Week 11 – The Art Of Information

The Art Of Information

The Art Of Information


At the start of our lecture of Week 11 we went over some useful resources and book publications that focus on data and information design, as we have started our project I don’t think I will be doing another infographic project for a while but I may look into some of these resources in the future as a client may ask me to design them an infographic. I would be interested in looking into some of these at a later date so I will include a list of these resources below for future references:

 

Brendan Dawes

Brendan Dawes is a designer we have previously looked at this semester, he is a British information designer and data analyst who creates his work through the use of technology and algorithms alongside data and information. Brendan Dawes work is an extremely creative way of creating digital art and he often uses 3D graphics and 3D modelling to creating visual representations of the data he has collected. One thing I found interesting about Brendan Dawes was the fact that he had started to created NFT’s and Crypto Art which is an emerging technology at the moment, this is something I am heavily interested in and have explored in the past and I personally see the technology behind NFT’s and its ecosystem becoming a part of our day to day life not just in digital art.[1]

I have included some of Brendan Dawes’ work below to demonstrate his creativity in displaying information.

 

Work by Brendan Dawes

 

Work by Brendan Dawes

 

eCloud Design

The e-Cloud is a data visualisation sculpture located in San Jose International Airport, designed by Aaron Koblin alongside other designers and data companies they created a sculpture that displayed weather information from around the world in real time. I found this extremely interesting as this is blending data visualisation, design and interactive media with the real world, digital displays like this will be common in the future although they may not display data in a creative way like this.[2]

I have included an image of the eCloud below to give you an idea on how it visually displays that’s data of the weather in each country.

 

e-Cloud Example

 

Big Data


Data farming has increased massively since the introduction of technology and smart devices, every time we sign up to a mailing list or create an account with a company our data is being stored on a server but over the years there has been many data breaches where hackers take this data and use it for personal monetary gain. Ultimately we are all being data mined to some extent with social media platforms collecting our personal information and displaying it to the world, this is just the way the world will be but I think privacy is important and people should always have the option to keep certain information private if they want to. We took a look into some more designer profiles who focus their research and work towards visualising data and information.

 

Aaron Koblin

Aaron Koblin is an American data designer, artist, programmer and entrepreneur who is well known for his creative uses of data visualisation having worked on projects like the e-Cloud in the San Jose Internation Airport. Aaron Koblin has won various awards for his work throughout his career, initially he lead the Data Arts Team at Google before moving on to create his own virtual reality company alongside Chris Milk. In addition to focusing on data visualisation and virtual reality Aaron Koblin also focuses on interactive film where he created video and animations incorporating his data and information design style.[3]

We took a look at Aaron Koblin’s Ted Talk about data and information design, I found this really interesting as he took a very involved approach to how he collected data by including other people around him. This helped him collect a wide range of results and enjoy what he is doing in the process. The section about how he got people to draw a sheep for $0.02 was really interesting as some people spent seconds on their drawing while others spent well over 30 minutes, this would demonstrate the passion that some people had for art and drawing.

 

Work by Aaron Koblin

 

Work by Aaron Koblin

 

Jer Thorp

Jer Thorp is a Canadian information designer, writer and lecturer currently working in New York, USA. He is well know for his work in data visualisation and information design but he is best know for his work on the 9/11 memorials where he developed the algorithm to sort the 3,000 names of the deceased. Her uses a lot of technology and algorithms to create his work, focusing on data and displaying it in a creative way Jer Thorp is also an advocate of collecting and using data in an ethical manner. This is something I personally agree with as I wouldn’t want my data leaked and I would like to have full control of who has access to my data and information.[4]

I have included some of Her Thorps work below to demonstrate his creative use of data visualisation.

 

Work by Jer Thorp

 

Work by Jer Thorp

 


References & Sources

  1. Brendan Dawes. 2022. Brendan Dawes. [ONLINE] Available at: http://brendandawes.com. [Accessed 10 April 2022].
  2. www.aaronkoblin.com. 2022. e-Cloud. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.aaronkoblin.com/project/ecloud/. [Accessed 10 April 2022].
  3. www.aaronkoblin.com. 2022. About. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.aaronkoblin.com/project/about/. [Accessed 10 April 2022].
  4. jerthorp. 2022. About | Jer Thorp. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.jerthorp.com/about. [Accessed 10 April 2022].

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