Workshop in Chennai, India

Posted on December 18, 2014 by 5wgraphicsblog

I’ll be teaching an information graphics workshop in Chennai, India, on January 22 and 23. It will be a hands-on event for designers, editors, and anyone interested in information design and data visualization. The workshop is organized by WAN-IFRA, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers. This is our first venture in India, a vibrant market where dailies (especially the popular vernacular press in Hindi, Malayalam, Marathi and Telugu) are growing strongly, proving the newspaper crisis is far from universal. The Times of India, an English language newspaper, has a circulation of over 3.3 million copies daily. However, the transition to digital is being quite slow, and even more so in the case of infographics. I’m curious to see the situation first-hand. I’ll report back!

Out now: Understanding the World, The Atlas of Infographics

Posted on December 16, 2014 by 5wgraphicsblog

Taschen’s new large format book on infographics has been out in the U.S. for a few days. The luxurious volume, by Sandra Rendgen and editor Julius Wiedemann, follows the same format as the Information Graphics volume published in 2012. The new book includes 280 contemporary and vintage visualizations, including seven fold-out spreads.

The book is structured in several chapters

We are proud Sandra (whom I had the pleasure to meet a couple of times in Washington and in Berlin) chose our “Cosmic Journeys” graphic for National Geographic as one of the 4-page foldouts. The graphic has been showcased and reprinted numerous times but we gasped in awe when we saw it at this size, and in such fantastic paper!

Personally, I was also also happy to see a piece I did a few years ago at National Geographic. It’s an infographic explaining the latest science on how memory works. A lot of research went into it. Bruce Morser created the amazing art.

The introduction of the book features an interesting new graphic by Nigel Holmes. In his classic style of clean illustration and excellent step-by-step explanation, Nigel looks at the history of information visualization and the changing data landscape, and attempts to bring some light to an always murky issue: what are the differences between information graphics and data visualization?

The selection in the book and the top quality production of Understanding the World make it an essential addition to any infographics library.

5W in the pages of Nature

Posted on December 11, 2014 by 5wgraphicsblog

We just finished a new infographic for Nature. The London-based weekly, interdisciplinary scientific journal is the most cited and surely one of the most respected scientific journals in the world. The nirvana of scientists trying to publish their peer-reviewed research articles. Needless to say, at 5W we had always wanted to work with Nature’s team, and we were thrilled to receive an assignment from Kelly Krause, the Creative Director.

The graphic is about the loss of biodiversity in the world. We visualized threatened species as well as how many species exist and how many are already extinct. More than 90% of the species that have populated Earth during the past four billion years are gone, many of them in mass extinctions. So what remains? A story difficult to visualize due to the extreme uncertainty associated with much of the available data.

Samuel at 5W worked with Kelly and with editor Rich Monastersky. As expected, Nature standards for the quality and accuracy of the research are at the absolute top, and we went through multiple sketches trying to balance the gaps and uncertainties in the data (for instance, the range of estimates for number of species alive and threatened shows huge variation) with the need for high visual impact.

Here is the finished graphic (click for a full resolution image):

And the interactive version (scroll down in this page):

Nature has a fantastic blog called Nature Graphics. Kelly and her team explain the creative process, background and design challenges behind their information graphics. A must follow for anyone interested in how data, research, design and graphics come together. Their newest entry explains a bit more about our graphic.

By the way, I just discovered this cool Pinterest board with a great selection Nature covers:

Five infographics workshops in South East Asia

Posted on December 5, 2014 by 5wgraphicsblog

I have recently spent over three weeks teaching five infographics workshops in South East Asia in association with WAN-IFRA, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers. Quite a trip!

The schedule included in-house training for the staff of several news organizations (The Bangkok Post newspaper, The Manila Bulletin newspaper and Astro Awani, a major television and online organization based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). I also had two public workshops in Singapore (which included staff from The Straits Times) and in Jakarta, Indonesia.

At the Manila workshop

Hand-sketching smarthpone graphics in Manila

Most of the workshops focused on interactive graphics, data visualization and the print-to-web challenge, but there was also a lot of content on print infographics and even print layout design. Luckily, in most cases the attendee list included chief editors from the media organizations. The reality at a global scale is that most editors still assign graphics as decorative elements to make pages “pretty”. They often need a better understanding of how data visualization, process diagrams, or smart thematic mapping can elevate the journalistic quality of their publication while making it more visually engaging. Graphics departments are little more than service sections receiving assignments and not being used as visual journalists that generate and research infographics ideas.

Group Photo at Astro Awani

I took the opportunity to better understand the media landscape in the region (where print newspapers are often still growing) and the status of infographics. The Bangkok Post is one of the two major English-language newspapers in Bangkok, and the Manila Bulletin is the largest and oldest newspaper in the Philippines. Both publications have very skilled artists but they are still trying to find their way in the creation of good data-driven infographics.

I would say the biggest surprise was Kompas, the leading newspaper of Indonesia (the surprise only reveals my previous ignorance). The design of this daily (both Mario Garcia and Roger Black made redesigns in the past) is every bit as good as any of the major European newspapers, and so are the excellent graphics. I also liked The Straits Times from Singapore, but that wasn’t a surprise as I had seen their good graphics before.

Next January, 5W will be conducting new workshops with WAN-IFRA in India and coming back to Singapore in association with German publishers Gestalten and local design think tank Methodology. In the meantime, I need some rest after visiting 5 countries in 23 days!