Studio Brief 2 - Atom development

Adding colour and text 

Some designs used the colour scheme from the original Land Travelling Exhibition Catalogue map. Filling the circular point with these colours worked well in creating the appearance of a structure. 

The titles of each area in the exhibition were added along each connecting line and positioned closest to the corresponding point. Some of the lines however were not very wide meaning some of the titles looked crammed into the spaces whereas others worked well. 

Bending the titles around each of the circlular points aimed to create the appearance of the words orbiting the shape. This was effective, however the gaps between the circles and text were quite large meaning that they looked out of proportion when compared with the joining lines.

Using an image of the of the site where the exhibition entrance would have been, for the background, meant that the diagram outlines had to be adapted to stand out against the image. The contrast between the dark ground and light sky meant that half of the outlines needed to be black and half white tot contrast against the two halves of the image. 

In the original map each of the areas within the exhibition had  a letter then a key was used to show which parts were which. Using this idea on the diagram meant that it was not as cluttered but still told all the information. It also further enhanced the idea of it being a technical diagram. 

Abrieviating the names of each of the areas to two letters to create 'chemical elements', links well to the compounds and elements that the original diagram would have looked at, and reflects how these are written scientifically. Using white as a fill within the circles meant that the text within showed up much better than on the coloured background.

In other examples the original atomic structure drawings were used as inspiration. To create the effect of a diagram a note was added at the bottom of the image to say what it was (1951 Land Travelling Exhibition Diagram), as seen in the originals. The background colour from these versions was taken from the paper that the original drawings were drawn on.   

Colouring the joining lines created distinction between the different types of lines that reflect the route of the exhibition (whether a path is walked along once or whether it is necessary to backtrack), whilst also taking influence from the use of colour in the Feynman diagrams.

A red, white and blue colour scheme was also explored to make reference to the lights that would have shone on the exhibitions front entrance, as well as evoking patriotism.

The designs use Gill Sans as this was the only sans serif typeface to be used in the festival because of its imperfect form.