My original idea was to take the concept of time-line and convert it into metaphorical distance. I wanted to make use of a map as a type of container for the information. My information would be points in my life and how I mark them. In other words, it's a very personal way of keeping track of time, I could compare it to someone who remembers driving directions not by road names but by landmarks (ie a restaurant at the corner, big red house with three windows, etc etc.)
So my first attempt was this: A Live Tracing of the area in New Jersey encompassing both Toms River and New Brunswick, both places I have lived and attended school in. This was the over all container for my information graphics, then separated into smaller containers that mimicked cities. Each city represented a point in time.
My time line is marked off by my hair-style at that point, the biggest and most important marker. The information graphics that follow are: happiness level [smiley faces], tool of choice [paint brush, pencil, camera, and tablet], friends gained and lost [+ and - inside graphic person symbol]. This was a mid-way pin-up so there was still more thought about other information elements I would include.
As whimsical as this was, the way I separated the containers by color, and the way the information couldn't be compared easily was too jarring to look at. I could have gone all out and created my own fantastical map and it may have worked better, but trying to work in these confine wasn't doing it for me or those who critiqued my work.
This was my trying to make the map work for our individual desk crits the next class... the plus is after a test print I found I could make some elements much smaller allowing room for future elements and a smarter way of organizing them. The map, unfortunately is still not working because I'm forcing myself to stay in the confines of the realistic piece of New Jersey which leads to misreading the information and just general confusion. Again if I would have created a fictitious map from my own head and had each city more representative of the information, reflecting more of how I was at the time, it could have been more special and much more successful.
I had really worked on the organization of my information. I split everything up into 5 containers, each containing a flag with my hair style at the time, my tool of choice, favorite food, friends gained/lost, love-o-meter, and happiness scale. The placement and size of each icon all fell in the same place of each section, making comparing information between the time periods much easier for the viewer. I juxtaposed iconic imagery based on soft data such as mood, emotion, and friendships (which could also be considered hard data if I decided to go with names and faces and that whole song and dance, for the sake of ambiguity I opted not to)... and hard data, more picturesque, based on tangible things like my tool of choice and favorite food.
I got great feedback from Ken and Mimi, both had never seen my work at all until this point. the main piece of advice I got was that I seemed to be at a crossroads where I have this organized structure but it could go further, like the way I compiled my images and icon information could be dealt with through collage. The elements of hair being the ultimate marker of that time period may also be able to stand alone, without the use of the flag, because they are very strong and amusing elements that carry their own weight without needing support. The question of text possibly being eliminated completely was also valid because if I were to take this further could I represent these words though icon or other such images? Also my hesitance to title the work was questioned and I admitted I was thinking about calling it "State of Mind" but really unsure about it, but that was actually something everyone liked so in my revisions of this project (which I am working on) will include that and much more!
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