Downton Abbey infographic

Informal infographic

Initially my idea was to focus on the scandals of Downtown throughout the series. However, there were just too many to include, so then I focused on just those concerning the family who lived above stairs. Even those were too numerous! I eventually chose to focus on the loves of the three Downtown daughters, Lady Mary, Lady Edith and Lady Sybil.

I wanted to make it interesting to people who hadn't followed the whole series, or to those like myself that had watched every episode but forgotten lots of the detail.

The infographic is sized for iPhone 5 and above, at 640px wide, as this kind of trivia is most often viewed on mobile devices while passing the time.

I researched colours used in the 1920s in interiors, and found the following image, along with the typefaces and glyphs (Nouvelle Vague Black,  Diehl Deco, Gill Sans and Nouveau Rocco Deco - glyphs).

The colours and imagery will reflect the era (from 1912-1925), embracing the Art Nouveau, but also the stately home feeling, but also incorporating a lot of typography and modern language. I used photographs as a useful reminder of the characters over the last 6 years.

All my information came from here: http://downtonabbey.wikia.com/wiki/Downton_Abbey_%28programme%29

My finished infographic:

House style

It is important to consider the audience when creating designs, and be able to appeal to a broad demographic, or a smaller-subset of your target audience, but still adhere to your house style. For instance, at Christmas, the following audiences need to be considered: families, religious people, children, secular audiences, those without children, etc. Different imagery and styles can be used to infer thoughts of food, gifts, religion, parties, homeless, elderly, etc. The style and colours of an image can infer expensive, friendly, trashy, loud, stylish, etc.

Below are screen shots of pages from my Waterstones book showing how I created 4 posters and an invitation.

Infographics - when not to use pie charts

Pie charts

Pie charts can make data really difficult to interpret, particularly when 2 sets of data need to be compared, when shown as a 3D pie, or when too many figures need to be shown.

This image below is a good example of when not to use pie charts. It needs a key, and is difficult to compare the data from both years.

http://io9.com/these-charts-will-make-you-want-to-throw-your-televisio-1741802688 (article) and original source http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/diversity-directors-tv-amc-fx-hbo-netflix-showtime-1201633122/

The data relates to the number of programs produced by each TV network over 2 years, and whether they were male or female, white or non-white.

Style and tone

Questions to answer before designing:

1 - What is the information trying to show? (factual)

Highlight the vast differences between men and women, white and non-white directors for the US TV networks.

2 - What is it trying to say? (emotive)

That these differences are wrong, there should be much more of a balance. It is trying to make people agree with the author's point of view and make them feel angry or appalled.

3 - Is there a hook?

I decided to use the heading "Racial and gender inequality in US TV networks". Words highlighting the emotive subject of gender and race will automatically draw attention.

4 - How else can you visualise the data?

I wanted to make the actual figures virtually unnecessary, and make it easier to compare the figures at a glance.

Choosing colours to represent white and non-white people is quite emotive in itself. I didn't want to choose white and black, as not everyone who is non-white is black. I thought about using grey for non-white, however this could infer that non-white people are grey/dull in personality, which I wanted to avoid. I therefore decided to use shades of grey for both categories. I wanted the inequality of both sex and ethnicity to be the defining feature of the infographic, so used flat bright colours with lots of contrast.

The typeface choice was easy - Helvetica. I selected this ubiquitous font as it did not want anything to distract from the shocking data.

I wanted to represent the data with icons, so created them in Illustrator with shape, shape builder and pathfinder.

I created the first set of icons with the height being mathematically proportional to the figures, by creating the icons and changing the height in pixels to the number of directors. When all were created, I then selected them all and scaled them to size as one, thus maintaining their proportions. 

When I began creating the next section, the absolute numbers were smaller. I could have used percentages, but that would have distorted the figures, making the small networks appears as it they had the same numbers of directors as the smaller ones, which I wanted to avoid. I therefore decided to represent the directors with an icon per director.

For the final section, I used area so used the square root of the number of directors, creating blocks for each one, before scaling them all together, to retain proportionality.

Final complete infographic is shown below.

Waterstones campaign

I decided to discard my ideas for a bag for life as I wasn't happy with how they were developing. I have revisited my concepts for a scratch and sniff gift tag, which I have developed further and will be continuing with for this assignment.

Infographic design

I chose to design an infographic called sourcing sustainable fish. I researched the sort of information that is readily available online regarding this subject so I could decided which aspects to include.

I found links to various useful websites:

http://www.kensingtonfinefish.co.uk/guide-to-sustainable-fishing/

The Marine Stewardship Council
https://www.msc.org/cook-eat-enjoy/fish-to-eat

Infographic with relevant information on from Sainsbury's http://www.j-sainsbury.co.uk/media/784088/our_future_with_fish_infographic.jpg

Which supermarkets are best at supplying sustainable seafood: http://www.mcsuk.org/what_we_do/Fishing+for+our+future/Supermarket+survey/Supermarket+Seafood+Survey+-+full+story

Pocket Good Fish Guide http://www.mcsuk.org/downloads/fisheries/PocketGoodFishGuide_2015_high.pdf

Sales revenue of sustainable fish in the UK 2003-2013: http://www.statista.com/statistics/282514/sales-revenue-of-sustainable-fish-in-the-united-kingdom-uk-since-2003/

However, against the major driver of health, there are several reasons cited for not eating fish. Most commonly mentioned is price, with 33 per cent of UK adults in our survey saying that ‘concern over the rising price of fish’ had encouraged them to eat less fish in the past year, and 46 per cent saying that cost is a barrier to eating fish in general. Other significant barriers to eating fish are lack of recipe knowledge (34 per cent), lack of availability of fresh fish in local shops (28 per cent), lack of time to prepare from scratch (28 per cent), ‘not liking the smell it makes’ (24 per cent)1 and difficulties planning ahead for meals (17 per cent). - See more at: http://www.thefishsite.com/articles/1488/uk-fish-consumption-trends-and-predictions/#sthash.YVIYT8GJ.dpuf

However, against the major driver of health, there are several reasons cited for not eating fish. Most commonly mentioned is price, with 33 per cent of UK adults in our survey saying that ‘concern over the rising price of fish’ had encouraged them to eat less fish in the past year, and 46 per cent saying that cost is a barrier to eating fish in general. Other significant barriers to eating fish are lack of recipe knowledge (34 per cent), lack of availability of fresh fish in local shops (28 per cent), lack of time to prepare from scratch (28 per cent), ‘not liking the smell it makes’ (24 per cent)1 and difficulties planning ahead for meals (17 per cent). - See more at: http://www.thefishsite.com/articles/1488/uk-fish-consumption-trends-and-predictions/#sthash.YVIYT8GJ.dpuf

Statistics to use - factors impacting the amount of fish people eat (use for IG), and projected increase in fish consumption.
http://www.thefishsite.com/articles/1488/uk-fish-consumption-trends-and-predictions/


I decided the areas I wanted to include in my infographic would be:
Fish in danger and alternatives
Best supermarkets for selling sustainable fish
Increase in sales of sustainable fish
What stops people eating fish

POP influenced graphic design

Pop art was a movement which started in the UK in the mid 1950's and was fuelled by the LSD-infused flower powered hippies of the 1960s. Pop art was a rebellion against abstract expressionism and a desire to return to popular culture inspired art. It often contained photography, comic-style illustrations and references to TV. Warhol in particular, tried to make his art look like it had been created by a machine. Inevitably, pop culture influenced graphic design.

Warhol, self generated photo, MOMA New York

In 1969 The Beatles film and soundtrack Yellow Submarine were released, designed by Heinz Edelmann (below).

Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was another example (Blake and Hamilton) of Pop influenced design, from 1967:

Contemporary examples of pop graphic design from advertising are shown below.

Late modernism

Massimo Vignelli

Massimo Vignelli (1931-2014) was the foremost designer from the very late International Style or Modernist movement. Originally training as an architect, he was famous for saying “if you can design one thing, you can design everything”. He was a staunch supporter of the rational style and objectivity of the Russian Constructivists. He had a profound effect on corporate identity design in the US from the late 1960s.
He and 5 others set up Unimark International in 1965. It expanded rapidly and had several offices across the US and Europe. He is credited as main influencer in Helvetica being the most popular typeface of the International Style.

His most famous work was to redesign the NYC subway map in 1972. He was heavily influenced by the UK's London Underground map.

Along with Bob Noorda, Vignelli created the information graphics for the NYC subway (below).

In 1967 Vignelli designed the corporate identity for American Airlines which is still in use today.

Design Sponge has the following to say: One of the most well-known designers to popularize the “grid” technique of graphic design, the idea of structure informed much of his life’s work. Vignelli believed that design should be functional above all, following a strict stylistic guideline of grid marks, primary colors and typographic classics.

Referenceshttp://www.vignelli.com
http://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/Historical_Maps

Infographics styles

We were asked to consider how we would format 4 styles of infographic.
1 What to do when you wreck your car
2 The science of sleep
3 The internet of things
4 Sourcing sustainable fish

For each infographic, you need to consider the audience, the format, the purpose, any existing house style, tone of voice, colours, grid, image style, hierarchy, typography and colours. My artboards, below, were created in Illustrator and show colour swatches, typefaces for 3 levels of hierarchy, and the style of imagery to be used in a mini style guide format.

Character-based posters

Celebrity chefs

We were asked to design 4 posters representing 4 authors or books, where the focus is on the character, not the story or the subject. We look at Stylorouge's work and how they achieved this with the iconic poster they designed for Trainspotting. It was ground-breaking at the time (in the 1980's) as previously all film posters had a visual hierarchy of characters, with full colour, overlapping images. It spawned a million immitations. It worked so well because nothing like it had been done before with most films having stereotypical charcter shots, overlapping and arranged in hierarchical fashion. It shows all the charcters at an equal level of importance and focusses on them as people and characters.

I created posters for 4 celebrity chefs. I used high resolution photos from the internet, removed the backgrounds with a combination of Photoshop tools, and used threshold to achieve the look I wanted. I then used InDesign to layout the designs. I used American Typewriter for their names, and Antique Olive for the body copy. I felt these typesfaces complmented each other well. I chose orange as it contrasts well on the black and white areas of the images. The taupe sidebar was chosen to bring some warmth and contrast to the design. There is a clear hierarchy in the typography. The Jamie Oliver poster is the least successful as I could not find picture of him with suitably dark shoulders, with his head at the right angle.

My final design was changed by removing the sidebar, creating a box around the body copy and adding a visual full stop (the orange rectangle) which also acts as repitition. I think the designs now look more striking with improved contrast. The black box under the text makes the type legible now.

Design Agency Research

Pentagram

We were tasked with reserching the work of design agency. I chose to research Pentagram.

Pentagram are probabably the most famous design agency in the world. They were founded in 1972 in London by 6 partners. They now also have offices in New York, San Francisco, Berlin and Austin. They still operate under the same flat organisation structure that has served them so well, except now there are 19 equal partners, instead of 6, including Angus Hyland in London (winner of over 100 design awards), and Michael Beirut (New York).

Pentagram's work is across multiple disciplinaries including graphic design, identity, architecture, interiors and products. Partners are also free to pursue Pro Bono work (for charities, etc, on an unpaid basis). Each partner works in an open plan area surrounded by their team, allowing for their collaborative approach and enabling all the partners to be hands-on.

Pentagram celebrated 40 years in business in 2012. This 4 minute video, showing some of their biggest clients, is called The Forty Story: https://vimeo.com/42562659.

Some of their famous work includes: V&A, MoMA, Boots, Harley Davidson, Sotheby's, Pantone, Nike. The list goes on.



Logo and graphic identity, V&A, London



Identiy for Faber & Faber, publishers

Interior architecture for CASS Art

Wayfinding for John Lewis, New York

Packaging for Pantone

Identity for Sotheby's New York

References
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669866/watch-40-years-of-pentagram-work-in-3-minutes
http://www.creativebloq.com/computer-arts/pentagram-8108801
www.pentagram.com

Modern Museet - Stockholm

Over half term we visited Stockholm and looked around their modern art museum - Moderna Museet. They had a lot of work by the constructivists and a huge exhibition from the studio of Olafur Eliasson.

International typographic style / Swiss style

Background

I have already written a post about The International Typographic Style at  http://sandrajt.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/modernism.html when we were asked to write about one area of Modernism. This posts adds further information and also details the work of Max Huber

The International Typographic Style or Swiss Style was a graphic design movement which started in the early 1950s and continued to be the dominant style until the late 1960's. The term International Style also included architecture such as the work by Le Corbusier.

Features

The main features of International Style graphic design were:

Asymmetric layouts
Use of grids
Clear minimal design
Sans serif typeface - typefaces should never be mixed
Type always horizontal
Flush left, ragged right justification
Photos were preferred to illustration

Influences and development

In 1918 Ernst Keller, a teacher at the School of Applied Arts in Zurich started practising the beginning of what was to develop into International Style. Theo Ballmer (who was influenced by the De Stijl style), supplemented Keller's style of work and made it more grid focussed. Max Bill, an ex-Bauhaus student practised Art Concret which was a further development, based on mathematical principles.

Major designers

Max Huber (Zurich School of Arts and Crafts) added photomontage to the style in the late 40s - including layers, overprinting, and dynamic design.

Huber (1950) poster for UNESCO

Huber poster (ND)

By the 1950s Josef Müller-Brockman was the dominant designer in this style. He studied at Zurich from 1932-1934 and was influenced by the De Stijl style, Suprematism and Bauhaus. Some of his most famous work included concert posters for Zurich Town Hall and the Swiss Automobile Club. Muller-Brockmann initiated the magazine Neue Grafik, published from 1958-1965 in 18 issues.

Muller-Brockmann (1953) poster designed for the Swiss Automobile Club.

LMN (1958) Neue Grafik journal cover

Adrian Frutiger developed the first mega-family typeface in 1957 - Univers. He was also responsible for upgrading Akzidenz Grotesk to Neue Haas Grotesk in 1957 which then became Helvetica in 1960 - the most popular typeface ever.

Basel

In Basel, Switzerland, a softer interpretation of the International Style was in use. Armin Hofmann and the students he taught there made Basel an alternative home for Swiss Style. Emil Ruder also started working there in 1942. Their style was considered more whimsical, with vertical text and merging the text and image together such as in the Giselle poster (below).

Hoffman (1959) Giselle poster

Max Huber

Max Huber was born in Switzerland in 1919 (died 1992). He was educated in Switzerland and practised graphic design from 1942-1980.

Huber was education at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts from the age of 17. He was encouraged to study the work of Tschichold, abstract art and Constructivism. Hi work at this time was very much the Swiss style - grid based, flush left ragged right, sans serif type and clear hierarchy.

Huber (1957) book cover, Einaudi

After completing a graphic design apprenticeship, at the age of 21 Huber moved to Milan in 1940 where he worked with Antonio Boggeri. It was here Huber collaborated with a vibrant group of painters, photographers, illustators and designers and the event-garde. 

During WW2 he went back to Switzerland where he worked with the Alliance (a group of modern artists). 

After the war, in Milan again, working with Einaudi, Huber's career took off. Huber believed that design had the power to resolve the tragedy of war and restore human values, an idea which was popular in 1950s Europe. 

Huber was always a freelancer who enjoyed working directly with clients. He collaborated with the Castiglione brothers and spent much of his time with the left-wing artists and creatives based there. His poster of the Monza Grand Prix won first prize (one of those below - it is not clear which).

Huber (1957) 500 Miglia di Monza poster

Huber (1968) 1000 km di Monza

His graphic design style combined painting and photographic and he was of the avant-garde style. He was heavily influenced by Bayer and Moholy-Nagy and their utopian vision. He often mixed strips of colour with flat photography to connotate speed and dynamism. He used bold shapes and primary colours. 

Huber (1951) advertisement for store

Huber was often seen as the fashionable link to Italy, and as a major protagonist of the Swiss style, he was in demand to give talks and lectures worldwide.  He married a Japanese woman and spent time living in Japan. 

Huber enjoyed the ideals of Futurism, which were apparent in his sports posters, such as for Monza (above).

He was known for his book covers and jazz record covers, but his legacy will be in the logo design for La Rinascente department store (1950), Coin clothing (1955) and Esselunga in 1958.

Huber (NK) logo for la Rinascente

Huber (1960) ad for Esselunga

References

Eskilson, S (2012) Graphic Design History

http://www.howdesign.com/featured/international-typographic-style-brief-history/

http://www.domusweb.it/en/design/2010/02/16/max-huber-maxieland-jazz-.html

http://uk.phaidon.com/store/design/max-huber-9780714861104/

http://www.iconofgraphics.com/Max-Huber/
http://www.esselunga.it/cms/azienda/storia.html