Iconography

[Charles Wilcox]

Since this is essentially a community driven effort, I believe you need some defined set of iconography, used for logos and the like. Once developed this could be used as imagery to build the Focus Fusion name on in whatever public efforts. For example, if we had such graphics, the website would have it in a few key places, and it could be easily use it when promoting, such as on clothing, (Tee-Shirts as is noted on another forum,) printed materials, etc.

I have my own ideas, but I am no graphic artist; (at best I’m an amateur art critic… 🙂 ) Neither have I any marketing experience. Here are few ideas:
– an abstracted version of the plasma focus, as currently depicted in the purple shot used very frequently here. There used to be an illustration on the old site that showed this, but it was somewhat… bland.
– a 2-D version of the plasma focus device. I know there is a few floating around, but they are grainy, and the labels are nigh impossible to read. I guess I’m thinking something bright and clear, something you’d expect from a good student textbook or websites like HowStuffWorks.com.
– a variation or extension of the above, couple that diagram with the decelerators for the ion streams and show the “wire electricity” being generated.
– a 3-D version of the whole setup working. I was initially thinking something more “bold”, perhaps depicting the setup while in operation, with the camera perspective close to one the the jetting ion beams. Something that would work as the cover of “Amazing Stories” or “Analog”.
– a more subtle abstract graphic to act as a all-purpose logo. The suggestion used for the tee-shirt theme would be a potential one.

Some general characteristics that seem to be common in my ideas, and things I think would be good discriminators:
– we want something that is visually clear and immediately evident to any viewer. No offense, but some of the pictures here could use work in this category.
– we want pictures that are worth a thousand words. Thus the idea of instructional illustrations or animations that tell the story succinctly.
– we want to capture people’s imaginations, thus the artistic style I referenced with sci-fi magazines. Of course, we don’t want that to go overboard and make it seem too fantastic and futuristic. This is plausible technology… or “hard sci-fi”.

There’s my two cents.

— Charles Wilcox

[Glenn Millam]

I am a graphic designer. The most famous thing I’ve been responsible for is the Papa John’s Pizza logo, which I did back in 1993-1994 when I worked at Papa John’s Print Services (at the time, QC Printing). I’ve done work for Diageo, Aegon, and a few other smaller entities, and have won a few awards along the way. I would be happy to donate time to any project you guys would need work on.

[Glenn Millam]

Charles Wilcox wrote: Some general characteristics that seem to be common in my ideas, and things I think would be good discriminators:
– we want something that is visually clear and immediately evident to any viewer. No offense, but some of the pictures here could use work in this category.
– we want pictures that are worth a thousand words. Thus the idea of instructional illustrations or animations that tell the story succinctly.
– we want to capture people’s imaginations, thus the artistic style I referenced with sci-fi magazines. Of course, we don’t want that to go overboard and make it seem too fantastic and futuristic. This is plausible technology… or “hard sci-fi”.

I agree. Personally, I think you guys have done a nice job on the site and the forum areas, and I like the place. But some things can be done to enhance the credibility of the project simply by upping the values of the graphics on the site, as well as having these graphics unified into the general look-and-feel you have established with the site’s redesign.

One particular graphic I would like to clean up is the diagram of the Plasma Focus device itself. I’ve seen this same graphic used in other places (Wikipaedia, etc) and it looks like it is, a quick and dirty scan of something that came out of an old plotter. What if it were redone cleanly in Illustrator, then saved out as a PNG or JPEG with careful settings to avoid artifacts? And with some color? Attached is a quick example.

Attached files

[Rezwan]

I’m hearing a lot of talk here about iconography, yet I see that you guys don’t have an icon to represent yourselves. An avatar like my little flying cage bird. I need a visual association! You can do this if you go to Your Control Panel >> Personal Settings >> Edit Avatar

Yikes. I just checked out the default set that comes w/ this forum. It includes this one below.

Attached files

[Rezwan]

And finally, one of my biggest questions is that our current 2-D drawing of the DPF looks nothing like the picture of the microfocus used in Chile, which is more like a star. I see cylinders, but I didn’t realize there were several of them.

Attached files

[Charles Wilcox]

Rezwan wrote: 4) Glenn, thanks for the drawing! Cool! Although I’m not sure about the colors. Very earthy, and we’re going more for high tech space age silvers, blues and purples. Although maybe fusion should be more fiery like the sun? No, fire freaks people out. Blues seem more in control and less like an imminent explosion – and as you know, there are many unfounded fears of proliferation and such.

Actually, for a first attempt, it’s pretty good. The diagrams color reflects the actual copper and brass colors, (which I presume came from another description of the device.)

I do agree that eventually you need to have a consistent color palette, but is it appropriate for such a drawing? Simply, are we being vague and abstract in the drawing, or are we attempting to be somewhat photorealistic. Depends on the goal, I suppose. Maybe you could have two versions, one a diagram to illustrate the plasma focus device in operation, and another one that is just an abstracted icon. Overall though, I think it’s more important to clean up the “scientific” diagram one, but both have some merit.

— Charles Wilcox

[Lerner]

Glenn’s 3-d rendition is great! The color is fine–that’s the color of the copper electrodes. We should use it in place of the diagram.

In terms of Rezwan’s question, yes, DPFs do differ from one another. First of all, most DPF’s have an outer electrode composed of several parrallel rods. But the DPF that the drawing was based on had a solid outer elctrode–a cylinder like the inner electrode. I have always used that because is makes a much clearer diagram in cross-section and I have never seen a good drawing for the multi-rod kind. Also, the Chile DPF tend to be very short. This depends on the duration of the pulse–shorter pulse, shorter electrode. We don’t yet know what the ideal pulse length is.

Also, the Chile shot is a bit small to see what is really going on. The electrodes are all in the center, very small and maybe not visible at this size photo. The big outer cylinders are ports inthe vacuum chamber. Maybe we chould crop it so the center area is bigger.

If Glenn could do a 3-d rendition with a circle of say eight rods, maybe we could compare them and see which looks better and clearer. But the one he already has is very good, I think.

[Rezwan]

Makes me think of an 8 cylinder car engine.

There must be some orthographic drawings of various DPF’s somewhere.

Also, I thought you were switching to beryllium electrodes, whose color I am not sure of.

Charles – tigger is classy!

[Glenn Millam]

Rezwan wrote: 1)Although I’m not sure about the colors. Very earthy, and we’re going more for high tech space age silvers, blues and purples. Although maybe fusion should be more fiery like the sun? No, fire freaks people out. Blues seem more in control and less like an imminent explosion – and as you know, there are many unfounded fears of proliferation and such.

Well, as another poster said, I was trying to represent the materials used on the diagrams. I think that scientific illustrations should attempt to remain true to actual colors, and if possible, textures. Depicting energy and other invisible or non-corporeal objects is another matter. There needs to be an accepted way of portraying plasma, for instance. My use of purple came from the image used as the icon of the site. I’m fine with it, but it is an issue that I think can be discussed and agreed upon by everybody.

Another thing that can be looked at is a common color scheme. Take the green I used in the gaussian behind the device. I chose it kind of randomly; greens were the “odd-man out” in what I had used so far in the drawing and I felt it needed a background. What would be cool is if you could give me a list of RGB colors that you use on the site for your color scheme, and maybe we’ll play around with them to help unify art to that scheme.

I think people coming to this site will really respond to it with the added touches of science-art to go along with everything else. One thing I want to know is how to draw a figure to help explain the magnetic-field effect. Is the final plasmoid that is created in the PFF process torroidal in shape? If I knew more about the structure, I could show the mechanics of how the MFE slows electrons while keeping proton speed high enough for electrical energy to be released. It would go great with the article on the site, and its a pretty crucial thing to get across to skeptics.

[Glenn Millam]

Rezwan wrote: Also, I thought you were switching to beryllium electrodes, whose color I am not sure of.

A good place for reference to the color and texture of elements is Theo Gray’s Periodic Table Table. If you haven’t checked it out before, its a great site. Read what he has done with sodium.

[Rezwan]

Glenn Millam wrote: My use of purple came from the image used as the icon of the site. I’m fine with it, but it is an issue that I think can be discussed and agreed upon by everybody.

The purple icon on the banner is arbitrarily purple. The original image is black and white. Purple is preferred by key people but perhaps they can be tempted by different color schemes 🙂

Oh, LOVE the periodic chart site! Especially with the photographs. And it looks like Beryllium is silvery and sometimes green.

Another thing that can be looked at is a common color scheme. … What would be cool is if you could give me a list of RGB colors that you use on the site for your color scheme, and maybe we’ll play around with them to help unify art to that scheme.

Sorry, not RGB, rather hexadecimal (?) – #6666cc; #ccccff; #000066; #6666ff – that’s pretty much it. And the colors of the forum are what comes with the forum program. It’s going to be a few upgrades before they provide us with customizable color here. Back to the website, it’s all done with a few templates and some css, so if you propose a different color scheme, it won’t be hard to change it sitewide pretty easily. And temporarily, so we can take a look at it and consider the effect. Just translate the RGB into hexadecimal.

I think people coming to this site will really respond to it with the added touches of science-art to go along with everything else.

Absolutely! Thanks so much for doing this!

And finally, the site background image (pictured) is blue, also arbitrarily. Made from the same original, saturated.

Attached files

[Lerner]

We won’t be using beryllium elctrodes for some time–at least a year or two. Copper is more attactive for illustrations. Beryllium metal is plain gray. The greenish stuff is beryl, a beryllium compound.

The plasmoid is toroidal. However the density is not donut-shaped. Imagine an iced donut, with the icing covering the donut and filling the hole. The icing is in the shape of the dense regions of the plasmoid. There used to be a drawing of this on the site. can we put it back on, Rezwan?

[Glenn Millam]

Alright. Here is the same illustration I put up before, using the site’s color scheme. I think its an improvement. What do you think, Reswan?

Attached files

[Rezwan]

Lovely! It’s up now on the “what” page and the dpf page: https://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/toc/what/ and https://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/article/24/ (where it seems redundant w/ image in sidebar as well. Maybe I’ll replace that with a thumbnail or the microfocus). Other images also back up.

Enjoy!

[Glenn Millam]

Lerner wrote: The plasmoid is toroidal. However the density is not donut-shaped. Imagine an iced donut, with the icing covering the donut and filling the hole. The icing is in the shape of the dense regions of the plasmoid. There used to be a drawing of this on the site. can we put it back on, Rezwan?

Ok. To show my current confusion over the shape of the plasmoid, here is a rendering of what I currently have, basically a heavily-frosted donut. From here, it may be easier to tell me where I am wrong so I can get a more accurate one on a second draft.

Also, is there a better way for me to send up images? Should I start a different thread just for the purpose of collaborative work on images?

[Author]

Posts