Environmental Design

[chriscrooz]

OK,
So the Ad Agency I intern at just dropped me a very ambitious project of doing some environmental design. Never really doing any environmental design per say I am a bit lost on where to start. I am going to start sketching out ideas for what I'm thinking would work, then I'm going to create a model in Maya that I can manipulate off of the photograph of the original facility being updated. I could use some help here on what books, resources or tutorials are out there that help with the basics of the theory behind where to start.

Also if there are any online sites that show how to start designing something like this in Illustrator w/ dimensions I would appreciate it. Thanks

[PrintDriver]

Virtual environments?
Or Environmental Design like SEGD.org?

Usually for the latter, Autocad or Vectorworks are used for the scaled elevations. You might get away with it in Illustrator if you buy CadTools from Hotdoor. If you are doing big wall images say for a foyer or office waiting room, remember your image resolution before you pitch the imagery to your client...

[chriscrooz]

yes SEGD.org is exactly the kind of stuff I'm looking for. Any other sites like this out there you know of?

[PrintDriver]

You can try Signweb.com. They're more into regular signage rather than pretty stuff or wayfinding but you may find something there. Along the same lines is Signshop.com.
You may find some info at Signs.org.
You get the general drift.
Do a search under Environmental Graphic Design and find some studios and look at their portfolios.

Are you doing wayfinding or just pretty stuff to hang on walls?

Edit: just so ya know, this isn't a field a newb should be thrown into. Usually for EGD there is an 'apprenticeship' involved where you either work in a production facility doing what I do then move up or you work as a junior designer. There are an awful lot of methods and materials out there. Not something you will learn in a week or a month. Usually at least a year if your well exposed...
If you are just doing a design concept then that is cool. Let the fabricators tell you the best way to get it on the walls.
Good luck.

[chriscrooz]

Thanks for the info Driver,
Yea it's mostly just a conceptual mock up of what the front of the store could look like. Then these ideas will be handed off to a Fabricator / Contractor as reference material to create the materials / construction.

This is also I believe a per-build mock up for the client so the client can see what direction they can take BEFORE spending the big bucks to put it all into play. Since the building we are doing the re-design for sells 2 million+ dollar yachts, they are willing to do something really nice. Also I think the reason that it's being done through our firm and not through a Architect is because of the long lasting relationship my boss has had with this company. So I'm pretty sure that they are giving us first crack at it because they've liked the work that we've done in the past. Hope that helps give perspective on all this.

[steve-o]

This article may be of help. Not tutorial rather a short article on type considerations and project profiles for large-scale design:

Writ Large
http://www.dynamicgraphics.com/dgm/Article/28554
Type in large-scale formats has huge impact, but holds unique challenges for environmental designers.

[PrintDriver]

One thing that text sidebar doesn't illustrate is the difference between a good outline file and a bad one. Always look at a letter's outline file to see if there are any imperfections in the way it is drawn. On poorly converted fonts you will see peaks, uneven curves, dips, clusters of points, sometimes even looped bezier handles. The way to truly get good font faces is to be sure you use a good conversion. This means, usually, no Freeware or Shareware fonts - unless you examine them minutely. Other things about these cheaped-out fonts is the outline may not even be closed which causes all kinds of issues in cutting or some of the font elements may be strokes rather than filled shapes.

With anything going large any small mistake gets magnified beyond your wildest expectations.