Assignment 6 - Infographics

For this assignment, we need to do an infographics or information graphics whereby we choose a system and describe how it works through visual communication. In simpler words we need to use visual graphics to show the stages of development. I personally feel that this assignment is more fun and interesting as it has no restriction to it and we can choose on any topics that we are interested in. I started brainstorming and the idea of doing solar eclipse came to my mind as now it is the hottest news in town about the longest total solar eclipse during the 21st century which is going to take place on 22 July 2009. It will last a maximum of 6 minutes and 39 seconds off the coast of Southeast Asia.

Rough Sketches of a Solar eclipse

The above is my rough sketches of a simpler version of the solar eclipse. A Solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes in between the Sun and the earth so that the Sun is fully or partially covered. As of the above sketches, the first row is where the moon moves to the left slowly covering the sun and the second row whereby the sun is totally covered by the moon and total solar eclipse happens. The third row shows the moon leaving the sun and slowly the whole sun could be seen again.

The below is the final prototype of my infographics – the process of solar eclipse. In my final artwork I added in the timing to show the process of the moon covering and leaving the sun in a more detail manner. Also, during the tutorial the comments given by Jing was that to add in the title of the process so I added in the centre the title of my infographics namely the process of solar eclipse.

Final prototype

There are four main processes in a solar eclipse. Firstly, it is the first contact where the moon shadow first becomes visible on the solar disk. The second process is known as the second contact- starting with the Baily’s beads (cause by light shining through valleys on the moon surface). Almost entire disk is being covered. The third process is known as totality- with the shadow of the moon obscuring the entire disk of the sun and only the corona is visible. The last process is the third contact- when the first bright light becomes visible and the shadow is moving away from the sun. A diamond ring is observed.