infographics analysis

HELLO DESIGNERS!

In today's post I would like to give you some techniques to analyze a graphic in order to know if it fits your article in a good way or if contrarily not.

One of the most well known ways is the Tension Wheel, that is a kind of classification that we can use to analyze infographics.

for example, this infographic could be analyzed as:

http://neomam.com/infographics/why-should-you-link-to-infographics/

1. Abstraction vs FigurationThis graphic could be said that it's more figurative than abstract because it depicts the world map even though it does it in a more abstract way by applying three-dimensionality.

2. Functionality vs. Decoration:

It's very functional, but we can also identify some decorative elements that don't give any extra information like the fact of three-dimensionality in countries depicting.

3. Density vs. Lightness:

I think this graphic is very light (without being empty of information) because the information given is affordable to be processed and it doens't overwhelm the viewer. Moreover, as there's a lot of blank space it is not dense.

4. Multidimensionality vs. Unidimensionality:

This graphic is unidimensional because it only looks the information from an only point of view: how much data our brain gets in one day and where does it comes from. The point of view is always the data consumption.

5. Originality vs. Familiarity:

I think that even though it is not very original due to the use of a map (which is the most used representation to place things in different territories), but anyway, the way to represent information is original, because it hasn't limitated to paint the zones where he wanted to explain anything, but he tried to do it in a different way by 3D.

6. Novelty vs. Redundancy: 

The information given in each little piece of the map is novel, and as it has no double explanation, it is very novel.

Conclusion:

This infographic would fit very good in any kind of publication, because due to the familiarity of the map representation, it becomes easy to read. So, then we can conclude that this simple infographic that conveys a good piece of information can accompany very pleasantly an article, because it is not so dense that the viewer gets tired and conveys the just proportion of information that a graphic has to convey to be the perfect complement for an article, allowig the text to explain some features missing in the graphic without being redundant.

So, up to this point, I just have to tell you that every time we want to complement our articles with infographics in order to make the information richer, we have to take into account many of the kinds of analyses explained all along the blog. This way our graphics will fit perfectly our articles without making our text be on a second place, and being both (the text and the graphic) necessary parts of our communication act.

I hope you found it useful!!

multigraphics on journalism

HELLO DESIGNERS!

In today's post, I want to talk about the graphics with more than one part (as the ones uploaded before), but from another perspective.
On last post, I talked to you about the fact that graphics have to be structured from more important info
rmation to less important one in order to guide the viewer through the graphic and make him be interested since the beginning.

But, the fact is that we, as journalists, have to take care of the graphic we are going to use on our articles, because a very complete infographic can lead our text out of place. To explain my last sentence, I just will say that sometimes, if the graphic is co complete that represents all the information, the text becomes a redundant feature due to the fact that the graphic will be the first thing read, contrary to what we want, that is that our articles have  be read!

We, as journalists, have to care about our work and have to make our texts attractive more than our graphics in the sense that if our graphics look more attractive than our texts, our texts won't be read!

An example of very complete infographic that maybe rests attractiveness to our texts is this one:

This graphic I made last week is very complete, but it explained all the information I had, so it may lead my article to a second place.

So, my advice is that no every graphic can be together with every article, and that always the infographic has to be a complement of the text and has never to contain the whole information that the text explains in order to be entropic or clarifying instead if redundant.

I hope you found t useful!

infographics as complement of a text

HELLO DESIGNERS!

In today's post, I want to talk to you about the fact that infographics sometimes are better complement to an article that a single picture.
In today's example I will upload to you an infographic I did to explain in a graphical way the boston robbery of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

This infographic was used to explain how did the robbery went on, and above there's some extra information to make ourselves an idea of the impact of the theft.

This graphic was structured in two parts, the essential information on the top (information only concerning the robbery), and the extra features on the lower part (other informations concerning this and other thefts). This was, the graphic becomes structured, and the reader is guided through the image, because the first part is explained through a timeline, that means that the viewer must follow a reading direction that is guided all along the line form left to right.

As the reader has read the first part of the image, he has almost all the information of the robbery, that is what matters to us, and if he has got interested through the reading of the first part, he will continue to the second one, which gives him other interesting data concerning other thefts. But as it is not the main information intended to be read, if the reader doesn't get to the lower part, anyway our graphic would have fulfilled its function, that is to illustrate the boston theft (upper part of the graphic).

So, If you want to use an infographic in any of your articles, take this into account and structure the graphic with a hierarchy that if the reader does not want to go on reading until the end, he gets almost all the information on the first part of your graphic!

I hope you found it useful!

sometimes complexity is the best option

HELLO DESIGNERS!

Today, what I'm going to write about is the fact that complexity is a paradox, because it raises interest, but only to a point.

The explanation of complex concepts often result in visually complex graphics that are information rich, convey meaning though an increased use of detail patterns, shapes, colours, density... which means that we take long to process it.

Even though it seems a contradiction, complexity sometimes is the best way to expalin complex conceps that could have been explaines as deeply as in this kind of graphics in any other way.
This is an example:

http://elearningexamples.com/complex-assault-on-bin-laden-infographic/

This graphic is complex in the aspect of realism, so to say, that is has been drawn following a pattern created on reality, and it has no space for invention. The fact of being so realistic conveys meaning too, and explains us exactly how was it placed behind the mountain etc.

Another example of complex infographic that is more useful this way is the use of different views such as the exploded view:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploded_view_drawing

This graphic is realistic and uses an exploded view to transmitt the structure of this thing. This graphic is more effectiv ethan any other abstracct graphic to explain structure, because this way we can see all the parts of the piece and how are the assembled.

Concerning journalism, I want to say, that many times a complex graphic can help us to explain a concept,but thta we have to take care of which kind of audience we are adressing, because complex graphics many times require a previous knowledge that we can not take for granted among our readers.

I hope you found it useful!

Data simplification though a realism reduction

HELLO DESIGNERS!

Today I will write about the fact that low-fidelity graphics are effective when the goal is to focus on essential details, induce a quick response, strengthen the impact and providing an easy explanation.

Minnimalism makes every phase of the human information-processing system more efficient as weperceive a graphic, hold information on working memory,internally represent information, and interpret it.

Because of that, graphics that are used to support comprehension and learning should contain little or no visual noise (anything that is superfluous and distracts the viewer).

In order to understant what I am telling you I will upload a graphic I did to facilitate the comprehension of an extense excel with a lot of data concerning airplane crashes.

This infographic uses simplification as its best weapon, because there are also many lacks on it, but as it fulfils its purpose, it is not such a bad example. in this graphic as you can see, information of loads of pages has been simplified to a simgle multiple-graphic.

It just has a map so to make more visual the data concerning where accidents happened, a bar chart to quiclky undertant which year was the more accidented, an a semi-circle chart at the end concerning how many fatalities they were on board and whic on ground.

As my blog concerns Journalism in Graphics, I think this has been one of the most useful graphics I have uploaded until now, because this is the best example of how to use infographis to communicate: Everyone can read this infographic, but not everyone could have written the very long excel from which it was created, forst of all due to the time required to read the first one and comparing it to the second one.

So,because of it, I think that using infographics together with articles enhances comprehension and gives value to your work as journalist.

Journalism and Graphic design

HELLO DESIGNERS!

In today's post, I will help you to create a blog and a magazine page using typography and colors in an intelligent way. This are my two examples:

This two pages are a representation of the text that is written inside in two different formats. The above is the web version including the heading and the side bars that normally are occupied by links or the basic web features, and the one under the first one is the version for a magazine. the color redish has been used because this text talks about a metaphor of wine and because of this, as wine color was too much dark, I tried to find a lighter version of if. The fact that there's a little rectangle in a lighter red family color is because there you can find different information, so to say there a re written the conclusions added by the journalist to the article write above by another person. 

Typography also has meaning in this graphic, because as we are journalists, we wanted to make a clear distinction between the title and the author from the rest of the article, and because of that we have used different typographies to make the different parts of the text be distinguished at simple sight.

I hope you found it useful!!

Your CV impacts more in a visual format!

HELLO DESIGNERS!

Here I'm again to give you an essential advice. As every journalist may know, simpler and clearer are better than anything, and because of that today I'll explain you how to make information clearer with graphics.

One of the things that everyone wants to do better is to self himself, so to say to convince someone that he or she is the best option, and one of the best forms I found to do it is by an infographic.

In this post I will show you many examples of doing a CVin a visual way in order to be clearer, simpler and doubly persuasive as in a conventional CV.

(fake information)

In this first example I uploaded, I want to tell you that the information that appears is not true, but that it works perfectly to explain how to do a CV. As our principal goal is to convince that we are the best option, we have to make our prominent features pop out in order to catch the attention of the reader to the features we want. Another thing that becomes basic is to simplify as much as possible without loosing the basic information we want to put. The ideal expression of a simple message can be achieved by reducing its realism to facilitate understanding (always depending on the purpose of the graphic and the audience, of course if we are applying for a scientific job, maybe abstraction and simplification are not good tools).

In this case we can see in a single sight that the CV says that the person is from Spain, That has working experience in different places, that has more windows informatic skills than mac, and we can see in a very clear way his interests. 

One thing that this graphic does not very well is to guide the viewer through an structures hierarchy, because it is all put in a decrescent way. 

Another example found in the net of Cv that I think that is perfect to show you how to do a perfectly useful visual Cv is the one I upload beneath this paragraph.

http://simonejenifer.blogspot.com.es/2012/11/internship-format-your-resume.html

In this example of infographic taken from the internet, we can see many different ways of visualization of concepts using bar charts, label charts, donut charts and a map, and the colour palette is very well thought to transmit a warm personality and also all the colors match very good between them as in the first CV they did not, and there were a lot of  not matching colors used without any sense behind them.

I hope you found this article useful!!