Tuesday, 1 May 2012

Information Graphics: Initial Research

After the crit today, one of my highlighted tasks was to find out about infographics: interesting ways to display information through a series of illustrated charts.  It is a fundamental part to my proposed project - the informative publication.  Without a series of graphics, the publication will be information in purely text form: it simply won't promote interest for my target audience.

Here are my initial findings:





I found this whilst researching creative CV material, and decided it is extremely relevant in my current design practice also.  The designs are extremely clean and professional-looking, they use one colour + stock and focus on crisp geometric shapes & graphs.  

The information is easy to follow, and the bar chart in a circular format is a creative way to display information in comparison to the over-used pie chart.  The main flaw I can pick out from using this method is too many variables could make the chart too large and difficult to follow, but that is based on first interpretations and would need to be experimented with.

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Innovative info-graphics designed for web.  The graphics themselves are very original, definitely not your average pie chart - displaying masses of information and variables in a circular format.  With a static glance, they do look a tad complicated, but the web allows for kinetic graphics that will highlight, expand, change colour - whatever is required to clear up the information.  Although I am working primarily for print, these devices should be considered when transferring the publication online.






Another option is to use illustration as a form of measurement.  For example, each loaf of bread accounts for £1million, or each football is the equivalent to one goal.  The list is endless, and the illustrations can correspond to any amount of any given measurement.

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Good use of a spot colour, would keep costs low and the colours vibrant.  It doesn't overcomplicate things, information is displayed in the different colours to differentiate.  I particularly like the cross-circle venn diagram, has potential to display information efficiently, with a third outcome as a result of combining the two.

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A range of infographics here - with a range of colours.  All of them, however, are displayed in three colours plus stock - one of them black.  There seems to be a pattern developing, good infographics often have simple colour schemes - allowing the viewer to easily take in the information being presented to them.  

And what would be the need to complicate things?  Most of the shapes and numbers are complex enough, the colour scheme tones the whole design down and makes for an easy read.

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Not technically an infographic, more a pattern, but it got me thinking about the way I display my information.  Would it be worth making a pie chart in the style of this?  Would the information benefit from curved lines rather than the conventional straight?  Food for thought - something that I could experiment with when exploring infographics.

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So, 3-dimensional infographics, is there any point?  The design looks good, but would it really display information in the clearest, simplest way possible?  In my opinion, it wouldn't.   I know the point of these infographics is to communicate nothing, it's just a concept, but it could easily be applied to something relevant.

If something takes more effort than required to understand in graphic form, the designer has missed the point completely.  The colour scheme doesn't help understanding, there are too many to break down effectively.  This design just confirms that the simpler, the better - in colour and in form.

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These infographics use their colour to highlight areas of importance, which I think is quite clever.  Having an image or icon duplicated multiple times over, and highlighting a selection of them with my chosen colour, would mix up the ways in which I communicate statistics.  Also, the rings that are split into halves and quarters give a good representation of percentage - through the impression of being filled up.

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Not an infographic, but something that has potential to be one.  This icon has the qualities of the Venn diagram that I was looking at earlier, and opens up the possibility for a shared outcome as a result of combining others.  Although this image is quite complex and therefore not very capable of communicating information, it goes to show that a Venn diagram does not have to necessarily be in circular form.

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