Building on my work with historical maps, the first thing that I had decided that I needed to do was to redraw the maps that I had found in one consistent graphical style.
Redrawing the maps
As the goal of this exercise was to increase clarity of communication of how the site had changed, I decided to strip away all of the detail of the wider city, so that it would just show the island, the River Irwell/Manchester Ship Canal, and any other important immediate context. I used Adboe Illustrator to draw the different layers, as this is a vector-based programme, meaning that I can scale these maps to any size without loss of quality. The comparisons between each of the original maps and their redrawn counterpart are shown below.
Comparison between the original maps and their redrawn version
Printing experiments
Once I had the layers, I was able to begin testing how I could use these to best present time changes to people. One method to try, was to see if I could display all of these layers together through a printing method.
I tried two different approaches to printing them.
The first method was to layer up the different maps in the computer and export it as a single image, containing the lines of all of the different time layers. As the background is transparent, each layer can be at 100% opacity and will still show the lines of any layers of the older time periods. This single image could then be printed in one go.
The second method involved printing one time layer, then feeding the same sheet of card back through the printer and printing the next layer on top of it. This process was then repeated for all subsequent layers. For this experiment, with the layers that I had, it meant that the final printed artifact was a composite of eleven printing iterations.
Different printing methods: layered up in the computer and printed in one iteration (top); each layer printed separately and the sheet fed back through (bottom)
After trying both of these methods I then tried the same methods but decreasing the opacity of each layer down to 40%. I also then printed at a larger scale to focus on the main part of the site.
Comparisons of the layers being printed (in this case as one image compiled on the computer) at 100% opacity (above) and 40% opacity (below)
Reflection
The process of redrawing the maps has helped me understand the development of the site further, and these redrawn layers will now be a useful resource going forward.
The printing exercises were interesting experiments, and I'm glad that I tried changing the variables such as the number of printing iterations and the opacity of the layers, as they all gave different results. I liked how the multiple-iterations prints led to darker or more vivid blocks of fill colour and thicker lines where elements had existed for a long time, i.e. were present on many layers. In these cases, the lines became thicker due to the slight inaccuracies of the printer in lining up each print in the same location on the page. I also thought that reducing the opacity of the layers worked well with both methods for similar reasons, as the lighter elements on the page felt more transient, which was an accurate reflection of the shorter amount of time that they had been present on the site.
In spite of these interesting revelations, I don't think that these printing methods are my answer to conveying time-based changed (historical or future) on the site. I enjoy the prints as compelling, slightly abstract drawings in their own right, but I don't think that they achieve the clarity that I am needing.
As my project continues onwards, I will experiment with other ways of using these redrawn layers to convey time on the site.
Comments