NYC ICONS

Visual Process is the name of a course I am taking this semester. The name describes the class well. There is an emphasis on the creative process ; we are not creating final portfolio pieces... but rather exploring different aspects, techniques of design. The class also focuses on semiotics since icons have become such a huge part of design.

Our first assignment was to create a set of icons of four "city" animals, being a rat, pigeon, dog and squirrel. We began by tracing photographs of the animal and exploring what features are necessary when simplifying the shape in order to be able to read "squirrel" or "dog". From there we had to create a set - so the four icons had to look lik

e a family. The last criteria was that the icon set had to be NEW YORK. To avoid clichés, the icons didn't have to communicate New York to visitors... but rather to new yorkers or simply to you... as a new yorker. After word lists and word lists....here is what i came up with.