What I need to work on

So, we talked in groups about our animations quite a while ago, and I am just now getting to the typing of the things I need to work on, now that the project is due. So, this is what my group said:

Work on transitions. The words should not just pop on the screen or flow all the way across. Continuity is key. The type treatments need to be similar so they seem more unified.

Imagery is working, but the resolution on the tablecloth needs to be lower so that the movie loads faster. Also, wine does not work like a pie graph. The wine should go down vertically, not horizontally.

The animation is a bit choppy, and I need to work on timing. Reading the text out loud will help.

Packaging to Plate

I found this yummy packaging while searching the Web. I wish they sold these in the snack shop. What do you do with those strange triangle plastic boxes, anyway? Suggestions, please.

Creative Brief

I really enjoyed reading our assignment for graphics.

Not because it was new information to me. I am also studying mass communications, and I have written more creative briefs than I can imagine, and I haven't even graduated yet.

The reason that this article really resonated with me is because this reading talks about the creative brief from the point of view of the designer. 

I have always learned about them from the view of the marketing and research team with the end goal being to get through to the designer and translate marketing goals into the strange language that designers speak. This reading is how designers USE the brief. Fascinating stuff, I promise you.

My favorite part of the reading is about creating a viewer persona. I love making up names for the target audience and making up their lives. I believe that as designers we should have just as much fun with these as we can, because this is where we establish our visual language, our frame of reference and our medium. I love creative briefs.

To Suggest, continued

Although my problems have not been solved since the last time I posted, the anger has subsided.

I will now post a list of words that ACTUALLY relate to what I want to convey.

Humor

Levity

Hunger

Yummy (maybe I should change my background color from light blue)

Percentages

Simplicity

I don't want to make people feel intimidated to vote. I want them to feel like it is silly not to. It would give us a bigger piece of the democratic pie.

By comparing our voter turnout to France, Germany and Italy, I want to tap into the friendly, competitive nature of [most] Americans. Food, especially in these three countries, is iconic to Americans. Also, I believe that apple pies, soufflé, pizza and sausages will catch the attention of most viewers. It may not necessarily make people hungry (strange cutting techniques - masking and food don't go together well), but hopefully it will make people laugh (or giggle).

To Suggest - throw after effects out the window

I would love to be in the stage in my after effects project where I could deal with the finer details, but I still can't get my images to render. I relinked and everything. Any suggestions?

Also, audio. Won't even play when I hit the space bar in the editing window.

Love the easy ease. I have no problem with editing. I am wondering what everyone thinks about using drop shadow in videos. Don't worry. It's not text.

Thoughtful Question - Better late than never

In response to a reading about information design, I thought I would post a question for the public to consider.

Does the "modern", sparse design of today alienate viewers who look for the human aspect of data? What I mean is, do some designers, in their quest for that ultimate simplicity of design, forget to tell viewers how this data relates to them?

Stories

Who wants a load of statistical data, and how does that get anyone to vote? The answers are - nobody (except, perhaps, accountants and actuaries) and it doesn't. So, instead of presenting potential voters with a bunch of statistics telling them to vote, why not a little story?

Here is one option for a story on why Americans should vote (thanks to Rachel Meyers):

While the United States is considered to be the greatest power in the world and a leader in democracy, voter turnout does not reflect this statement. In the 2004 election, 60 percent of eligible voters turned out at the poles, in comparison to 8 percent of the eligible population of New Zealand, 76 percent of spain, 86 percent of Sweden, 79 percent of France, 82 percent of Italians, 78 percent of Germany and 100 percent of Russia. Of the world's 20 largest democratic nations, only Japan and Switzerland ranked lower in voter turnouts.

To visually tell this story, I would like to use a cartogram showing the geographical size of each country, then display the size of the voting population (in a big circle, probably). Finally, within the population circle, I will show the size of the voting population. At the end, I will show the other countries' voting populations in comparison to the US voting population. The US voters may be eaten pac man style by Russia's. We'll just have to wait and see.

Associative Word List

pac man, size, circle, cartogram, cheerio, doughnut, percentage, pie graph, international, globe, voting, poll, inequality, target, scale, comparison, simple, arcade game, map, latitude, longitude, portion, turnout, weight, nationalism, patriotism, pride, embarrassment, shame, outperform, exceed, internationalism, doctrine, count, counting, enumeration, tally, analyze, dissect, take apart, part, portion, division.

OK, I think that's it for now with the word list. I am always open to more suggestions. Now for the KEY WORDS:

Pac Man: video game originally developed in Japan. Immensely popular in the US. Centers around a circular yellow man (or woman, as in Ms. Pac Man) who has to eat all of the little white circles to advance to the next level.

Latitude: angular distance North or South of a point on the earth's surface. Measured by meridians. The horizontal lines.

Longitude: angular distance East or West of a point on the earth's surface. Based on the prime meridian. The vertical lines.

That's it for now. Tomorrow: expect a slight chance of more definitions with a certainty of a thoughtful question about Reading 2.

Name that Designer!!

Richard Saul Wurman: life goal-make information understandable.
created TED conferences. I love his concepts, but his personal Web site is a little too squishy for me. Click the link and see what I mean. It seems as though he likes black, red and white just as much as any minimalist designer. His strong points are statistical issues such as urbanization and politics. However, this industrial illustration is both beautiful and informative. These two qualities are hard to come by in the world of information graphics. The key word I would use to describe his work is graceful

Nigel Holmes: we know Nigel from those cute videos about national debt and the lovely British accent. However, his "wordless diagrams" are particularly interesting. Imagining complex steps without words is quite fun with these. Key word, simplicity.

Edward Tufte: a scientist with a graphic background, Tufte studied statistics more than ANY visual person I know. Non-informative display is his worst enemy. He believes that anything that is non-objective, such as decoration, could bias the results and remove the pure aspect of the data.  He developed the concept of a sparkline. 

We don't think of this as anything revolutionary today because this idea is so commonly-used in our media and so relevant to simple information design. Key word: datum.

Side note: Tufte has a lot to say about scale models that architecture students may find interesting.

Blue and Red

I always found it so funny how our two major parties decided to choose to be a donkey and an elephant.  This site gives official story. If you don't know where they came from, you might as well read up on it. As usual, it came from an illustrator.

Here is a fun article about McCain's use of Optima in his logo. Love him or hate him, EVERYTHING about McCain relates back to military experience, including his brand image.

Obama's logo, however, seems to be more talked about in the blogging world. This blog features a cartoon satirizing the logo. Better yet, Logobama is a site where you can insert yourself into the O and use it as a profile picture. Have fun with that one.

It is oh so much fun to compare each candidate's party and personal imagery, but what about the issues?!?! Shouldn't we as designers be considering what the economic crisis looks like on a computer screen (and look outside the falling line graph)? Can you tell me what universal healthcare looks like? How about that 700-mile fence between the US and Mexico? Pro-choice or pro-life, I don't really want to know what that looks like.

The point is, we should stop promoting each candidate like a corporate entity. Instead of relying on a catchy name or slogan, our presidential hopefuls should be relying on their issues. We, on the other hand, can focus our time on showing the general public what each issue looks like. 

Roughstockstudios.com is a great resource for ideas on political info graphics. This site also features a great booklet called Visual Representation for Advocacy. I highly recommend it.

One big reason to VOTE

I just got done reading an infuriating blog about why women should not vote. While the blogger was trying to be satirical, he ended up being merely infuriating. Another infuriating discovery is that a former female senator from Olathe, Kansas believes that women should not have to vote. She said that the 19th amendment, the one that allowed HER to vote, marked the beginning of deteriorating family values.

Humph!

So, the traditionalist idea of men as the only provider and the women as the unthinking homemaker continues. That is, unless I can come up with such an amazing poster that women will be flocking to the voting booths like there's no tomorrow.

In the meantime, wish me luck. And, for God's sake, register to vote.