Atlas Obscura
During my first module, Visual Communications, I have been assigned for the third and final task to work individually to conceive a conception and a design to creatively and appropriately respond to the client(Atlas Obscura) brief. In support of my response I will be developing the quality of technical production in terms of both computer-based and hand-craft skills.
Brief
Atlas Obscura are a predominately online travel guide in the tradition of the Baedeker, Lonely Planet and Rough Guides. In addition to on line content they have a coffee table book as quoted below. In addition to these platforms they are seeking to expand their output, Atlas Obscura have released a call for submissions of proposals.
“We at Atlas Obscura love the obscure but we don’t want to be obscure. We want to raise our profile as the go to for the traveller. To supplement our on-line and published content we are looking for some middle ground. We want to entice users at a local level, revealing the wonders beneath their noses and in doing so open the door to our world of wonders. We are asking agencies to create locally based physical materials which will raise our brand profile. In keeping with our ethos we want promotional materials, be they posters / booklets / fliers, which have a strong and distinctive visual presence. Be bold!”
Evidence Required for Assessment/Presentation:
- An effective design process incorporating both digital and physical mock ups of print output.
- Your Creative ‘Journey’ recorded on a WordPress blog
The Deadline for this project will be Thursday 14 December.
About Atlas Obscura
“An explorers guide to the worlds hidden wonders” “Created by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras and Ella Morton, Atlas Obscura revels in the weird, the unexpected, the overlooked, the hidden and the mysterious. Every page expands our sense of how strange and marvellous the world really is. And with it’s compelling descriptions, hundreds of photographs, surprising charts, maps for every region of the world, it is a book to enter anywhere, and will be as appealing to the armchair traveler as the die-hard adventurer.
Anyone can be a tourist. Atlas Obscura is for the explorer.”
“Atlas Obscura is a collaborative project. We depend on our far-flung community of explorers (like you!) to help us discover amazing, hidden spots, and share them with the world. If you know of a curious place that’s not already in the Atlas, let us know.” –Atlas obscura.com
Development
To begin this project I started by making lists showing my research and thinking in the key areas I need to know, these were way to advertise and promote, graphic styles and places to base my project on. I look at a range of ways I could get my designs across including the traditional flyer and brochure as well as more contemporary ways such as pop-up books and coasters. I looked at popular styles such as Art Deco, Minimalist and illustration to get an idea for what I liked and what I would feel confident using. I finally looked at places, I was already more set on going something based in Orkney as I will be there for two weeks and Orkney itself is a very obscure place.
Development Inspiration
I made the decision that I wanted to make my brand promotional design to be an information wheel (as featured above) as I feel they are different as a user has to interact with it to be able to find out all the information, this will promote the use to be more aware and intrigued when using it. I also would like to go for a rustic/illustrated style as I think it is curent and can attracted people of all ages furthermore families as well as supporting the reality that Orkney is an outdoors wilderness place with lots of history.
Concept Development
I started by looking at the simple round two wheel design as I had seen on Pinterest (featured above) mainly taking inspiration from the pink wedding invite with a Texas cut out revealing information, I considered ways of having an Orkney cut out instead but as Orkney is made up of lots of small island it would be impossible to read the information smoothly. I then thought about cutting the shape of Orkney out of a material like metal, wood or plastic to make the pin to hold the wheels together as I would like the shape to be include, I have put this thought on hold while I develop further. I considered the information I might use to attract people to the idea of visiting Orkney and looking of more information on the Atlas Obscura website. I considered just focusing on unwell known place in Orkney but then felt I would not have enough information of conviction to sell the idea of listing to people, instead I looked at place or things people could do that would attract people such as the world shortest commercial flight or Neolithic settlements.
For my second wave of development I focused more on the shape and build of the stellar birthday card as I thought it was more interesting in shape and would allow for more information to be displayed. I made a paper model to look how it was connstructed and what kind of space I would have for my information. Once i worked out how the constructed to shape i could develop the look more, i decide to include a map like the star one but it would be a map of Orkney and came up with the idea to add marks to show points of intrest. I though about adding some of the infromation to the edge of the wheel and then expanding on it more on the backside of the design or having pull out tabes with information. I was going to add the information as facts about orkney itsleft rather than just focusing on induvusal places but later decided aginst this later and desicided that i would just focus on singluar places.
I developed the look of my idea further by incorpating the Atlas Obscura 
logo on to the front of the info wheel. The large outer circle would be the edge of the wheel cover plate while the smaller circle i would lower slighlt and make into the view finder part of the wheel plate which would revel the map when the wheel is turned. The next part of development i want to work on is how i would show the logo. I want to get samples of how it would look is debossed, glossy varnishe, powerder/ foil embossed.
Mock ups/ Samples
Further development
Once I made my third mock up I wanted to try and make some samples to get an idea of how I can refine my project and make it more visually impacting. I found I would not be able to make most of the textural samples I wanted to because I and the college didn’t have the resources to emboss, engrave or UV spot varnish. i focused them on how I could emboss using foil or powered as I did on my mock up but later was unable to get the materials to be able to foil emboss to focused on just power embossing my design.
I carried on the same shape of of my mock up into my final design as I thought it was practical and yet different as well as instructing but I knew I would need to find a better way of cutting the shapes out in ordered for it to appear more refined and furthermore for the wheel to spin around a lot more smoothly. I looked at the possibility of laser cutting the pieces out in ordered to get a percision cutting. Matt asked Andy is I would be able to go downtime work shop and speak to him and experiment cutting the shapes out. I took at long time to create the shapes in a way that the laser cutter would know what to cut and meant that I with matts helps had to remake and resize my finished shapes as moving the file from InDesign into Illustrator restricted what I could do with my shapes.
When I went and saw Andy to look as the possibility of laser cutting he said there should be no problem when laser cutting and although I was planing to cut the shapes out with thick card we end up using a thin plastic with was about the same thickness as card but much more durable than paper. The laser at first melted the plastic slightly but once we decreased the power the plastic cut well with limited melting. Any small imperfections I sanded down just made the plastic more smooth so it would spin better and look more refined. I used the template I made indesign to print out and stick on my laser cut plastic to add text and add example lines to emboss within as we could not print direct on the the plastic.
I kept the watercolour look of the map in the middle as it has a better visual texture than I would making a vector images and was more time saving to do. I made a new watercolour painting front the one I made for the mockup and experimented with new colours to get a more visually impacting map. Once I had finished the map I scanned it onto the computer so I cut clean up the edges and place it in to my computer design. Once I had added the map in I made up small arrows to use of place marks for where the attractions are.
For the back on my design I was going to place a short sentence of information about each place of interest on my map but after speaking to matt he suggested that I could add small booklet with more information on the back in order to make it more appealing and create an opportunity to add pictures of the places. I have done the booklet let in order of the the numbers on the map to make it synchronised and easy to follow.
Final Product
For my final product I have created a more refined and practical version of my third development. I laser cut the plastic as a strong base to keep the shape of the wheel as well as drilling the hole for the centre pin. I printed out the design on high quality paper and used spray mount stick the printed design on to the plastic, i then used gold embossing powered that was as close a match to the colour of the original Atlas Obscura logo to add the logo on to the front plate as well as small detail to the corners of both the front and back plate. I then used spray mount to stick the back plate and found plate together trapping the wheel in side free to spin, I curled wire o make a centre pin the keep the circle in place. I used the same typeface ,Gilroy, at the Atlas Obsura website to show a correlation between the brand and my project, I could not get fright typeface for the body font but choses font that was close in look to keep the project matching the identity of the brand. The booklet fit on the back of the booklet with out obstructing the wheel and works as a information guide to the location markers on the map wheel.
Natalie Rose 