Week 7- Visualising Data
Within week 7’s lecture Paul discussed all about visualising data and he explained what our next project will be.
What is my second project?
My second project is to create an infographic / data visualisation looking specifically at global population.
Examples of these infographics could include the possible approaches:
- Births and deaths in world – past or present
- Population figures specific to country
- Population in the last 50, 100 years (future?)
- By environment
- By religion
- Climate change
- Diseases and or illnesses
The image below is an examples of the type of outcome that is expected for this project:
First look at visualising data research
What is data?
Data are a set of values of qualitative or quantitative variables about one or more persons or objects, they are units of information, often numeric, that are collected through observation.
What is Data Visualisation ?
Data visualisation is an interdisciplinary field that deals with the graphic representation of data.
An example of that would be the following:
What is an infographic?
Infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data, or knowledge intended to present information in a clear and quick fashion.
Examples of infographics
I took to the internet to search up some examples of infographics, to give me a good idea of the style and layout. I will do further and more in depth research into different style approaches and illustration designs in my coming blogs.
What makes an effective infographic ?
I did some research into what makes a good infographic and here is what I found:
1. Tells a story
2. Takes your eyes on a predefined journey
3. Practical value
4. Sends one key message
5. It is accurate and well-researched
6.Well structured
7. Visually appealing
8. Make it short and sweet
I have previously looked at data and a very big designer who’s work focuses on data visualisations, I researched Giorgia Lupi’s work entitled ‘Finding Humanity in Data’. I found this topic very intersting and I really enjoyed hearing her talk about her work and methods, access my blog post about Giorgia Lupi – here.
I am excited to get started at looking at a range of different designers who are in the field of data, research and infographic work.
Master Apprentice task
Our first task regarding this project was a master apprentice task, I have included my re creations below-
First data set-
My re-creation-
Second data set-
My re-creation-
What did I learn?
I have learned a lot of information regarding my new project, I now know what data is and what an infographic is and how I am expected to display this information. The master apprentice task has gotten me very excited to start my second project, I now have a feel for designing bar charts and pie charts which has prepared me for designing my own infographic data information.
What’s next?
Next I want to look at some individual designers who specialise in data and research and who’s work is based on diagrams and infographics! I think that I need to explore more and the more research I do, the more inspiration I will get, this will lead me to making a choice of the type of approach I want to take for my global population project and what area I want it to be based on, e.g. based on the environment or religion etc. I will also research some more styles of infographics to get some inspiration for my own designs, I will begin with a Pinterest board.