Abstract Cartoon

Abstract Cartoon

The picture vocabulary by scott mccloud in his excellant book understanding comics, explaining semiotics it gives a great overview of the different scales of abstraction for cartoon characters.

With 3 sides there are the:

  • Retinal Edge
  • Representational Edge
  • Conceptual Edge

With the retinal edge it polarises the more reality, bottom left. Then going up it abstracts to mary fleener and accross the right to the conceptual edge, meaning becoming more arbitary with words and onomatapaeic words such as 'splash'.

Very good table, although mccloud states that they images included are not necessarily chosen for artistic merit. Makes me think of Rudolf Arnheims abstraction & the grasping of significant form. A scale between function and form as it is between words and images that abstraction will take place until a concept is conceived.

Mcclouds book may be comics content, but very very good, informal, non academic style of understanding semiotics.

Also check out Visible Signs by David Crow, explaining semiotics in great detail.

Published on 2008/09/04 8:21 pm.
Filed under: abstract, form, function, iconic, iconography, illustration, meaning, mimetic, semiotic, shape, sign, symbollic, visual thinking, visualisation, words

Periodic Table of Visualisation Methods

periodic+table+of+visualisation Periodic Table of Visualisation Methods

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Its interactive, you hover over the elements charted and it gives you an example of the creative data/information visualisation method.

For instance my last post Type Timeline Map would be the element T and is usually just an overview, although I tried to put as much detail in as I could, and is classed as an Information Visualisation. They're all there and more Mind Maps, Flow Charts all divided into categories.

It is another great subversion of design styles with soft pastel colours. The original Periodic Table transformed into Visual Thinking Elements is fantastic. Gives creativity and design this much needed scientific perspective as many data/info visualisations are bordering on the discipline of Science.

This isn't the first periodic table subversion, Simon Patterson not surprisingly in 'Rhodes to Reason' (1995) featured in Mapping: An Illustrated Guide to Graphic Navigational Systems has done this too. Simliar to his other Beck Tube map 'The Great Bear' (1992) subversion he takes actors names initials Sc for sean connery as an element and many other diverse individuals.

I first saw this Periodic Table of Visualisation methods featured among Jeff Bennett's Visualisation Taxonomy at his site visualthinkmedia.com. I then found it featured at Dave Davison's blog IQP which is when I discovered the full magnitude of its brilliance.

Excellant work by Ralph Lengler and Martin J. Eppler @
visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html

Published on 2008/05/25 1:47 pm.
Filed under: art, composition, concept map, creative, data, diagram, form, function, graphic, knowledge, language, map, mapping, science, spatial, symbollic, technology, visual maps, visual thinking, visualisation

The Whirl - Ways of Meaning

the+whirl+still+ +dave+gray The Whirl Ways of Meaning

Watch 'The Whirl' clicking here
(video was embeded but but was slow to load)

Why visual language can help us deal with the information age.

He talks about some of the cognitive challenges of the information age, and why visual language is an important tool for dealing with them. Also talking about how information is non linear today, hence visual maps of non-linear information connected in multidirectional, interdisciplinary, 'open' meanings of communication.

Take the cadburys gorilla, is there a meaning?

http://www.davegray.info/2008/04/11/the-whirl/

Published on 2008/04/17 8:36 pm.
Filed under: global, language, meaning, non linear, phonetic, symbollic, visual, visual thinking, ways of working