Friday, August 20, 2010

Hillside Map 2008 and Beyond

This was designed as a vector image to be easily rearrangeable as the festival layout changes slightly from year to year.  So all the cars and tents and snow fences and other items can be moved around as needed.  I love making maps.  Wayfinding systems are an intriguing puzzle to be solved!

Thursday, August 19, 2010

How to Choose Your Hypothesis Test

This decision tree is a learning aid I designed which is in use at the University of Guelph for a class called "Quantification in Psychology".  This is an introductory statistics class.  Choosing the most appropriate hypothesis test for any particular study is key, and somewhat complex since there are a lot of variables that determine what kind of test will do the trick.  I used a colour coding system and boxes shaped to visually augment and represent the verbal content to make this complex flow chart as readable and memorable as possible.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Watch Your Step!

At our Photo business there is a single step between the main office and the photo studio.  Sometimes there is a wine and cheese event.  This is usually when someone fails to remember that this step exists.  We've cleaned up a fair bit of wine off the floors, walls, desks, pen holders, etc.  So we thought having me design this wayfinding signage would help.  So far so good!


As you can see they are designed to alert people from each side of the step.

Front Door Signage Design

My wife and I have a photography business together.  At the front of the studio right beside the door we have a 2x3 foot sign with the pertinent info.  It was time for a redesign to update the info and improve readability.  I've been excited about flow charts and dotted lines lately so I used some of that visual language to tie together the related information.



You see, our studio actually houses 3 semi separate entities...

1) The photo studio.  This information is all connected by the pink dotted lines.

2) Flo (our shooting space is also a dance studio so we make it available for rent and we call that part of the studio "Flo").

3) Me.  My illustration, info design and graphic design services.  My illustration and design studio isn't literally in that space, but I often am and I get to have a bit of free promo out of the deal.  Hooray for free promo!

Game Map, Splinter Cell Cargo Ship Upper Deck

My guilty pleasure is video games.  I love figuring things out.  And I'm extremely patient.  Ubisoft's game "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell" is a first person game requiring a lot of patience as you sneak around trying to avoid being detected by the guards.  This level takes place on a cargo ship.  To plan my strategy and keep from getting disoriented in the secret passageways at the beginning of the level I mapped the space.  Drawing this map was as much fun as playing the game!

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Cervical Traction Exercises

My chiropractor sorely needed some good illustration to effectively communicate the correct usage of this traction device.  Words alone don't effectively show it, and a live demo is critical but it's easy to forget little details.  The illustration they were using before was very rudimentary and didn't really read very well and I thought it could use a second part to clarify some other information.  So I volunteered my illustrated information design services to make something really clear.  Ever see something that you know you could vastly improve and you just itch to fix it?  Well, that's what I did here.  They loved it.

"How to Edit Your Photos" Cheat Sheet

Photographer Trina Koster asked me to create an easy reference guide, laminated on a handy 8.5x11" card, so that her clients could use it to edit their own photos on Trina's photo management software.  This may look boring to most of you unless you use Aperture to manage your photos, in which case I'm sure you'll find it fascinating!  Oddly enough I found it totally fascinating to create this, because I get obsessive about developing the most effective information design possible.  I think it's the gamer in me.  I'm always trying to find the best, most effective way to accomplish something, or to communicate something.