Beginning with the thumbnail that was constrained to 500 x 500 px
We were given a hardcover book of a 1964 Time LIFE Science Series to work with for this project. The book I chose to redesign aspects of was the Time edition. I decided that I wanted to keep my designs minimal in the redesign and wanted to use bold typography and graphics juxtaposed with negative space. Initially I thought black and white would be the most appropriate but instead I chose to use muted purple accents and white with the intention of changing the original design. The color was influenced by certain flowers illustrated in one of the chapters about what is referred to as the "flower clock."
This project pushed me as a designer by giving me experience taking simple animations I created in After Effects and saving/uploading them in order to be small enough to be used in our class website template. I had done a fair bit of this with photoshop but figuring out how to organize it and wireframe things so the designer in charge of organizing our class site could set up my page with the least amount of difficulty was a good learning experience overall.
I chose a few infographics to redesign and an essay about pendulums. I used much less text than the original essay and created a small model of a pendulum and took video of it in order to display the device visually in a new and interesting way. The icons were all inspired by key elements in the book and created for an audience who had access to the Time edition of the Time LIFE Science series in order enrich the experience and speak for themselves visually while paying homage to these great books.
The front page or more accurately the top of my microsite. Introducing my microsite with the question: "What is Time?" inspired by the first sentence of the prologue. - "What is time? Any child knows the answer, and yet even the most advanced theoretical physicist is hard put for a fully satisfactory definition."
The original cover of the Science Edition: "Time" has a photograph of a pocket watch. For my redesign I paid homage with a modern wrist watch with the hands of the clock slowing and changing rotation -"Time seems to follow a universal, ticktock rhythm. But it doesn't. In the Special Theory of Relativity, Einstein determined that time is relative--in other words, the rate at which time passes depends on your frame of reference."
I wanted to experiment with large type here and was able to introduce the flower clock and the idea that I found equally fascinating and admittedly over my head - that time may not be objectively linear but a circular system. "Under the circular time orientation, in contrast, time is not perceived as a straight line stretching from the distant past to the far future, but rather, it is seen as a circular system in which the same events are repeated according to some cyclical pattern." Based on this, circles became the foundation of the imagery in my design. (I also thought it was pretty clever that the repeated circles with something like 70-80% opacity create a flower as well, two birds with one stone).
The cirlces continue with the flower clock. I introduced diagonal lines that are inspired by the band of the wrist watch and the triangular shape of the wooden pendulum frame I created that is seen in a video a little lower. The opening and closing times combined with the illustration hopefully explain how the flower clock worked without needing to write it out in the same way that it is explained in the original text. I love that this exists and agree with the chapter title it is a remarkable rhythm. (one of many)
I used After Effects to create this hour glass and while not perfect I used some masking that I hadn't worked with a whole lot in the past and thought flipping it in another looping circle worked. If I were to change anything I would polish the animation a bit more, since its the only element on this section it should shine. I wanted to experiment with repeating the large type with another very large element.
The essay describing the pendulum is one of a few that appear in the book and the back of the books icon is a pendulum. I considered it one of the most important elements in the book so I recreated my own pendulum using a simple formula to measure different lengths of string attached to items I got for under ten dollars at my local hardware store. I built the frame in UNL's fabrication space (woodshop) using leftover wood used for canvas'. Rather than having "The Pendulum" repeated on this page and the bottom page I believe the updated site will just have the video beneath. I wanted to illustrate the importance of pendulums in the history of telling time by giving the title twice. I stand by the choice for now prior to seeing the video embedded.
We were tasked with redesigning five icons from the book. I chose a clock, flower, pendulum, hourglass, and the moon. The original designs of each icon was more detailed and realistic, I simplified them with clean lines and in the case of the flower the overlap of repeating circles minus the imagery that wasn't at 100% opacity. I repeated the pendulum and enlarged it as it was the based on the icon on seen on the back on the original book.
The formula used to build my model of a pendulum.
Sub atomic patterns I drew based on illustrations in the book
