching and gathering the important iterations of Optimus Prime from his first televised appearance in 1984 to his most recent portrayal in 2024. As for the LATCH principles, I decided to omit Location as it simply did not fit anywhere within what I wanted to present. In regards to the other principles, Alphabet is the name of the media he's from, Time is the year it released, Category is for labeling if it's a show, movie, videogame or comic, and Hierarchy is arranged from oldest to newest. I also added in another category for the respective voice actor since the series has primarily been prevalent in movies and tv shows.

Figure 2.2: Eras

In order to organize it even further, I categorized each media into different "eras" so that I could create different groups of information rather than one long chain. The classic era being comprised of sources from pre-2000 as well as the other incarnations before the Unicron Trilogy. The Unicron Trilogy was a set of three animated shows that were interconnected with each other that told one long somewhat comprehensive story. Following that is the Bayverse era which was around the time when the first live action Transformers film came out and the shows around that time period. The aligned continuity was a plan set in motion in order to establish a set foundation and story for the Transformers franchise, though it started to fall off at the end. The televised era was essentially a name I came up with for the remaining two shows that didn't fit in with any of the other categories so it acts as a sort of bridge between the previous era and the next era. The Knightverse was a short lived universe that acted as a soft-reboot for the live action films. Finally there is the modern era which is where we are now.

Figure 2.3: First Sketch

Once I had my information sorted, I started coming up with sketches for how I could potentially lay out the whole infographic. Our parameters required us to do an A4 poster so I started off by doing mine in portrait as that was the most common style used by both our classmates and our seniors. 

Figure 2.4: Revised Design

After looking at my original design as well as the photos that I found for each Optimus Prime design, I realized that it would be better to have the photos be done in vertically rather than horizontally in order to save space.

Figure 2.5: Labeling

After having a design I liked, I started to place the categories for each of the different designs as well as the category for them. However I realized that a vertical design wouldn't have enough space for me to present all of the iterations that I wanted.

Figure 2.6: Updated Design

Because the assignment never stated if it had to be done in portrait or landscape, I decided to go for landscape so that I could fit more information on one A4 poster. 

Figure 2.7: Updated Labeling & Design

In order to further improve the design, I shrunk a lot of the other groups in order to accommodate for all of the iterations that I wanted. 

Figure 2.8: First Infographic Design

Once I had everything planned out, I used Adobe Illustrator to create my poster since I preferred the tools on that application than Photoshop. I recreated my finalized sketch and added in all of the respective photos of Optimus Prime in their places.

Figure 2.9: Text Added

Once the images were set, I added in all of the text that accompanied the different iterations including the show it's from, the year it released, the type of media it is and the voice actor.

Figure 2.10: Final Poster

After asking my friends what they thought, one of them said I should crop out all of the white backgrounds so it looked nicer. But because that would take too long and it would look weirder without a background, I simply replaced all of the images featuring white backgrounds with new photos of the character.

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REFLECTION

I really enjoyed both exercises as they both taught me the importance of understanding how information is categorized and organized whenever it's presented. While I was not a fan of the first exercise, mainly because I accidentally made it difficult for myself when I chose to use pieces that move around way to easily, I really enjoyed the second exercise. it was fun designing the poster and having to come up with a way to include all of the information that I wanted to present without making many compromises.