Nicholas Conservatory Icons
RESEARCH
Nicholas Conservatory is the 3rd largest conservatory in Illinois, being built on a 22,000 square foot garden and 52 feet tall at its peak. The conservatory started out as a simple garden that ran along the Rock River, this garden featured lots of roses and a lagoon. In 2006 the Nicholas family donated 2 million dollars for the conservatory to be built and the doors opened in 2011. The Nicholas family believed strongly in the idea of perception art, therefore they had many sculptures implemented throughout the garden. The most notable piece being the red, blue and yellow sculpture surrounded by flowers in the picture above which greets all guests. The Nicholas family also felt it was important to keep the organic nature of the garden, therefore they installed a beehive and introduced butterflies to the environment of the garden. Both of these insects not only contribute to the beauty of the conservatory but also do almost the entirety of pollination.
Therefore I felt it was important to include features from the garden that the conservatory was built on as the conservatory wouldn't be possible without the previous garden. I also felt it was important to recognize the two key factors that the Nicholas family felt was important, the perception art and the organic ways of pollination.
VISUAL COLLAGE
During visual research I installed key features in a collage. I noticed that koi fish are included both inside the conservatory and outside in the gardens pond, but the bees were only outside as well as the butterflies only being inside. This idea drew me to the idea of recognizing the partnership between the garden and the conservatory through a icon featuring a koi fish body with butterfly and bee wings.
I was also able to find a viewpoint image of the interpretation sculpture that welcomes the guests, this view makes the sculpture appear as a dragon. With this sculpture being the first thing guests see I felt inspired to create a icon based on the crazy form.
Throughout the conservatory is a terrazzo flooring which is used to indicate the rock river that flows near the garden, this was also a very interesting piece which at the time I felt should be included in an icon.
When searching for more ways of demonstrating the partnership between the garden and the conservatory I noticed fountains that are really a main piece for the garden. This gave me the idea of including the fountains in an icon with the conservatory in the background.
Further Visual Research
Once my visual research collage was completed I wanted to further research the overall form of the conservatory and found this beautiful image of the conservatory with the fountain shooting up in front of it. I was inspired by the leveled and upside down V shaped roof. I wanted to find the housing for the bees and unfortunately found they are kept inside manmade boxes rather than having a natural beehive. I also found a image of the butterflies that are kept inside and used it to inspire my design patterns that are included on my butterfly wings.
ICON SKETCHES
Once I had a good visual and conceptual idea of the garden I started on the sketches, in total completing 38 rough sketches. Many of which included the river flowing between two aspects of the garden to contrast each other, upon review from others it was concluded that there were better options.
The three that stood out most to classmates are the interpretation sculpture, a viewpoint of the conservatory garden in front of the lagoon and the combination of bee, butterfly and koi fish. These three sketches have been highlighted with a black box.
The building stood out due to its simplistic nature while still highlighted an important part of the conservatory as well as the gardens fountain. The sculpture stood out due to its art form that is very interesting to the human eye, also the challenge it would be to transfer the 2D object to a 1D icon interested me. As for the combination of the bee, butterfly, and koi fish, viewers enjoyed the weird idea of a trilogy that demonstrated the garden and conservatory being different but one.
INITIAL ROUGH DRAFTS
When starting with the conservatory I began with a very simple design but knew I needed more whitespace, therefore I installed spacing between each level and implemented a glimpse of the pond. My classmates indicated that the pond appeared too far away and really didn't give a good sense of a pond. Therefore I decided to bring more attention to the pond by making it larger and more centered, as well as add a fountain to indicate water better. I decided to also move the conservatory to the center as well so the conservatory and pond could both sit centered together.
As for the trilogy I began with a very simple image but felt the wings didn't quite signify a bee and a butterfly enough, therefore I kept switching the designs until I felt it gave a good idea of what it was trying to symbolize. I also added a fin like appearance to the koi fish body. My classmates still felt the ideas of the different concepts weren't being explained enough through the image, therefore I decided it needed more patterns that would point to what insects the wings belonged to. I decided dots would indicate the butterfly wings pretty well based on the visual research of the indoor butterflies and for the bee wings I felt if I added a bee pattern they would correlate the wings to a bee, even though bee wings don't actually have any patterns.
The interpretation art was proving to be very complex to document the 2D nature through white spacing, therefore I provided a few examples to my classmates. The feedback indicated that my first selection appeared the best based on the white spacing, but they wanted a combination of the third's sense of simplicity and less white space to be included as well. I decided to take out the left section of the sculpture and combine the different pieces that appeared in the top left.
ROUGH DRAFTS
With the ideas given to me by my feedback from the previous ideas I developed rough drafts of each concept. Overall my classmates enjoyed the conservatory and really enjoyed the simplistic sense that is needed with an icon, but they felt the fountain needed even more spotlight. Therefore it was decided to make it appear in front of the conservatory which is what my original hand drawn sketches actually portrayed.
As for the trilogy it was concluded that there was just too much detail and it was taking away from the overall meaning of the icon, also the eyes appeared to be looking straight up. I decided that instead of having more dots and lines it would be better to just emphasize them through size rather than quantity, also to take away the eyes all together. I also changed the rigged edge of the fin in order to eliminate even more distracting details from the viewers.
The interpretation sculpture was also liked much more as well but the viewers felt there could still be less whitespace and some of the edges could be smoothed out. I didn't want to take away too much whitespace though because it was needed to indicate the different levels, therefore I decided to take out whitespace between the two larges pieces. I decided that combining the main body and the wing like vector would eliminate a large white space area without taking away from the ability to demonstrate the 2D nature.
FINAL ICONS
Finally the final icons are completed, The conservatory icon I completed removed the pond but kept the fountain, the trilogy became much more simplistic in design and the sculpture with less white space. My classmates felt the fountain in front of the conservatory worked extremely well and this appeared the overall favorite.
Review of the trilogy concluded that the idea of the bee, butterfly and koi fish was well put forward and it was able to be concluded of what it was without needing a description. My classmates also felt the size of details over quantity made for a much easier understood icon.
The interpretation sculpture also received good feedback stating the simpler design allowed the viewer to get a much better understanding while still being able to conclude the 2D design through the overlapping vectors near the bottom.
Overall I agree the conservatory icon works the best, but I really enjoy the interpretation art icon. It took a lot of effort and fine tuning to get to the final product and I feel it exceeded my initial expectations, and it was enjoyable to push myself to do something I didn't think I could.
FINISHED PRODUCT
Overall I love the finished product, I feel the conservatory and fountain design works extremely well together! If I were to go back and complete this project again I would likely try to do more with the rock river terrazzo flooring as I feel it is a really unique piece of the conservatory. Otherwise I wouldn't change anything else.
