BSL Diagrams - Fingerspelling

After photographing each of the letters for finger spelling I have now began to start producing the diagrams. I think that diagrams are a much cleaner/simpler way of representing what to do. Although photographs are more realistic, with diagrams I am able to strip back unnecessary information. Although I have tried to include certain bits of information that are not vital. e.g. crease marks within hands. The reason for the inclusion of such information is that it allows for an element of reality in a very 2D representation, and is perhaps more relatable.


I started testing pastel colours for the background of the diagrams, however found that attention was drawn away from the action because of the high contrast and brightness.


It is perhaps more functional to use a greyscale image and so here I have been testing out different tones and contrasts to see which is most usable.





A, B, C, D - Interesting to see how the images are working together as a series



Series of letters, not in order



Thinking about how the images might be presented as a series, since there are 26 images, what kind of format does this fit into, and does it allow for added info?



Perhaps presenting them within a strip. Need to think about what is going to work best for which environment. Where can the information be displayed? For offices...memo pads, mouse mats? What is present/easily accessible but not going to be ignored? Maybe more fun applications?

Labelling things with finger spelling: m.u.g.
Calender/diary: a.p.r.i.l. / m.o.n.d.a.y.
What methods of learning are there?!

Supporting the image with the letter. The placement of the letter needs to be consistant and so having it within the image is not viable.



Considering how letters may be included below the image and supported with explanatory text. It's important the user knows that these diagrams are shown from the users point of view. Hopefully the text will clarify what to do if any confusion but I wonder whether it is necessary or not. I'm wary of repeating information. For vowels I am considering highlighting the type in a secondary colour since they all have a similar logic behind how they work.

I am considering whether it might be useful to include ways of remembering what to do. e.g. for B it should look like a B lying on it's side.

J & H are different to the other letters since they require movement. To indicate this I have used an arrow + the secondary colour.

I have began looking at how these might fit into formats so that I can start exploring the inclusion of supportive text. However I think an important step is going to be user testing with people who do not know how to finger spell. And see whether they are able to understand the diagrams.

I also have agreed to meet with a representative for the Deaf Accessibility department for Leeds City Council and so this should be useful in defining more problems to overcome and I hope to get some feedback on these as well.

Photographs taken for the use of diagrams - fingerspelling.

identifying the problem

QES - Leeds Chamber

I then spaced everything out evenly, replaced the increase, constant and decrease with arrows and added the logo and heading to the infographic. This was then sent back to Leeds Chamber and they are happy with it.

I went back to using non-reversed out type but kept the bars there so you could see which boxes fit under which headings.

I started with these quite heavy in colour headings but felt it was too much and drew attention away from the data.

I then went back to this squares idea, it seemed to work well in terms of comparison of data. I cut one of the circles into 10 so that I was able to to 0.1%

I was thinking about other shapes that could perhaps represent increase, same and constant and thinking about the number 3.

I developed this sort of idea where each square represented 100% and each circle represented 1%. By colouring each percentile the percentage could be referenced to 100%. I also looked at the positioning of the coloured circles and whether for those that increased they were coloured starting at the top, and the bottom for decreased.

I started thinking about shapes that could represent percentages, thinking about lines and dots etc. The colours here are awful but I was looking more at shapes at this point.

I met with one of the PR team from Leeds Chamber during the creative milk round and got in touch with them after with my pdf etc. I then met with another member of the team who had a potential bit of work for me to accompany the QES report, which looks at businesses progress over the last 3 months in terms of exports, employment, cash flow etc and gives percentages of how many have increased, stayed constant or decreased. They wanted an infographic that visualised this data, in terms of how it looked they were flexible although it had to be business friendly.

Information is Beautiful

I thought it might be a good idea to try and work with an interior architecture student, to try and give more realistic ideas of what the inside of the exhibition/event could look like. We met with Ben, one of the second year's on the interior design course and tried to explain the project that we were doing and how he could fit into that. These are the visuals I took to try and explain the space but said that in terms of scale the space we'd want would probably be about the size of the mosaic cafe and maybe he was better qualified to work out dimensions.

The black circles show the different view points that Ben has already started looking at, the pink circles show the viewpoints that I have asked for. Hopefully giving me enough visuals to think about the wall graphics and way finding for around the site. One thing I have asked for is for the lighting on the floor to be removed because I think once I start applying wall graphics they will be fighting for attention.

Floor Plans

The Custard Factory is to be our venue for electronic waves... I was hoping to be able to find floor plans of the building but the only thing they really provide is an illustration of the outside of the building complex. So from this I've generated these approximate floor plans, to be honest they're pretty much guess work but it doesn't really need to be exact for the purpose of this project.

Considering different angles for the floor plans and different quantities of perspective. Testing different colours for the building and shading.

Using the day and night colours to colour code each of the buildings on the floor plan. This seems like an appropriate visual to start mapping things onto.

Starting to look at how the floor plans could be used within publication, i.e. using a dark background for the night one. Since this is one of the design decisions we made with regards to print and publication and the environment itself.