Design Island
The design disciplines are rendered with pixels and phrases on an island. The concepts represented on the volcano are common to fields of design. Each field is represented as a village. The volcano holds the foundations of design. This is a work in progress. Everyday, we add a few more square inches of pixel art.
Process
Starting with the Tribes of Design conceptual model, we began drawing a 3d geography with a volcano to organize the professions. We researched ten different visualization options ranging from Legos, to cut paper and 3d modeling programs. Based on gut instinct, we decided to move forward with a pixel art aesthetic. Also, we thought it would set a fun visual tone for our fun little towns, people and sayings.
We sketched some people, objects and an overall island plan to begin drawing in Photoshop. We then spent a few hours with online pixel art tutorials.We built a few people, a few buildings and mountain in many Photoshop files.
After bringing the pieces together, we added the Design Island Challenge text to help the viewer navigate the information. Challenges included making a physical model of a toaster and attending a Google Analytics Anonymous Recovery Group. Although sparsely populated, Design Island was coming together. We presented this to our class for feedback. They said "Finish it!" Since then, we have been working everyday to complete it.