Assignment 5: Rapid Prototyping and Proof of Concept
Current Thoughts on Thesis:
For my early prototypes, I have been focusing on three main areas: figuring out how I will vectorize/digitize handmade typography, building and programming the tool itself, and thinking about a list of selected locations and how I will be able to storytell with those specifically selected.
1. Vectorizing/Digitizing Handmade Type
︎︎︎Digitizing and vectorizing selected signs is something that I have been grappling with for my project. As of now I have been hand tracing from photographs of the signs using Illustrator to create svg files but I believe that more investigation into typography design and type design softwares will give me more clarity into how I can most accurately convert these signs to be manipulated using my tool.
2. Compiling List of Locations
︎︎︎ For my selected list of possible locations, I have been using “Store Front: A History Preserved” as my primary resource as it provides a clear photograph of the storefront signs and also a description of the institutions’ histories and in depth stories about their businesses. Although I have been compiling a number of interesting signs with unique typography, a next step for my project would be to define a clear narrative that I would like to pursue with my project and as a result narrow down a list of locations.
3. Programming the Design Tool
Link to current version of prototype
︎︎︎Using some of the vectorized specimens of signs that I generated, I created a simplified and preliminary version of a working tool as a prototype. Although only a few of the controls are functional at this point, it helped me to start thinking about what kinds of features my tool should have, and in what ways I can manipulate certain signs to create visual interactions. All of the current controls features are two dimensional but moving forward for more advanced iterations, I would like to explore creating a three dimensional canvas as well using tools such as Three.JS.
Initial Sketches for User Interface
Steps Moving Forward:
1. Look into more methods of vectorizing analog typography
2. Streamline narrative and narrow down list of selected location
3. Storyboard
4. Continue developing prototype (Start incorporating additional features)
5. Develop more iterations of UI
✨List of Research Resources✨ (updated)
︎︎︎ BACK TO ITP BLOG