Design Portfolio

Visual Design Treatment

March 11, 2024

How will I incorporate Edward Tufte’s 5 theories

Use of Colour:

One of Tufte’s theories states that colour can be used to label and measure information, make things visually appealing and using the colours to be associated with a certain reality (Tufte, 1990). I believe this to be useful as a study done by Farley and Grant (1976) proved that colours have a great affect on enhancing our attention level, so by incorporating this into my own animation I will create a cohesive colour palate that meshes well with one another in order to hold the attention span of the viewer during the 30 seconds. His theory also states that colour should be able to signify certain things so I shall use a a common orange shade for the cheese as well as a red colour to create a picnic-esque blanket. I will try to keep these colours on the muted side in order to replicate colours found within nature so the animation looks recognisable to the viewer.

Colour palette taken from digital storyboard.

Small Multiples Encourage Comparison:

Tufte’s second theory of small multiples will be incorporated into my animation through the amount of individual elements that are all placed together so when the final project in the end is revealed it will make sense visually to the viewer. The theory states that an audience can see the differences when lots of information is displayed together so I will achieve this by having many blocks of cheese on a board that slowly once assembled resemble the appearance of stone henge. It will also be seen in the mice as when theres just one mouse by itself its unclear as to what its purpose is but by having a big group of mice all wearing construction gear its more clear what they’re trying to achieve.

Example of how small multiples encourage comparison.

Narratives of Space and Time:

For his third theory he states that you can use visuals to display a certain amount of time. For my animation I plan to incorporate this by the cheese morphing into different shapes during the course of the animation to display how it’s been worked on overtime, implying to the viewer that time has passed.

Layering and Seperation

As information can become quickly jumbled when too much can be seen at once it’s important to layer them effectively so it can be more easily read by the viewer. I plan to have effective layering and separation in my own animation by having a clear distinction of colours between the foreground and background in order to create a higher sense of depth as well as the camera moving freely around the scene so it’s possible to see how. everything is laid out in a 3D landscape.

Example of poor visual layering and seperation.

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