Visual design Treatment
How will I incorporate Tufte's five theories into my work?
To start off this post i’m going to first list off Tufte’s different Theories:
- Small Multiples
- Layering and Separating
- Micro/Macro Readings
- Use of colour
- Space and Time
Tufte’s work or at least the parts were looking at here mostly revolved around the visualisation of data in different ways, in this post im going to show how i intend my animation to relate at-least in some way to most if not all of his theories in one way or another.
Here is one example of how his theories can be applied to even large scales of data to create a visually appealing yet functional and informative piece of, essentially art, that displays all the relevant information accurately and intuitively in the right places.
Although Tufte’s theories are better suited to data sets the principles behind them and how they convey information to people can be applied to a wide variety of topics and mediums including my animation…
Small Multiples
In order to taylor my animation to his theory of Small Multiples I will try to showcase the differences between the valve timings for each piston activation that spins the crankshaft further, this in theory should help ‘shift the reader’s effort from understanding how the’ engine ‘works to what the’ individual parts do (Gemignani, Z. 2021).
Layering and Separation
Moving onto Layering and separation this can easily be incorporated by going through the engine in different pieces showcasing them separately to each other. For example in my work i shall by focusing on the individual pistons then the valves and then back to the engine as a whole showing the movement of the crankshaft itself.
Use of Colour
Incorporating colour into any design can be quite important especially when it comes to conveying information, therefore in my final design i will look into changing the colours of relevant items when they are in focus in order to bring focus on the parts of the animation i want the viewer to pay the most attention to.
Space and Time
In order to tailor to this particular theory the animation will progressively get more realistic as it goes on from 2D to 3D this will help illustrate the passage of time as the engine goes through its revolutions. This also helps to illustrate that such engines would be built for sustained usage getting the user from A – B by powering the driveshaft through the gearbox.
Micro and Macro Readings
Finally we move on to his theory on micro and macro readings, essentially stating sometimes to understand data better you need to look at it on a smaller scale, in this case it can be applied to the animation in the form of zooming in onto the valves movements as they cause the micro explosions that propel the pistons down.
References
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Olson, N. (no date) Lists In Real Science, Edward Tufte Forum: Lists: Design and construction, by Edward Tufte. Available at: https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0002QF (Accessed: 05 May 2024).
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Gemignani, Z. (2021) Better know a visualization: Small multiples – juice analytics, Launch Customer-Facing Data Products – Juice Analytics. Available at: https://www.juiceanalytics.com/writing/better-know-visualization-small-multiples (Accessed: 06 May 2024).
