BIG B OYmyweb.students.wwu.edu/bedellt/360/images/Project 2... · 2019-03-21 · MOODBOARD. BIG BOY BIG BOY BIG BOY? I was torn between two aesthetics, one being a more clean cut

B I G B O Y

D A V I D S E D A R I S

IT WAS EASTER SUNDAY in Chicago, and my sister Amy and I were attending an afternoon dinner at the home of our friend John. The weather was nice, and he'd set up a table in the backyard so that we might sit out in the sun. Everyone had taken their places when I excused myself to visit the bathroom, and there, in the toilet, was the absolute biggest piece of work I have ever seen in my life--no toilet paper or anything, just this long and coiled speci-men, as thick as a burrito.

I flushed the toilet, and the big boy roused around. It shifted position, but that was it. This thing wasn't going anywhere. I thought briefly of leaving it be-hind for someone else to take care of, but it was too late for that--before leaving the table, I'd stupidly told everyone where I was going. "I'll be back in a minute," I'd said. "I'm just going to run to the bath-room." My whereabouts were public knowledge. I should have said I was going to make a phone call. I'd planned to pee and maybe run a little water over my face, but now I had this to deal with.

The tank refilled, and I made a silent promise. The deal was that if this thing would go away, I'd repay the world by performing some unexpected act of kindness. I flushed the toilet, and the beast spun a lazy circle. "Go on," I whispered. "Scoot! Shoo!" I claimed a giddy victory, but when I looked back down, there it was, bobbing to the surface in a fresh pool of water.

Just then, someone knocked on the door, and I started to panic.

"Just a minute."

At an early age, my mother had sat me down and explained that everyone has bowel movements.

"Everyone," she'd said. "Even the president and his wife." She'd mentioned our neighbors, the priest, and several of the actors we saw each week on television. I'd gotten the overall picture, but, natu-ral or not, there was no way I was going to take the rap for this one.

"Just a minute!"

I seriously considered lifting this monster out of the toilet and tossing it out the window. It honestly crossed my mind, but John lived on the ground floor and a dozen people were seated at a picnic table ten feet away. They'd see the window open and no-tice something drop to the ground. And these were people who would surely gather round and inves-tigate, then there I'd be, with my unspeakably filthy hands, trying to explain that it wasn't mine. But why bother throwing it out the window if it wasn't mine? No one would have believed me except the person who had left it in the first place, and chances were pretty slim that the freak in question would sud-denly step forward and own up to it. I was trapped.

"I'll be out in a second!"

And I scrambled for the plunger and used the handle to break it into manageable pieces, all the while thinking that it wasn't fair, that this was tech-nically not my job. Another flush and it still didn't go down. Come on, pal. Let's move it. While waiting for the tank to refill, I thought maybe I should wash my hair. It wasn't dirty, but I needed some excuse to cover the amount of time I was spending in the bathroom. Quick, I thought. Do something. By now, the other guests were probably thinking I was the type of person who uses dinner parties as an op-portunity to defecate and catch up on his reading.

"Here I come. I'm just washing up!"

One more flush and it was all over. The thing was gone and out of my life. I opened the door to find my friend Janet, who said, "Well, it's about time." And I was left thinking that the person who'd aban-doned this man-made object had no problem with it, so why did I? Why the big deal? Had it been left there to teach me a lesson? Had a lesson been learned? Did it have anything to do with Easter? I resolved to put it all behind me, and then I stepped outside to begin examining the suspects.

CONTENT

EMOTIONS IMAGES

◊ Messy

◊ Stress-lines

◊ Hellish

◊ Bead of sweat

◊ Tugging neckline

◊ Overflowing

◊ Tile floors

◊ Toilet paper

◊ Thought bubbles

◊ Fist knocking door

◊ Flashbacks

◊ Cutesy ("big boy")

◊ Hysteria

◊ Confusion

◊ Humanity

◊ Flustered

◊ Hysterical

◊ Anxious

◊ Rushed

◊ Disgusted

◊ Embarrassed

◊ Stressed

◊ Relieved

◊ Ponderous

CONTENT

COMPETITIVE RESEARCH

The two examples I found were both Esquire ar-ticles, for some reason. I couldn't find this work published anywhere else online. I felt that the im-age below displayed a better visual aesthetic and I wished to emulate it in a way, but add visual ele-ments to make it seem more interesting.

COMPETITIVE RESEARCH IDEAS

WIREFRAMING

This is how I first envisioned the site would look, and for the most part, I stayed true to this visual aesthet-ic. The only difference was that I used 100% viewport height for every page.

DESKTOP MOBILE

WIREFRAMING

The mobile version ended up being more or less the same as well, with 100% viewport height. These wire-frames included elements that didn't make it to the final cut, such as the last page. If I had had more time to create more assets, the end would have in-cluded a different illustration.

MOBILE

MOODBOARD

B I G B O Y

B I G B O Y

B I G B O Y ?

I was torn between two aesthetics, one being a more clean cut vector style and another being a cartoony, something-that-might-be-in-a-comic-book vibe. I think that Bodoni would work well with the comical style and a sharper, easy to read sans-serif would work well with the vector illustrations.

I initially thought it would be funny to use elegant col-ors and cute illustrations to contrast the utterly dis-turbing content of this story....

poop toilettiles

BUT INSTEAD...

I tried for a more technical style of illustration, one that woul contrast in a different way from the story presented. I reached deep into the chasm of my weary brain and felt a source of inspiration that I didn't initially feel.

After feeling inspired, I spent a while looking online at various uses of graphs, trajectories, maps, charts, techni-cal illustrations, etc.

INSPIRATION

I'm a big fan of Demetri Martin and his use of graphs. I thought that it would be funny to compliment the narrative of the story with graphs, diagrams, and scientific elements that explain the situation in some way shape or form. I wanted to do this without bit-ing too hard, and I'm hoping that it doesn't appear that way

These are some sleek graphs and charts that I was a fan of. My intent was to combine the humor of the sto-ry with the readings of the charts in my own way, to add an additional nar-rative to the story itself.

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ILLUSTRATION

REJECTS

FINALS

ILLUSTRATION

USABILITY

After a whole lot of work to get everything aligned cor-reclty and animating the way I wanted, I put the web-site to the test. The verdict: it was easy to understand and straightforward, which is all I really wanted. Phew!

REFLECTION

I hit so many walls with this project, I nearly gave up. I had to make a weekend dash home to reflect on what was going wrong, why I was setting myself up for di-saster, etc etc. As it turns out, I was just being a whiney little baby. Hmmm.

After having this reflection, with nearly a week and a half left to design, I churned the shit out to say the least. I learned more than I ever thought I would. "Is the interactive experience in its final state?" you must be dying to know.

Absolutely not!

There are many additions that I hope to make eventu-ally, because towards the end, I really did feel as if I was beginning to get the hang of coding, which I never in a million years thought I would say. What I can say, though, is this: I met almost all of the standards that I set for myself while conceptualizing this project so I'm very content.

Thank You :)