Following the initial experiments, I focused further on the minutiae of my balcony, the textures, the trash, and the objects my flatmates forgot about. I knew in some way, I wanted to combine, photography, graphic design, and layout to create a guide to the personality or traits of the textures and objects of the balcony. For example, I saw the ashtray as very decadent, but the stairs as very utilitarian. The wood that makes the stairs is intimate and soft, but the brick that composes the walls of the flat is hard and public.
I ended up creating two maps, with compasses on axes from decadent to utilitarian and public to private. To create these, I used photography, scans, and the threshold effect to emphasize the small scale of the objects I was investigating. I also utilised physical processes, using a lino roller and water-based ink to lift some of the textures off of the object and onto paper, which I scanned and transferred into Photoshop. I also exclusively used monotone throughout the entire process, even with the physical samples I took — I wanted to remove any distractions by focusing on the textural qualities of the images. (Was inspired by early [1850s+] photography).
Following that, I refined the concept further by focusing on one trait at a time and expanding the breadth of the traits I was exploring. The result is a mini publication that guides the viewer through the balcony and its contents. This was refined for the final time after submission by printing on textured paper which represented the contents of each page.