mapping reviews

This week we were reviewing our maps and identify other's work that we find interesting, find the ideas, methods and identified points that spark our interests.

The photos above are all the student's maps. As you can see, there are lots of different methods to visually transferring their journeys  such as sketches, digital paints, paper sticks and 3D models...

This map was stood out from all the maps as it's been made into architectural model that physical representation of her journey. Well, from top view of this model, we can see a bridge was builded across the river, there were some buildings located along the river as well. I guessed that the building on the bottom could be The University of Salford as there were green clay which represented the gardens in front of the Salford Uni.  

She might started from university, walk along the river, across the bridge and approached to B which was the building opposite the Salford University. I do like the method she used because it physically represented her journey to audiences. However, the buildings were too tough to recognised as I had no idea of what building is that one where opposite the university.  If I was her, I would add more details such as log of the building or identify colours to indicate the audiences effectively. 

I think this map was very interesting; Chelsea has visually communicated the journey with her imagination. Her journey obviously wad on the riverside and the bridge's been destroyed by several monsters. As you can see, one monster has broken the tower and another one has tried to crawled out from the river. 

She transferred her journey with personal styles (she loves monsters) that implanted the monsters on the map. It seems that the audiences weren't looking at the map, they were reading a thrilled adventure from this map. Audiences can be attracted easily by look at those monsters as they might wondering what's happened on her journey.  Her work has encouraged me to put my own style into map, get some creativity thoughts and make things into an interesting story in order to attract audience's eyes.

The map above used the simplest icons to explain his journey for viewers. There were three symbols between A to B: Cbeebies, blue man dances and red man holds a result card.  I did not get what are they until Lewy explained that they represented the CBBC, Studio and Jeremy Kyle in the ITV. I was quite surprised by it because it's unlike other's map that present the journey with road or identical landmarks, it showed his intelligent as he pushed viewers to read deeper rather than look at surface. When we look at those symbols, our brain automatically link to the related environment which clearly represent his journey in front of us.

The successful elements on this map is that she has used Psychogeography to indicate the audiences. For example, we know she's started from University to bridge, but how do we know that? In terms of philosophies, human eyes often read the objects at the front first, and then look at things behind it to seek the other clues. According to this, we know that viewers looked at this map, they always looked at the plant first, then the buildings, CBBC bear and finally the bridge. Therefore, the technique of scale and distance have successfully indicated the viewers of her journey without any labels. 

My Map

The photo above is my water painting map. After observed and reviewed other people's 'recording' landmarks within the journey, I just realised that the method I've recorded my key moments were too commonplace and boring. I just sketched out the landmarks without any deep meaning or techniques which less likely to  attract viewer's attention.

However, I will make a new map with the methods and techniques I've learnt today such as scale, shape, psychogeography and give the meaning to landmark rather than sketch the surface. I will try to push myself into a new space and out of my comfort zones, use a totally different way of 'recording' journey to influence the audiences.