From the feedback I received on the experiments I presented, I decided to continue working on experimenting with reinventing the Burkhardt collection as a catalog of color palettes.
I knew I wanted to maintain the spirit of each of the original entries created by Burkhardt, channeling the specific type of information included and the format it was presented.
I created various experiments to find the right way to represent the proportions for each color, a challenge which I thought would be best resolved before trying to compose a more complete catalog.
Representing the color palette as fish did not achieve the aesthetic I had in mind, so I continued to iterate, but this time using more abstract forms and shapes to represent colors.
I decided to iterate with circles to represent each color, as it made it easy to show the proportion of each color by varying the size of the circle according to the percentage it represented in the color scheme.
Just to sense check the idea, I also created an image where the colors did not correspond to any proportions and were merely aesthetic.
The iteration that followed was closer to the objective that had been percolating in the back of my mind.
I wanted to capture the idea of the fish, without using the actual drawing. I also wanted to emulate the aesthetic of the original collection.
Lastly, I wanted to be thorough, ensuring each item in the catalog could be read as a repository of information, much like the primary source.