Assignment 4: How to...

How to Make a Pizza

For this assignment, the class was asked to create step by step instructions on how to make a pizza for someone who does not know the English language, thus reducing the instructions to visuals. I started this assignment by figuring out how I would give instructions to make a pizza in words as this will create a structure and outline for the visuals. After looking online for a simplistic pizza recipe, I created an ingredient list and then simple steps of how to make a pizza after that ending with, of course, eat and enjoy. For the next steps I kept our class exercise of simplifying lawn care instructions with a visual and all the work of the previous semester for the same assignment. What I learned from this in class assignment was reducing the written statements to the is essentials. After the written steps, I translated them into visuals that would accurately represent the written steps. Since I had the written steps as an outline, the process of creating instructions was already in motion. Since the use of step numbering was not allowed for the assignment is used an arrow system that flows through the page since arrows are almost always used to show motion or a passing of time within cultures. For the visuals themselves, I wanted to keep them simple and cartoon like in, as in the cheese grading step or the cutting of the pizza into eight slices, order to not bombard the viewer with overly excessive or complicated information. As far as steps that required more information, such as baking the pizza, I tried to keep the time and temperature information also as graphics only using numbers for the temperature. As far as the color scheme, I ended up using warmer colors mainly due to the natural colors of the souse, cheese, and dough. In addition to the warm color scheme I also added gray to add more color for the metal elements within the visuals. I also used the color yellow for the arrows as a form of call to action as mentioned in class several times.
Like all the other homework assignments I found this one to be fun but a little challenging in that how to relay the right about of information in the visual so the viewer will understand the step but will not be overwhelmed and confused by too much information. In order to combat this, I tried to keep only one action in each step and to never combine steps in order to save space. I also made sure that the images clearly displayed the necessary actions. I felt that there was a difference between this assignment and others because this assignment was more about visually communicating something to a viewer, like the other maps, rather than visually representing thoughts within my head, like the collage and mind maps. Overall I enjoyed the assignment and I think I am starting to see the bigger picture of the class and how to visually communicate to others effectively.