I've been doing some research correlating to our map project and I have come across some materials that interests me. I've decided to seperate my findings into a few sections such as Introductory/Basics, Inspirations, and Publication.
Introductory/Basics
To begin my research, I have to start from the basics- and that is understanding what a map is and other basic stuff that I can implement for the final product. Since our map could either be fictional or non-fictional, I've decided to look up some reference for both of it.
For fictional maps, it is quite an enjoyable topic to research on as its often the product of our own findings and thoughts. However, based on Harper (n.d.) states that, "Many of them are products of the wildest imaginations, and are immersive places of escapism. Yet all of them retain vestiges of the ‘real’ world in which they were created – whether because of a particular feature illustrated in it, the way in which it has been drawn, or even the ‘real-world’ contexts which inspired it." I find this statement not so surprising as I do see that some of the fantasy maps does resemble our own, but I never really pinpointed it down. So, to see someone actually making a comparison of fictional maps and how real world events affects them is very much eye opening to me. Some of the examples that's given are J.R.R. Tolkien Middle Earth Map. Harper (n.d.) states that the Middle Earth map's geography is quite similar to Europe's in terms of coastal outline as to give the illusion of a pre-historical era. Thus, this finding somewhat show that fictional items tend to be indirectly affected by real life.
[ Harper, T. (n.d.) What is a fantasy map?. Retrieved from https://www.bl.uk/maps/articles/what-is-a-fantasy-map]
J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth Map from The Lord of The Rings Series Book.
For non-fictional maps, I went on a site called Dezeen under their maps sections and there a quite a lot of non-fictional maps and some fictional maps sprinkled here and there. I find this page useful in terms of visualisation as I have quite the general understanding of what makes a non-fictional map. I use it as more of an overview for presentation but also how to form it.
[Maps and map design | Dezeen magazine. (2012). Retrieved from https://www.dezeen.com/tag/maps/ ]
Another thing that I try to implement and understand is Basic Colour Theory since I'm not so skillful in mixing and matching colours together. This thing is quite important to me since most of my artworks in the past has always been either Black & White, Black + Other colours or just one singular colour that is somewhat pleasing to the eyes but not so appropriate in pulling the whole project altogether. Thus, I've decided to do some of my own research and do my own reading just to have a general understanding on this topic. [Basic Color Theory. (n.d.) Retrieved from https://www.colormatters.com/color-and-design/basic-color-theory ]
Finally, one of my "inspiration" or a thing to give me a headstart and some sort of direction for this overall assignment is me looking up places to visit in Klang Valley. Sounds lame but I genuinely didn't know which district and state is under Klang Valley since I'm not from this area. This article has given me some stuff to consider but I never really visited any of these places but instead I just use this article as an overview of stuff which was pretty helpful eventho I didn't end up visiting any of these places. [Chew, A. (2017). 11 Attractions in Klang That You Don’t Want to Miss. Retrieved from https://www.tripzilla.com/klang-attractions-to-visit/70337]
Inspirations
One of my inspiration includes an illustration artist called Nigo Lee and I really like her map illustrations that she did for a magazine. I personally like it because it looks very much clean and fun but informative at the same time. The map is cluttered in a nice and orgazined way which is something I want to achieve in my own map.
[Lee, N. (2015). Magazine Map Illlustration. Retrieved from https://www.behance.net/gallery/23324113/map-work]
Another inspiration of mine comes from a game called Layers of Fear. I chose this as my inspiration because I'm sort of aiming to make a map based on my emotions and one of this game's main theme is emotions. The game follows an artist that descends to madness due to some events and as a player, we are given three endings- the Bad Ending, Neutral ending and Good Ending. How we achieve it all depends on our decisions in the game and in a way, I am drawn towards this idea because this game showcases the complexity of emotions and how a person is able to experience one set of emotions differently.
[loober Team (2016). Layers of Fear [Video game]. Kraków, Poland: Aspyr]
Publication
Publication wise, I've looked up a few things that inspired me and one of it is the idea of Zine. A zine is a self-published magazine where you basically do it yourself and it's quite easy if you want to make things into some sort book-ish style as it requires very minimal items and time.
[Clark, J. (2017, April 26). how to make a zine [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00Hxh4pKwvM]
Another item that I might consider implementing into my final product is ambience. How I would like to set u my map is quite unsure yet but if I were to do it as an art installation I would like it to have some form of ambience so viewers are able to fully immerse themselves in the map and feel as if they are there themselves. [soundrown. (2018). Retrieved from http://soundrown.com/]
Comments