Meet the Stars Icons and Poster

Meet the Stars is an infographic poster about identifying constellations in the sky. Circumpolar—year-round visible—constellation icons make the poster applicable throughout the year. The secondary icons are items that can aid in finding constellations. Two icon variations were created for both light and dark backgrounds to account for any contrast or visibility problems. Playing into the color variations, the style guide pages have one light page and one dark page on each spread. The curves of the celestial bodies are subtracted from circles for smooth, even curves. Spacing of elements in each icon allows for breathing room while proximity makes the icon viewable as a unit. Accounting for the principle of continuation making space optically smaller, line segments that continue in the same direction have greater spacing. The rounded icon joints prevent sharp points from being lost in scaling, and the rounded caps create unity. Siruca is a sans-serif typeface chosen for its similarity in gaps and curves to the icons. Scaling of Siruca matches the icons’ stroke weight, and slight type manipulation extends the spacing for more breathing room. For unity, the poster uses the same typeface without the type manipulation. The star placed by the title and the dashed lines have repetition and mimic the constellations. The dashed lines separate constellations, and their information from the other constellations’ information sets. Proximity of text boxes to icons aids in identifying groups. Secondary icons with gray lines are placed as continuations of the dashed lines. The compass icon is placed where the North Star is roughly located as a reference the North Star’s assistance in navigation. An interactive version of the poster is available for digital signs with stars moving as if they are twinkling, and shooting stars move across the poster to guide the eye to the various constellations. The constellations function as buttons that pull up their information.