learning from others

As I told you in my last post I think it is very important for graphic designers to study the work of others in order to get new input. I also already recommended the website visual.ly as it provides a lot of infographics on different topics from different designers.

When I was browsing the site again today I found an interesting infographic called "Obama's Campaign Spendings" which you can access directly here. I immediately knew that I have to present this graphic on my blog because I concider it very innovative. When I am creating an infographic I concentrate on using charts, icons and some images. My aim always is to reduce realism so the viewer of my graphs won't be distracted and can concentrate on the important facts. However, the main element of this infographic I found here is a real photo of a burger. I think it is a great approach to use the layers of the burger to describe the different amounts spended on Obama's campaign. The size of the different layers might not be 100% accurate, but the infographic still works as there are call-outs which give the various costs. Also the burger works as a symbol for America. As I already mentioned I normally try to avoid using those real pictues but in this case I think it fits perfectly! What do you think?

men vs. women - spending habits

As a graphic designer it is important to keep yourself up to date about new techniques and designs. I really like to study graphics of other designers to get a bigger picture of the infographic world and also to collect new ideas. This way I can adapt things I really like about the work of others and maybe include some features in my next graphics.

I found the following infographic which compares spending habits of women with spending habits of men on this interesting website. Besides the comparison of spending habits it also includes average income and the top five items men and women typically spend their money on.

I really like the fact how this infographic visualizes the comparison between men and women as a battle. There is a clear hierarchy which leads the user from the top of the graphic to the end. Also the images and colors are used very efficiently and always keep clear the contrast between men and women. This idea of "battle" and creating an intense contrast in order to compare two elements are new for me and I hope I can use them in one of my next infographics. What do you think about this work? Can you also still learn from studying the graphics of others?

the outcome of the catalonian elections 2012 as an infographic

On 25th of November 2012 the catalonian population voted a new parliament. Due to the fact that catalan president Artur Mas promised to bring out a referendum regarding the states independence from spain, the elections this time were more extremely emotionally loaded. After the results were announced there was a lot of discussion about the loss of the CiU party and the unconstitutional referendum. 

I worked on an infographic about the election's results and here I will present the result. As it is a political infographic I tried to keep it very neutral and simple. My focus was clearly on giving the most important information, which I concidered to be the general outcome and the elections turnout. 

optimizing visualization

It's been a while since my last post but I haven't been lazy in the meantime! I worked on an existing infographic I found on this website. My aim was to improve this infographic on aircraft movements in order to make it more efficient. As the images and symbols of the given graphic did not convey any meaning I tried to avoid them and simplify the general graphic, using typography to highlight important information.

What you see here is the existing infographic which was the basis of my work. The second infographic is the result of my optimization process.

visualizing the wold's meat consumption

Last week I have been working on an Infographic called "Meat Consumption per Capita - Do our eating habits really have an impact on the environment?" and I would like to show you the result in this post. My goal was to compare the average meat consumption (kg per person) with the CO2 emissions of each country. To be able to bring in the country's population as a third variable I decided to use a bubble chart. In order to express the development of meat consumption and CO2 emissions I focused on the year 1961 (the earliest data I found) and the year 2002 (the latest data I found).

What do you think about this infographic? I would love to hear your opinion as a comment!

the beginning of my work

In this post I would like to present you one of my very first infographics. It is called "From 6 to 8 billion - Will the world ever stop growing?" and visualizes the world's population growth from 2010 to 2030. The focus of the infographic lies on four countries: Brazil, China, Canada and Columbia. This way I want to show their contribution to the world's massive population growth. 

Please feel free to leave your feedback in the comments!