These are our first concepts for the assigned route in Delft, which will be displayed on a large billboard near the railway station. The design of the concepts can be divided in three different steps, which will be explained next.
Step 1: Map - implification and subtle manipulation
Regular maps of Delft are rather busy. We chose to make a simplification of the map to serve more as background This way it is easier make the things we add to the map ourselves stand out. Since we are making a simplification ourselves, this also allows a slight manipulation. To this we owe the route being somewhat more symmetrical and the oostpoort appearing to lay closer on the route then it in reality.does. We argued the manipulation to be justified since the purpose of the map is only to give a rough guideline to visitors where to go. As they cannot take the map with them but only view itt at location, they are only to remember that much.
For the land, a darker color was chosen to make the buildings stand out, For the path a lighter hue. No black lining was added to allow the buildings to distinguish themselves in this. The stone texture versus the plain white of the buildings adds to the same cause.
Step 2: The sights
Delft has a great deal to offer to tourists, therefore we chose to make a selection. The main tensionfield in the choices was between their popularity and a nice, equal divination over our route. Again we went for a simplification of the sights instead of real pictures, because we felt this would allow us to control our emphasis more easily. The added sights are perfect for guiding the viewers attention by playing with factors as sizes, shadows, perspectives, brightnesses, orientation and groupings/ overlapses.
Step 3: The route
The bright red line stands out right away. Good, because we want the eye to follow this line. We tried to also to guide the eye along a specific side of the line by playing with the line itself. The effect we finally found best created by using diverges/ converges and saturation gradients. Because of the playful and nonchalant style of the line, the differences between both maps are not necessarily much noticed.
