Information Design - Project 1: Instructable Infographics Poster
Chan Wan Qing / 0350928 / BA of Design (HONS) in Creative Media
Information Design
Project 1
INDEX:
LECTURES
Week 3 (20.2.2024)
Group Task (FLIP Presentation)
For FLIP 2, we presented the 2nd topic, which is L.A.T.C.H Principles.
Week 4 (27.2.2024)
Group Task (FLIP Presentation)
In week 4 we presented the 3rd topic, Miller's Law.
PROJECT 1: INSTRUCTABLE INFOGRAPHIC POSTER
In this project, we are going to create an infographic poster for ONE recipe selected from Pasta Grannies. We have to study one video, break down, and chunk the preparation and cooking process into an instructable poster. In the infographic poster, we have to capture each Grandma’s personality and unique dish identity in your poster as part of the narrative structure.
- Practical - photo editing/illustration software
- Graphs, charts, and diagrams
- Poster size: 1240 × 1750 pixels or 2048 × 2048 pixels
I chose Cicci's Cheesy Mashed Potato Pie from Genoa for this project. I listed down the ingredients and steps while watching the video.
Ingredients:
- 1.5 kg floury potatoes
- 350g green beans
- 4 eggs
- 1 onion
- A teaspoon of marjoram
- 50g grated Parmigiano
- Extra virgin olive oil
Steps:
- Peel and cut the potatoes and boil them in salted water for about 15 minutes
- Boil the green beans for 10 minutes (Avoid squeaky, snappy beans) – until they are soft enough to cut with a fork
- Put a generous slug of olive oil into a small pan and soften half a chopped onion
- Drain and cool the beans down with cold water
- Drain and cool the potatoes down with cold water
- Squeeze out excess water from the beans
- Rice the potatoes using a food mill (Gives the best texture)
- Alternate the beans with the potatoes – make sure they are evenly mixed
- Crack in 4 eggs and add a teaspoon of marjoram into the mixture
- Whisk them together
- Add the cooled and soften onion with its oil
- Add a generous handful of grated Parmigiano cheese (Add richness and flavour, stop it from crumbling when sliced)
- Mix everything together thoroughly
- Grease a shallow tin with olive oil
- Sprinkle over some bread crumbs
- Spread out the potato mixture evenly and create little ridges with a fork so that it will turn crunchy while cooking
- Add some more breadcrumbs and olive oil on top
- Bakes it in the oven for around 35 minutes
- The pie is ready to be served
After that, I searched for visual references of recipe infographics.
I also searched for visual references to express the identity, personality of the Grandma. In the video, the Grandma lives alone in a country side town, Liguria, capital of Genoa. It's a very quiet town as there are only a few houses. In the video, the Grandma didn't talk a lot, seems a bit cool but she is very caring to the host.
Background Visual References
As the food is a traditional snack in Genoa, Italy, I did some research on
Italy typefaces.
Typeface Research
Sketches
Sketch 1
Sketch 2
Sketch 3
Sketch 4
Sketch 5
Sketch 6
Sketch 7
Sketch 8
I found some references for the ingredients and trace it out as illustrations for the infographic. Some of them, I used image trace in Illustrator as there are difficult to draw because of the texture. I also draw a simple version of the Grandma in Illustrator.
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Illustration of Grandma
Digitisation
First, I chose a suitable typeface. I exported the illustrations into Illustrator and started to arrange the them following the layout of the sketch (title).
Recipe Infographic Process 1
After arranging the illustration, I proceeded to the background. I tried to express the identity of the Grandma through the background. I included a background of countryside view with a small house as in the video, it said that she lives a lone in the town, Liguria. The background colour is mainly blue as she seems very cool, but caring and she's wearing blue. I also included the text (ingredients, instructions) into the poster.
In the first 3 attempts, I tried to arrange the ingredients in 3 different ways. As in the first attempt, the gap of the text is very big; in the second attempt, the alignment is different from the instruction (right side), and I feel like it's very unbalanced. I think the 3rd poster better arrangement compared to the 2 above. However, I'm not sure with the typeface and also I feel like there are too many words in the instruction.
In the fourth attempt, I reduce the words and adjust the length of the sentences of the instructions. I also added 'tips' in the top left corner. In the fifth attempt, I changed the typeface into Costa Std Light, an Italian typeface I found from Adobe. I adjusted some of the elements as I feel like some of them is not inline.
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Overall Poster Design Process
1st Attempt: Instructable Infographics Poster
In week 4, sir suggested me to improve some of the parts such as the background, numbering and so on. So, I worked on another attempts to improve my work. I added numbering on the instructions and change the background to one colour.
Recipe Infographic Poster Attempt 6
Mr Shamsul suggested that not to make the 'cheesy' word melt and add simple texture (holes) on it. Besides, the font of the numbering is not that match, can change to the same font as the instruction, but use other family, like bold or extra bold. I used extra bold in my next attempt and also amend the word 'cheesy'. I added a pair of earrings on the grandma as sir suggested. I also align the numbering in 'Tips' so that it looks cleaner and clearer.
Recipe Infographic Poster Attempt 8
Final Instructable Infographics Poster
FEEDBACKS
Week 3 / Project 1
Include drawings in the infographic posters because it's not about text. Use the main title and illustration in sketch 1 and follow the layouts of sketch 2.
Week 4 / Project 1
Add numbering to indicate each steps. Can add colours to the title which represent it. Can also add shadows to the illustration at the side. The character is not necessary, improve the background as now the contrast is not strong enough (such as adding texture to it).
REFLECTION
This project is quite fun but also challenging for me. One of the initial challenges was extracting the content from the video. I had to differentiate the essential contents into different categories such as ingredients, cooking steps, and serving suggestions. I had to observe the personality of the grandma while watching the video. Once I had a clear understanding of the recipe, I began the process of sketching the information in the form of an infographic poster. After deciding which sketch to follow, I started to illustrate the assets, like the ingredients and some of the cooking process, it takes me some time to draw all the illustrations. Selecting appropriate design elements such as typography, color schemes, and layout is also a little bit challenging as we need to capture the identity or personality of the grandma. I used some time to arrange the content as there are many steps of the cooking instruction as it felt a bit crowded for me initially. Although there is room of improvement, I felt quite satisfying about the outcome especially the illustrations.
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