– a very personal project

I have a car, a Volvo 480 1,7 Turbo ES. THIS car has always been my dreamcar. I’ve managed to restore it by this September so we could participate a classic car rallye which was an amazing experience. I had a lot of conversations lately about WHY this car is my favorite. To answer the question properly I’ve made some research about this type and what I found was perfect material for an experimental infographic.

This infographic is incomplete without my confession: i’ve always been drawn to cars ever since i can remember. I saw them as a means of indipendence, i was intrigued by their complexity, by alignment of their form and function and the uniqeness of some models. Of course i wanted to learn to drive as soon as possible. But having my own car? At firs i didn’t even have favourites, i drove whatever i could. The first car i relly liked was the Volvo 480 – by the time totally un-trendy. Since i didn’t really need a car it took me years to make the decision to buy one. By that time Volvo 480 was scarce. However my husband and my father managed to get me one as a surprise. I never drove this car before and it was both surprising and reinforcing to feel how a perfect fit it was for me. Our love is strong ever since 🙂

In this project I wanted to grab the reasons why i found this type of car so special and interpret them for those who don’t know it. The basic idea for that was an infographic in ordinary A3-format, made with mixed manual techniques. My main inspiration came from La Ballena Franca of Jaime Serra.

To add some playfulness and interactivity I used some ideas from my 4 year old son’s busy board and interactive books with flaps. The shape comparing tool on the top and the flaps are accompanied by word pair-finder and connect-the-dots which are familiar from activity books for preschoolers.

My motivation was boosted by the fact that I could handcraft this project fro scratch, like I used to do during my university years. This way of creating something is my creative “mother tongue” to present a dear subject in a way that it becomes a lovable experience. The interactive parts, the busy board-style makes it easier for the audience to connect to the subject in a playful way. Choosing this format was an experiment, too: I was curious if it’s possible and worth it to merge a busy board and an infographic in such a small format.

Did I get an answer to the original question? Absolutely. This type of car is like a really good joke you’re telling everyone all the time but most of them get it only years later. It’s unique, revolutionary, the result of elaborate cooperation. It mostly wasn’t understood and appreciated due to many of it’s ahead-of-the-time solutions, but this was the car which set the path for renewal and success of the Volvo brand. It has a lot of qualities to love.

I’m working on this subject as part of a digital infographic project, I’ll share that soon.