Erin Secosky


Branch Museum of Design
Varzenal
Sun.Rm
P.F Flyers
Qi Baishi
Artificial Apotheosis
Sunboxes
Estuary
Food & Alienation

Tactile Toolbox Mapping
  • GIS Mapping, data collection, 3D modeling and printing
  • Project Timeline: January-March 2024
  •      Tactile Toolbox is a system prototype of a new process of making tactile maps for the visually impaired. Using a customized ArcGIS online tool, making personalized maps can be done in less than 30 minutes, ensuring that everyone has the ability to create their own sense of place.


Concept: Personalized

“Navigation apps tell you that you have to go straight, or right, or left at the next corner. But is it a 60-, 90-, or 120-degree corner? What kind of street will it be—a narrow one for pedestrians or a wide one with a lot of cars?”
- Arend Jan van Dongen




How might we design a system to create fast, personalized tactile maps?
  • Originally, I began researching map customization to create fun, personalized maps, but quickly realized a gap existing within the map market. Tactile maps. While there are several companies that produce these maps, they are often costly, timeconsuming, and pre-determined. 

  • I gathered research on symbology best practices and main goals of map use from secondary sources like Open Source Maps, Esri, The Royal National Institute of Blind People, and Dedicon Foundation. GIS Data was located from CUzk Dataportal.

Early map tests; exporting the map, printing different symbology, experimenting with displacement mapping for topology

The Interface

GIS data on Prague was collected from the CZ Geoportal, then filtered to appear based on the scope of the map. The appearance of the features was simplified to be able to be exported as tactile symbology.

The ESRI Online interface allows the “cartographer” to choose what layers they would like to select, then export each layer as SVG files for 3D extrusion.




3D Printed Prototype

Major roads, tram lines, tram stops, and a “you are here” star within Zizkov, Prague 3

Other Layers/Scales

Dots representing greenspaces, stars representing schools in Zizkov, Prague 3


Administrative districts and population density within the Czech Republic


Promotional Material



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Fish Market
Gallery

  • Fish Market Gallery  (est. 2004) is a student-run art gallery to showcase student work coming out of North Carolina State University. As graphic designer and director of outreach, my team  (Collin Lawrence and Ryann Horne), and I have curated, promoted, and designed the exhibition for our shows each month. These shows are a center point for Raleigh culture to meet with NCSU, providing vital opportunities for young and emerging artists.




Concept: Channels

The majority of my work for Fish Market Gallery, including graphic design, exhibit design, and outreach, has to do with maximizing our reach across different channels to reach new students each month and encourage submissions to the gallery. 


Social media graphics advertising our October 2023 show, Dark Arts, themed around dark room photography and all things surreal/eerie. 




In-gallery graphics for an exhibit on early film photography techniques.


3D modeling work for the graphics of our december show, 2D to 3D, highlighting the transition between sketching and modeling.

Gallery Exhibit Design: Dark Arts

Featuring the work of a photography class, I wanted to shape one space of Fish Market to look like a dark room. The draping of curtains and lines of photograms framed the space, while it was anchored by lines of pinhole cameras, negatives, and positives to show the process of film development.


The wider gallery space showcased a variety of student work, including marionette puppets, charcoal drawing, mixed-media art, painting, and more.

Administrative Manual

  • Website, UX/UI
  • Project Timeline: October 2022 -June 2023
  • This tool is the product of a research project I did alongside Dean Mark Hoversten to create a visual, interactive tool to show college cycles and processes. This tool is now widely used by department heads within College of Design to learn all about the necessary steps for research, finances, etc.


Concept: Simplification

One of the core challenges of this project was simplifying and curating a huge set of information, gathered from interviews with professors, staff, and admin. Inspired by the subway map diagrams of Massimo Vignelli, I designed this interface to be as simple as possible.











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