The History of Super Smash Bros. The Board Game - A timeline infographic in the style of a board game, detailing the origin of every single one of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's 87 total playable characters.
Understand the Problem
The Problem: Design an infographic
-What is an Infographic?
-"a visual image such as a chart or diagram used to represent information or data"
-Nine Types of Infographics:
1. Statistical Infographics
2. Informational Infographics
3. Timeline Infographics
4. Process Infographics
5. Geographic Infographics
6. Comparison Infographics
7. Hierarchical Infographics
8. List Infographics
9. Resume Infographics
From left to right are examples of all nine types of infographics
-Who uses infographics?
-Anyone who wants to effectively portray some sort of information would be in need of an infographic
-Why do professionals use infographics?
-Professionals would want to use infographics because they effectively show people the information that they want people to know though artistic means
-Infographics make information more appealing to look at: a cool picture with words to look at versus reading at a wall of text
-What makes a good infographic versus a bad one?
-A good infographic should immediately capture anyone's attention. It should be fun to look at and contain tons of tiny details. It should have enough content in it that observers can be looking at it for awhile, although not too much to where it gets confusing. A good infographic should show you the information clearly without putting in unnecessary things to distract observers from the information itself.
-A bad infographic will look exactly like this, a frankly boring wall of text that displays the information, but not in an exiting way. A bad infographic fails to effectively portray the information it is trying to. Sure it can be considered an infographic if it's a picture with information on it, but if it's not in any way exciting to look at then it is considered a bad infographic.
What topic should I make an infographic on?
I have come to the conclusion that the topic I want to make an infographic on is Super Smash Bros. This is a video game series that I am very fond of, and already am very knowledge about, and a topic that I feel I can create a cool infographic on. More specifically, I want to make an infographic on the origin of all of the Super Smash Bros. characters, as the majority of each and every character originates from their own unique video game. There are about eighty of them in total, so this topic should make for a good infographic.
What will define my success?
I will know when I succeed when I created a infographic that effecticely and accuratley shows information on each and every Super Smash Bros. fighter. It not only needs to display all the information, but it also needs to be fun to look at.
Research and Investigate
Research Data Sources
-https://www.businessinsider.com/every-super-smash-bros-character-2018-11#15-ice-climbers-ice-climber-1985-15
-wikipedia.com
-(I searched through tons various wikis to figure out various things about each character and their game of origin)
Research Results
I have complied all of my research data into a google spreadsheet about the origin of every single Super Smash Bros. character:
Hierarchy
-Definition: a system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority.
-How is hierarchy used in graphic design?: It's the organization and grouping of elements in a design by importance
-Title is the highest in the hierarchy
-The center design is the second most, it's what grabs the attention
-Maybe the subtitles or like articles in a magazine is the third, this is what people read once the design as already captured their attention
-Anything else would be fourth or last in the hierarchy of graphic design
Generate Possible Solutions
Brainstorming:
My Ideas
-#1 Smash Ball: The simple yet recognizable logo of the Super Smash Bros. Series is known as the smash ball. My idea was to have each segment of the smash ball represent a group of characters from a decade. For example the biggest segment would contain all the 1980’s characters and the smallest one would contain all the 2010’s characters. Although I discovered a problem with this idea, that being that the character by decade distribution was off, and there was an even amount it 80’s and 90’s characters; along with an even number of 2000’s and 2010’s characters. This is why I chose to not go along with this idea. That fact, along with the fact that the information I am able to share with this idea was limited to only the character’s age by decade which isn’t nearly enough.
-#2 Board Game: I needed a way to fit my massive amount of info into an appealing to look at graphic. So this idea came to mind when I realized that I would need a lot more space than my first idea offered. That, and as well as the idea of turning a video game history into a board game was cool to me. This board game idea immediately solved my issue of having a boring looking timeline, as this idea is still a simple timeline but it doesn’t seem like that on the surface. This idea allows be to include all the information I wanted, as well as preserve the timeline and history aspect of the graphic that I originally wanted.
-#3 Mountain: Another idea I had to try and incorporate the massive amount of information that I wanted to was through a mountain. At the bottom was the old characters, and the top was the newer characters. It would go up like a giant ladder or staircase. Below them being their specific information. This would leave room for a lot of breathing space above the mountain.
-#4 Consoles: My final idea was to really embrace the origin consoles of each character. My idea for this was to make the graphic, completely out of different rectangles, each being decorated to resemble each console. If there were many characters originating from a single console then that would be larger to fit all those characters, and visa versa for smaller consoles.
Thumbnail Sketches
Select and Develop Best Solution
Developed Sketch:
Above is my developed sketch of my second design idea, the board game. I went with this design as I feel like I can accomplish what I originally set out to do with it. It allows me to include all the information I want while also having the opportunity to look cool and be fun to look at, because who doesn't love board games?
In place of a linear timeline, I have a set path that you would have in a traditional board game such as Candy Land. Along the road are individual tiles, my plan for these tiles is for their color to be representative of the consoles that the characters adjacent to them come from. For example, the red and white of the Famicom, the dark blue of the GameCube, and the red and blue of the Switch's joycons. While putting this design into practice, I may come up with more ideas of how to incorporate the board game's path a little better. Such as making the path near the start have "bad graphics" and having the path near the end have "good graphics".
All the little rectangles that you can see all over the design are placeholders for where I want to include an example of gameplay from each game that each character comes from. For example, for Mario I would have an example of gameplay from Donkey Kong, his origin game. Below the gameplay example I will have the name of that game along with it's release date. For example: Donkey Kong July 9th, 1981. The release date will be below the game title.
As you can see, along with the rectangle throughout the design are seemingly random letters. These letters are placeholders for images of each character, the letters being their initials. When I first started drawing I planned to draw out every character, but in order to save time I resorted to this. Below each character's image will be the character's name along with their in-game number. Their in-game number representing when they first appeared in the Super Smash Bros. series as a playable character. For example: #9 Luigi.
Each and every character was placed inside of this design totaling 82 characters. Although this doesn't take into consideration the variants of certain characters such as Olimar and Alph. They share the same character number and move set, the only difference being the characters themselves which came from separate games despite technically being the same character. That is something I may consider adding if it turns out that I need more characters to fill the negative space, especially toward the end where it obviously looks more empty. It's either that or adjusting the position of the board game road.
In conclusion, I am pretty happy with how my design is going so far, the only things that haven't been given much thought are the title and what I will do with the negative space. The line at the top of the sketch is where a title would go if I have thought of a good one. As for the negative space I will most likely fill it up with a solid color to not distract from the information.
Model and Prototype
Here are some in-progress screenshots showing my process in making this project a reality:
Wow! That took a really long time. It might not seem like it, but each of those screenshots are around one to two hours of work apart. Just doing what you see now took an incredible amount of time and effort.
Let me explain my process. First I started off turning what I drew in my sketchbook into an accurate recreation in illustrator. Once I did that, I inputed all my data from my massive spreadsheet into the graphic. Next, as you can see in one of the screenshots, I did further research in each and every game to figure out the correct aspect ratio for each game's gameplay. Once I figured out all the specifics of that, I found the most accurate representations of gameplay for each game being represented in Super Smash Bros. Although that was only the beginning, as now the hard part started.
Well, this wasn't necessarily hard, but but extremely tedious and time consuming. If you didn't notice, every single image of each character is original. Super Smash Bros Ultimate (the most recent game in the series) has a built in camera function. This means that at any point during play you can pause the game, and observe the action through that camera. So with that same camera, I went to a convenient stage that has a green background, and took around 8-15 pictures of everyone one of the 87 characters in the game (not to also mention the gender variants, upping the total to 94). I took this many pictures to give myself options when it came to picking the final ones that would be shown in the graphic, and this proved useful to when a specific character didn't fit in the way I wanted them to. To top it all off, once I was finished taking pictures of all 94 character, I of course had to mask all of them. Basically what I am trying to say is that this took an incredibly long time.
Once the tedious part had finally been competed, after a quick celebration, I got to work on making the whole thing fit together. If the last part wasn't hard, this part definitely was. It's like playing a game of Tetris where, where you have to arrange the blocks in such a certain and specific way to make everything fit perfectly. This took a really long time as well.
To top it off, once a path was set and everyone was in place, then came in my expertise with the pen tool, or lack of it you could say. I tried by best to use the grid measurements, and little lines to make it so that in every point in the board game path, it was nice and even. Doing this, like every other step in my process, took a very, very long time.
Unfortunately by the time I was finished with that last step, it was three in the morning and the project was due that next day.
Test and Evaluate
What are my successes?
There a luckily a ton of successes with my project so far. Based on what the design is now, I have successful accomplished my goal of making a cool infographic that displays information on the history of every single Super Smash Bros character. I did this by executing my board game idea, to make a linear time line more interesting. To any fan of the Super Smash Bros series, I think that for what the design is now, it would be very fun to look at. Although of course, it's still not finished.
What are my shortcomings?
With what the design is now, it is good and accomplished my goal, although it doesn't really do it in the way I wanted it to. A massive part of the goal that I had was to make it fun to look at. Well, if you look closely at the details, and the information, then I would say it is fun to look at. Although when you zoom out and are looking at the design as a whole, it is super bland. There really isn't anything in terms of typography, and the isn't any background. The tiles are also blank.
What can be improved?
There is a list of things that need to be improved upon before I can call this design finished. First of all, the board game tiles need color. My idea for them was to have the tile's color represent the consoles that the character's games originate on. Giving the tiles colors like this will both make the design look significantly more interesting, and somehow provide even more information than there was before. Secondly, I need to pay way more attention to typography, All the text is in the default font. For one, the title has the potential to be so much cooler, and I could do a lot with typography. In terms of other outstanding text, the start and finish could be integrated more into the design. Although for the information text, I am satisfied with how it is, and working more on that will only distract from the real information. Lastly, I need to decide upon a background. Just adding any other color that's not just white, will improve this design ten fold. An idea I have for this, is to use imagery from the game, and maybe add a blur. So the background would be colorful, but not too much to where it distracts from the core design. Having imagery from the game will also provide even more meaning. In conclusion, I need to add color to the tiles, improve upon typography, and add a colorful yet meaningful background.
Final Publication
Self Reflection
Well, it is the end. I never ended up having enough time to completely finish this project like I wanted to. Although, with the way it is, I am still satisfied. In my opinion, a fan of the Super Smash Bros series would look at this and think it's very cool and informative. People who have played the game no longer have to ask, where is this dude from? In terms of making something cool, and something that I am proud of, I would say I succeeded. I still spent a really, really long time finishing up just this, so how could I not be proud of it? But alas, as touched on in my testing and evaluating stage, there is so many more ways this current unfinished design can be improved. But unfortunately, I wasn't able to act on those ideas because of my lack of time, and well better put, lack of time management skills. Although hey, at least I went through this somewhat failure so I can learn and improve in the future. In conclusion, I am still proud of what I have made, although it could have been so much better if I just gave myself more time to complete it.
