On Tuesday I had my third supervisor meeting with Simone, the first in three weeks as I was unwell last week so couldn't attend. I showed her the work I how posted here, which she was mostly very happy with. My main concern for this week was the subject of my dissertation, as while I am very happy with where my practical work is going, I am finding it difficult to pin down where my dissertation topic would tie in, or what my dissertation topic even is! I thought I was going in the direction of type-image relationships, but at this stage it could equally be about information graphics or digital-analogue relations (as my final outcomes would be both on screen and printed) and both have been discussed with Simone. She has suggested I do more reading on all topics, including works by David McCandless and Edward Tufte, who are information designers. Hopefully by the time the first presentation on the 26th rolls around I will be able to say I know the answer!
Simone asked that I make a flowchart of all the pages I want to have in my prototype, which I currently have on a very messy piece of paper so that will be in a blog post for tomorrow. The early drafts of the content of the webpages (and I mean early) are shown below. It was also agreed that I should have prototype visuals ready to put in an online survey, so that I can get some feedback on how effective/persuasive my visuals are.
Through researching the scientific findings on the benefits of mindfulness, I came up with the beginnings of the illustrations for the mock website. Currently I am working in a vector style using some elements of skeomorphism to give the visuals some depth and lift them off the screen a little. Images created using Illustrator CC and placing textures where I felt I wanted some.
First draft of informative illustrations for the role of the amygdala in the limbic system. I liked the offset outline style of the banner and the speech bubble, but ultimately decided they were not in keeping with the other illustrations.
These were the first pieces I created, after researching the limbic system (also known as the emotional brain). Placing definitely needs looked at and I would like to consider other fonts which have a bit more weight to them, but I am happy with the direction and style, as is Simone.
I wanted an annotated diagram to show the benefits mindfulness brings to the body. Not sure if I will keep the dotted rings to highlight information as it feels a little busy, but I think this kind of illustration is important to highlight information that could be persuasive to the audience as they are presented with the parts of the body that are affected.
Very happy with the brain diagram (below), however my recent research in brain illustrations has got me thinking about trying it from an isometric angle or combing it with an image of a person's head.
Early draft page for the 'Beginner Exercises" page. One of the elements of the website will be a guide to mindfulness exercises at various levels. Introductory exercises to mindfulness include holding an ice cube in the hand and noticing the sensations, inspecting a raisin, and noticing 5 things as you go about your day. For newcomers to mindfulness, these seem a bit bizarre on the surface, so it's important to put them across in a way that appears fresh and contemporary rather than a bit hippy.
After going over my web flowchart with Simone I hope to have more content to post very soon. Next on my list for illustrations is a how-to on different kinds of mediation and the body scan practice.
On a different note, I managed to secure a meeting with Tricia from Student Services, a counsellor who runs a 7 week mindfulness course for Abertay Students each year in October. She leant me two books, The Mindful Way Through Depression by Mark Williams, Zindel Siegel, John Teasedale and John Kabat-Zinn, and Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world. These should be helpful as they detail the MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) and MBCT (Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy) among other things; these are the most intensive and structured courses for learning mindfulness, and of the scientific studies I have read, the results of most if not all of them are based on MBSR training over 8 weeks.
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