Today’s Plan:
- Introduce Infographic Project
- Introduce (Briefly) the Final Project
- Book Production Presentations
- Homework
Infographic Project
For our third project, we will be creating infographics. I want to share two short articles, “What is an Infographic?” and “11 Best Infographic Designs of 2015.” Tips to go Viral.
My original plan was to ask you to create an infographic that visualizes some kind of argument using data from the us.gov database. The database has statistics on a wide range of topics, and is pretty easy to navigate. These infographics would suit technical communicators, since you would be taking rather opaque data and visualizing in such a way as to make an argument.
However, after those readings, I am a bit more interested in seeing what else you might want to visualize. I want to leave room for you to be creative. So, with that in mind, the third assignment looks something like this:
I would like you to make an infographic that visualizes a problem. The infographic should make some kind of argument as to how we should address or solve the problem. In a few cases, people might elect to make a series of shorter infographics rather than one extra-long one (if you want to make a series of infographics that address a problem). The infographic might show us how to do something, tell us about a problem we don’t know about, visualize something complicated, or something else.
The infographic needs to include at least one chart (pie, bar, line, other) that you make in another program.
The infographic should be longer than a standard printable paper. We are designing these for the web, with hopes of viral circulation on social media.
Your infographic should include some kind of research; that is, it must visualize research. It should include sources to increase credibility. Note: there are a few creative projects that might not require research, but you must run your idea by me before I grant this exemption.
The design of your infographic should reflect the principles we have been working on all semester–addressing layout, color, contrast, typography, etc.
These infographics will be due in class on April 15th. We will view them in class. This is right around the corner–but I am pushing us through this assignment quickly so that you have time to complete the final assignment before finals week.
My initial plan was to create these infographics in InDesign, but I have decided to try out a new (and much more user friendly tool), so we will be using Piktochart.com, a freemium tool that gives us access to templates and graphing tools. NOTE: I am using a WYSIWYG, user-friendly tool because I expect these infographics to be content-rich (in other words, I want substance). Also, using a WYSIWYG tool allows us to produce this a bit quicker.
We will do this introduction to Pikochart in next Friday’s class.
Final Project
For the final project, I am going to ask you to redesign a document or visual that exists in the real world. Over the next few weeks, I want you to try and find a document or visual that needs to be redesigned. This could be a flyer, a menu, a sign, a handout, or just about anything else.
Homework
For homework, read The Best 100 Infographics for more inspiration. As with our other projects, we have to do some genre research before we begin inventing and designing.
For homework, I want you to identify the topic that you would like to visualize and begin collecting some data to transform into a chart or graph.
