Freyberg Sqaure

ALIGNMENT AND GAP TEST

We’ve already concluded that the cubes needed a 10 cm gap on the sides for turning around, and that left us with an issue that we could solve in two different ways. Either to remove part of the map for alignment purposes or simply to split the map with no removal of information, which we did some testing on to see what worked out better in terms of reading the map properly.

PROTOTYPING CONSIDERATIONS

For our prototype, we’ve been exploring what materials to use. Initially, we wanted to use wood cubes but couldn’t get the wood cubes in the proper size and decided to go with foam. Working with foam it was easy to cut the wanted dimensions using a hot wire foam cutter. The foam should be dense with a smooth and even surface resulting in a more refined appearance prototype when gluing the map to the cubes, in which we deselected polystyrene (white), light foam (blue), and went with the dense foam (yellow).

For stopping the cubes from sliding down and holding them into the right place there were some different solutions - a piece of round plastic to be melted or small rubber bands, but we found that the foam cubes didn’t need any ‘stopper’ as they were sitting on their own.

The frame was easy to make as the frame design is very minimal. When assembling all the parts we needed to do some calculation of making sure everything would fit, as shown in the last picture.

SIZE EXPERIMENTING

Research on the average height of New Zealanders turned out to be 177 cm for men and 165 cm for women, which is a practical base knowledge to have when testing out dimensions of the twisting map. To understand the dimensions better, we cut out papers in 1:1 scale consisting of 40 x 40 cm working as a 2-dimensional version. The papers were pinned to a wall. Emma had the height of the average New Zealander woman making it perfect for testing.

Our aim was to make the dimensions suitable for both tall people not to reach down too far, and for short people including children to be able to reach the top cubes.

For testing out the height we tried out 185, 195, and 205 cm from bottom to the top cube, and we found that the height of 195 cm (the middle’cube’ on the first picture) was great for Emma to reach.

INSPIRATION FROM TIC TAC TOE PLAYGROUND SPINNER

FINAL PROTOTYPE:

The purpose of this project, was to be able to find a way to make the space easy to navigate, and further, make information easy to understand. For this reason, our map was one that was interactive, simple, and graphic.

Ass explained in the alignment post, we chose not to remove sections of the map to align the roads, as information was lost and readability was compromised. 

In the construction process we printed our map on a selection of stocks, but ended up settling on some coated 170GSM semi gloss stock. This would in situ, be a painted vinyl piece on top of our plywood blocks. 

We then taped every edge to the face of our foam blocks, and did our best to align the blocks perfectly with our metal rods. This was tricky as we did not have access to a drill. We took a needle and measured the centre of our blocks, however the needle was hard to control and we found that some of our blocks were a little bit skew once sitting on our model, however - not notably. 

SIDEBOARD CONCEPTS AND FINAL: process 

We felt it was important to come back to the concept behind the sideboard, as this was not explored properly in our earlier posts. 

The initial idea was to have a tonne of information on this piece, to act as a landmarking tool as well as a way finding one. We soon realised that this was impractical and made it too difficult to comprehend for someone visiting this area with English as a second language especially. 

As you can see, the use of colour and icons was slowly integrated and adapted to become what is a much clearer depiction of the map itself. We replaced words with icons and graphics, and removed pieces of information which were of no use. There is still a short description of the space, but we moved away from the navigation of the square, so felt this was now irrelevant information. 

FINAL DESIGN

Here is our final design

Our concept was refined even further from the development stage, as feedback from the class suggested we needed to be more clear about where and what we were navigating. The class liked our graphics but thought they were slightly too intense, so I scaled them down in this composition. As for the locator tags, I made these more prominent as they are the key component of this map. 

The icons assist the instructions as they make it clear which colour represents which category. If people were to read this now, I feel it is a lot more obvious what is going on and what they must do to read this map and use the way finding tool properly.

The language used in this piece is intentionally a little bit casual, as we feel that is what Kiwi’s are notable for. The ‘chilled out’ approach will go down well we feel, so the play on words at the bottom of the board, is to emphasise this approach. 

The sans serif typeface accentuates the playful and child like nature of this project, being that it keeps it fun and modern. The holistic impression left by the visuals is one that is interactive and full of fun. 

I have also included the flip side of the ‘key’ board for the side panel, as it has the entire list of categories used in the map. I think if this were to be in situ, I would take this one step further and potentially get the location tags updated and changed every 6 weeks, just to keep the map fresh and interesting - as I'm sure people would visit most of these places es within that Time and it would then be rendered impractical as people would have no need for it anymore. 

QR CODE APP FACE DESIGN:

This is the design I created for the app and QR code on our board. 

We thought that there could be issues for a traveller or tourist who is trying to find some of the locations on our map. If they scan the QR code on a QR reader, they will be taken to this app page. 

Here we have included links to all of our categories for further information: for instance, we have links to triage and booking websites for all of the hotels/hostels listed. We have a bus timetable and link to the AT hop website so users have a live update of when and where their bus will be if they are planning in advance. And a final link to each of the individual locations and their website, so there is no confusion. 

I kept the aesthetic of the app simple, and in style with the rest of the work. The pale pink colour in the background worked as an accent colour. It is blatantly an extension of the map itself so I am pleased with this.

SECOND REFINEMENT:

This was the second attempt at a graphic design for the map. I decided to refine the the graphic elements and work on the colours/overall aesthetic of the map. 

The botanical shapes came from an idea I had about the space itself when we first explored the location. We found that it was pretty artificial - lots of concrete and timber. a couple of palm trees but no notable greenery. This was something I found relatively interesting. The shapes are playful, and co I thought it was best to choose colours that would take this even further. The red blue and green were quite an easy option, however I didn’t want a classic primary palette. I decided to swap out the yellow (for readability purposes) and chose a pastel pink/nude instead. This made the map a little bit girlier, whilst not alienating the male audience.

I got rid of the thin lines and grid style pattern from the map as I felt these were the key streets in our map. We have decided to include in the app a more detailed map and links to the bus stops so that if people can’t tell exactly where a location is on this one, they’ll have a point of reference in their phones. 

REFINED CONCEPT

This was the second stage of development for our concept.

It was here that we saw the importance of distinctive colours and graphics. 

We felt that though the graphic was fun, it distracted too heavily from the map itself and wasn’t eye catching enough to be attract an audience. The detail in the map (highlighted by the coloured lines) became an unnecessary and unreadable element of the map. Because the brief stipulates that this is a way finding tool, we thought this was our next biggest task. This also meant we had to look at the amount of text/layout of the sideboard. For a tourist, or child, these instructions were both too lengthy, and unclear. There needed to be images/ icons to distinguish the categories instead of long paragraphs describing. If a non English speaker were to read this it could be hard to navigate. 

I also had a play with the ‘spotted’ graphic. I changed the colours and thought about using it as a key, however soon realised it didn’t distinguish the tags enough and became too cluttered. 

My task moving forward was to:

- make the key/tags more clear and readable

- Come up with a graphic that didn’t distract from the information itself, but also attracted an audience of all ages

FRAME DESIGN

This was the earliest concept of the map that we came up with.

I started with a very playful colour palette and developed my graphics to accompany this palette. The map itself isn’t as intricate as most maps, however this is for functional purposes as I feel it would be too hard to read if there were too many details in this map. As for the smaller lines, I am reconsidering my design decisions here as they render the map unreadable through the middle. It is hard to decipher buildings from streets.

As for the locator tags, I feel these are too small, and don’t indicate clearly enough the exact location of the intended places.

As for the general area of this map, we decided Freyberg square acts as a ‘hub’ for activity in our CBD. From here we decided that it would be better to expand our location for the purpose of this way finding task. The borders will run to the visible end of Victoria St West, Albert St, and Albert Park. 

Our map will be four sided (as the cube has four faces, we will create a face for each)

It was here that we decided our four categories would be:

- Coffee shops

- Hotels and hostels

- Entertainment

- Bus stops