Relationship between space and the economy

I've been trying to find out how the state of the economy can affect space allowance per passenger. More space, means less seats, less tickets per aircraft. I have a suspicion that as the state of the economy because worse, less space will be allocated for passengers.
To find out if I'm right I've been contacting different airlines and travel agents trying to find out the pitch depth for seating, and am trying to find out how much it's changed each year. It's proving to be quite a difficult task, since each model has different specs, and travel agents don't tend to keep old information.

What is good- survey results

Following previous research I wanted to find out where people thought the most cramped places were. The most popular answers were; aeroplanes (25.6%), trains (25.6%) and buses (20.9%). I have tried to demonstrate these results using type. As this brief continues I intend on focussing on these three places to show why being short is good.

Type - Heirarchy

Heirarchy determines in which order the words are read by an audience. This can be done by changing things like; size, weight, layout, case and typeface. It has the potential to change the effectiveness of a message and if done wrong can miscommunicate to an audience. This exercise demonstrates how to draw attention in a particular order. However when it's used for posters, brochures etc then the audiences priorities must be taken into consideration.

Concept Statement

Being short is good because you get more space.

After delivering my presentation I realised that the majority of my argument for why being short is good is because of the trouble that tall people have in cramped places, and that it was more comfortable for short people.

With this in mind, my approach may be to try and communicate the value of space and demonstrate the fact can short people can enjoy this (with the possibility of showing the inconvenience lack of space causes for tall people).

What is good?

Being short is good.

Researching this has been both interesting and frustrating. One thing I have definitely learnt is to take care during measurement conversions.

To support this statement there are both psychological and physical considerations. During my research people's insecurities about their height and how they believe people perceive them has become very apparent, almost disturbing at some points. Without quoting anyone in depth, comments and feedback I received/read were mostly negative. What surprised me most is how insecure and upset people can be about their height, with several people using the word "freak". Playing on people's insecurities isn't something that I want to do, or would feel comfortable doing. It is interesting however, the way that height seems to affect relationships with other people. Females in particular, mention how height can affect relationships romantically, but mentioned also are the words "intimidating", "imposing" and "approachable".
The fact that height can affect health is particularly interesting. These health implications include: Breast Cancer, Prostate Cancer, Cardiovascular Issues, RSI, Trauma, and Law of Levers.
RSI and Trauma are heavily related to the surrounding environment and are most likely preventable. Reading about ergonomics and anthropometry I realised that only the 5%-95% of people are taken into account for a lot of product design. (With the bottom 5% being short and the top 5% being tall)
For some design, such as height of doors, head room etc the bottom 5% won't be affected, but for the top 5% it can be a big inconvenience. A lot of the time taking 100% of people into account can be a hassle but sometimes not doing this increases the risk of danger. For example the space allowance on an aeroplane. To alter the design to make it appropriate for everyone means taking out seating, increasing cost per seat/ticket.

(Rather than fill my blog with more statistics etc, if anyone is interested in the subject let me know, and I'll point you in the direction of some useful articles or you can have a look at the research I've gathered so far.)

Summer Postcards

As part of the Design for Print module we were asked to design four different postcards, in response to the work we had done over the summer. The four postcards should be: A full colour image, three colour (+ tints) word, a two colour logo and a one colour pictogram.

The work I produced over the summer focussed on wine labels, in particular the type used for them.



Full Colour Image



Three colour word, using red, yellow and black.




Two colour logo



One colour pictogram

Wine Labels

Above is the selection of wine bottles I have used to start this brief off. Country of origin is often very important to wine enthusiasts. With this in mind I have began to categorize the labels depending on where they have been imported from.
The choice of type used on these labels is of particular interest to me, especially the difference between wines which are portrayed as being very traditional and those marketed as being more modern.