Our prompt for this project was to make a one minute infographic about the topic of our choosing. I decided to go with public transit, because I believe strongly in infrastructures in our society that we can all benefit from. I gathered imagery from different transit systems, focusing mainly on the NYC MTA. Their branding is iconic for their use of Helvetica and putting their train lines in colored circles, but still leaves a lot of room to play. I chose to amp up the color scheme used by most transit systems to make the art more exciting and differentiate the imagery from real subway maps. I researched different data sets about transit, and ended up going with statistics from the American Public Transportation Association.
My process for building the animation was first to storyboard, then build the frames of the storyboards in Illustrator. I then animated each vignette separately, then finally stitched them together and cleaned it up. An important part of this process was adding the music. I looked for something that would not distract from the animation, and I chose this song because the beat sounds like a train. As I put together the parts of the animation, I made sure that things were coming in on the beat.
My favorite part of this animation is the end, when the script type comes in. It's a fun way to break up the very simple lines and Helvetica font, and like a little visual reward for watching the whole animation.
