Stations of the Day, Yoga

the final composed spread.

The project was to create a visualization that constructs and assists a novice in completing a daily ritual. Wendy + I were co-designers for this piece. We were given yoga exercises and the 2-page spread will be part of a e-book along with the rest of our classmates' work. The poses we chose are 'Fighting Buddha' and 'Floating Frog, Fighting Frog' which are performed in the morning to energize and wake you up.  Our target audience is 18 to 25 year old women, because they would most likely perform these poses. 

Formally, we wanted a mainstream visual aesthetic to appeal to our audience. We used photographs, instead of illustrations, to specify the novices we targeted. Each step is marked by the modern typeface, Gotham. Through the use of the colored background, we give the sense of energy and boldness of a young woman. We used halftone and opacity in between to show that steps 1-3 is a set of poses performed together over time. Finally for the title, we used the most universally recognized yoga pose to quickly identify the content. 

Color can be important in a composition to convey a certain mood. For example, we moved away from the stereotypical day and night color scheme to focus on just the morning and reenergizing our body. Also how to create depth with color, thus making a dynamic interaction with the viewer. Depth was also created with the weight and scale of the lines and photographs. Overall, we learned how to interact with the viewer and their emotions.  

left side numbering detail

right side numbering detail

end of spread + title detail

stations of the day progress + assessment

After critique today Wendy and I felt more confident and a bit more focused. We knew some of the errors going into our design as it was. We questioned how clear our layout was and if the viewer would be able to interpret our how-to. We know that we still needed to complete the how-to title box, but our focus was initially set on the layout, figuring that the title would come last. We struggled while doing this next stage figuring out how to incorporate a solid color background along with the images of the figures to cohesively come together. Another thing that we were starting to deal with was how the numbers were to come together to be part of the composition and movement but not take over. 

Post class critique Wendy and I decided that we needed to 1) make the numbers smaller, 2) try to keep the size of the figure the same, 3) think about adding straight lines, 4) perhaps change the background colors to black and white to reference day and night, 5) think about adding a at rest pose or 6) use halftones only in the movement photos. 

After receiving this feedback, Wendy and I worked more with the placement of the figures, changed the figure sizes, and we actually dropped the use of day and night yoga poses. We realized that we were staring at an unbalanced spread, heavy on the use of steps per pose for yoga in the morning, and lack of steps for yoga in the evening. Our thoughts were how to successfully balance the page without using a gradient or split color. We tried using orange and yellow as a test and found it too distracting of a solution, so we settled for a white line. Our thoughts then went back to deciding if maybe we could make the layout more interactive with the viewer, and require the viewer to have to flip the document upside down to see the other poses. 

the initial layout that we took into class critique with us today.

experiments with numbers and incorporating both poses.

incorporation of just one pose on the top of the layout.

adding the second pose of day to one side of the layout.

dual color test on the first page of the layout.

getting rid of the dual color and seeing if a line could still visually split up the two poses.

possible option of having the layout be interactive with the viewer.

layout that we were trying to incorporate the night poses with the day poses to effectively balance the composition.

our final new layout based on feedback in class.

Overall, Wendy and I have made vast progress since day one in this project. Our focus is more simplified now, and starting to feel more cohesive. We know that after our changes today, we still need to work more with the white space that we have created now - but it is definitely coming together. Our thoughts are to figure out what else to add to the layout as well as the title for the how-to. We are thinking of adding a visual definition of yoga, perhaps in relation to relaxation, flexibility, or silence.

stations of the day continued progress

After a desk critique with Professor Kidwell today we feel that we are definitely on a good route. We have fellow classmate Allyson on deck to be our Yoga model and our plan is to take those photographs this coming Thursday. We are still going with the halftone and selective use of color as of right now - even though Professor Kidwell mentioned the possibility of using vector or illustrations on our spread. 

During class today, we tested the possibility of using a solid color background and overlapping images for the yoga poses. While looking online we ran across some more examples of sun salutation and we questioned if our composition should be more circular just like the diagrams that we saw online. We are trying to figure out the best way to incorporate color without it being overwhelming or a nuisance. We still have yet to figure out how we are going to title our layout in that square/where on the layout that square will be located. We are confident that once we figure out the rest of the composition the title will fall nicely into place.

mock-up of document to size with stand in images.

close-up of day poses.

close-up of night poses.

close-up of the post-it notes off mock up.

in-class work of the figure cut-outs with a solid color background and numbers to illustrate different parts in one pose.

stations of the day, the project beginnings

For this project we chose a partner and pulled our topic to be used out of a “hat.” Our project is to visually show a how-to that relates to our topic that was chosen. My partner is Wendy Vong and our how-to topic is yoga poses. The final outcome is to be on a 2 page, 12-inch by 12-inch spread InDesign document.

After our discussion with Professor Kidwell our direction was more so solid. We know that we will be going forward with the use of a split document – one page being yoga poses for the day and the other for night. Illustration wise we are advancing with the use of halftone images. Although halftones may label a specific period in time, we have noticed the use of halftones in current society. Our audience is the current 18-25 year old female population; thus we are choosing a visual aesthetic that is currently mainstream.

Above are the yoga poses that we plan to use for our poster. Our thoughts are to reshoot the poses and then halftone them, adding spots of color to add emphasis to certain parts of the moves. Above is also our chosen color palatte for day and night.