In early 2024, I became so obsessed with the history of dance music due to revisiting and researching the genre after a decade hiatus. The aesthetic that gripped me was the second summer of love in England in 1988. This scene was embodied by dancing masses in clubs or fields, and would often face police persecution. I wanted to tell those stories in multiple formats, so I made an infographic first.
The spread of the beat
The main inspiration points were based on the design factors I saw in the documentaries. I wanted to use black/yellow as it was the color pallet of both the most popular house music club (Hacienda) and the smiley face symbol of the movement. I used gill sans to remind viewers of British graphic staples like Keep Calm and Carry On, or Mind The Gap. The disco ball symbolizes the origins of the genre.
Inspiration
The first step of the infographic was to get an idea of the layout. I decided to go with diagonal panels that read left to right as I thought the placement would give the image a good sense of movement. for later renditions, I removed the city skyline outline along with the globes and replaced them with images. I added overlays to the panels, giving them a gradient effect while adding a piano key pattern and multiple other gradients. A Playlist QR Code and a world map replaced the works cited.
PROCESS
The final version of The Spread of The Beat infographic differentiates important info and artists by using bold text. There is a sound wave rippling straight down the middle of the infographic to show how all of these locations latched on to the same activity, and the disco ball’s color pallet matches the rest of the image.