Design Progression

• Goal- To help students understand and respect the dangerous power that is present in volcanic processes

• Message- Volcanoes are dynamic

• Audience- Elementary grade level students

My very first design was an attempt to incorporate some unique design elements suggested in the text such as text that overlaps the edge of the image, attempting to unify with similar colors in the image and text, and simplify by not filling in all of the white (or in this case, black) space.

At this point, I really liked the image and the fire filter on the Chiller font, but was unhappy with the overall design.

Completely rethinking the design, at one point I designed it all on a PowerPoint slide and used a completely different image that would give more information on plate boundaries with fewer words.

Unfortunately, the quality of the image was poor (I tinkered with it quite a bit and it started to look choppy and childish) and although the information relayed was accurate, it was presented in an uninteresting manner. It might work if it were in the middle of a PowerPoint presentation, but still be boring.

Death by PowerPoint? I can definitely see that happening here.

The Chiller font is a little more indicative of life than the rest of it but not quite as effective as the fire filter found in InkScape. The gradient colors of the word “Melting” I thought worked well to tie together the three words before it, but not enough to save it from Yawnerville.

Going back to my original image, I played with trying to say as much as possible using as little text as possible.

However, there was TOO little text and it just looked unfinished. Also, I began to wonder if I should just eliminate the plate boundary information for the most part so I went with that idea in the next slide. I still like the idea of having three main subtitles for information (water, heat, and pressure) so kept those throughout all the designs.

Playing with the design, it was fun to go a little bit crazy with the decorative font and set apart each block of text with a different color to indicate there was something different being said in each section. By this point I had stretched the image to the top to fill the page and eliminated the title overlap, which I liked much better. The fairly solid background made the title and subtitles more prominent. Bringing back the text, I eliminated the extra image to keep it from being too busy.

However, it is evident that the cutesy font and bright colors don’t mesh well with the background picture and it’s dark, dangerous feel.

Right justifying the text allowed me to follow the jagged edges of the image on the left side of each text box. Those silly colors just weren’t working with the black and orange image, though. So on the next slide I tried to remedy that by….

Replacing the dark and dangerous image from before with this bright, cheery volcano cartoon, I was able to match the fun font and bubbly colors to the image.

However, as crazy fun as it was, the message was completely at odds with the theme of the design. The design was cute and quirky but confusing. I suppose it would work if someone was against violence of any kind, even natural, but for most purposes this design does not work well.

After playing with the cartoon image for kicks, I moved back to a darker photograph of Mount Etna for the homestretch and concentrated on the color and placement of the text blocks.

For my final redesign I went with the dark and powerful image of a Mount Etna eruption and matched the colors of the text blocks to the overall color scheme of the image (fire, fire, and more fire).

The Chiller font used in the title and closing line is carried through the subtitles for repetition, only in a more subdued version.

The font used in the blocks of text contrast with the title, subtitles, and closing line with cleaner lines (Sans serif) and monoweight to balance out the heavy weighting of Chiller.

Using texture in the subtitle bars that is suggestive of the words cements the idea in the viewers mind without adding extra text (bubbles under water, orange/red glow under heat, and cracking under pressure). Not really word pictures- more like picture words.

Beginning and ending with the fire filter fonts keeps the whole design tied together.