the big ideakelly ludwig, assistant professor kcai graphic design department

(excerpted from “Visualising Information for Advocacy” by tacticaltech.org & informationactivism.org)

the big idea

1. Examine

2. Understand

3. Ideate (brainstorming, thumbnails, prototyping)

4. Experiment

5. Distill/Implement

design process

Brainstorm the big picture • Have lots of ideas, good and bad. • Don’t stop at the obvious or impossible • It flows naturally from the understanding phase • Goals and needs to work from

03 Ideate

Now that you have begun your data, it is time to begin to brainstorm the Big Idea.

coming up with an idea

immersion

Ask “why?” often.

Make a long list of questions and answers • Are we addressing the right problem? • Are we asking the right questions? • Do we have evidence?

There is no better way to assess a problem or find a starting point. This is when ideas are generated.

Immerse yourself in the problem. We always start with a lot of ideas, info, data, research, opinions, initial ideas and hope we can come up with something different and better.

look for Clues

• Explore why something useful is missing • Explore the history of the issue • Be playful • Find unexpected ways of connecting and reconnecting

different facts • Talk to others about the project

Sharing thoughts with someone unfamiliar with the project will force you to simply your ideas and perhaps bring new inspiration

help people get the idea

What are the reasons people are not talking about or acting on an issue?

What context, symbols or situations can be used to visualize the issue?

What is the first key singular reaction you want the audience to have? What is the second?

help people get the idea

Where will the visual be presented? (in real or virtual space)?

Who besides the target audience will see the visual?

help people get the idea

How can we change the concept of the problem and attract new audiences?

How can our visual open up debate, controversy or curiosity rather than reinforcing a single answer or perspective?

what can go wrong?

Visual cliches.

Stark realities.

visual cliches - think the sarah song for the cruelty to animals.

There is a difference between helping people get the idea and grabbing attention without offering useful or insightful information,

visualizing the idea

By now you should have some sting ideas or concepts

• look for metaphors to frame the problem in a compelling way (remember modes of appeal?) • begin your initial sketches • A key characteristic of campaigns that help audiences get the idea is the dominance of visual techniques

juxtapose

Children Of The World (India) Trust: Shadow Adopt a child. Advertising Agency: Euro RSCG, Mumbai, IndiaCreative Directors: Nilesh NaikArt Director: Tulika TagoreCopywriter: Nilesh NaikPhotographer: Avadhut Hembade

Visual comparison or equivalence allows us as designers to show similarities to shed new light, just like analogies and metaphors in the written word. This can help people understand a problem that is difficult to grasp.

visual metaphor

Largest Bankruptcies in History. GOOD Magazine / Aways with Honor. 2009. Source.

Here, the designer has used the image of a sinking ship to give a second layer of meaning to the graphic. Instead of just using a bar chart to show the biggest bankruptcies, they have represented the bars as ships, evoking the saying 'to leave a sinking ship’.

The designs are intentionally self-sufficient, requiring no further reading. While the purpose of infographics is often to visualize numerical patterns and evidence.

subvert

Meet the World - China. Grande Raportagem. Created by Icaro Doria. Source.

Many objects, symbols and places have certain social conventions associated with them, or have become iconic. Meet the World used international flags in unexpected ways to subvert meanings.

subvert

Meet the World - China. Grande Raportagem. Created by Icaro Doria. Source.

The idea happened almost accidentally. The designer, Icaro Doria was working at an ad agency on a Portuguese news magazine account, and was flipping through the magazine, trying to make sense of it. He saw an article, with a picture a flag right next to some data. He couldn’t help but notice that the data was very similar to the graphic details of the flag.

So he began looking for more patterns and proportional details

subvert

Meet the World - Somalia. Grande Raportagem. Created by Icaro Doria. Source.

“The flags play with people’s pride. You take a symbol of national pride and identity and show an aspect that people are not proud of. It really works.”

Subversion works because it shows viewers something they recognize and then flips their expectations.

invert

Childrens' Map of the World.      Save the Children Sweden. 2009.

This campaign by Save the Children depicts an atlas-style map with strange omissions. Showing only the countries that have protected children’s rights by making corporal punishment a crime.

Instead of highlighting the countries without such laws, their removal from a traditional atlas creates an image that is disorienting to the viewer. Less is more technique can be more effective by using minimalism and difference to tweak curiosity.

compare

Middle East: Who Backs Immediate Ceasefire? The Independent. 2006.

This info-graphic, shows the flags of those countries that voted in 2006 for a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, and those that voted against.

The designer has used two effective, complementary design techniques. The first is the use of flags to represent the countries. The flags are equal in size and shape, unlike in maps, for examples, where the differences in size create a visual inequity. The second technique is the use of space to compare the positions of each country. The dramatic contrast between left and right, for and against a ceasefire highlights the alignment of interests. Overall, it shows how a tiny minority stand out from the great majority and hints at the power imbalance that really exists. By visually translating political positions into spatial positions and comparing them, the audience is invited to consider the facts and to raise their own questions.

contrast

Function. Kamal Makloufi. 2010.

Civilians and military personnel killed in military engagements involving coalition forces in the Iraq war between 2004 and the end of 2009

Legend: Dark Blue = 'Friendly troops' Turquoise  = Host nation troops Orange = Iraqi Civilians Dark Grey = 'Enemies'

Do you remember de-fragmenting a computer hard drive?

'Function' shows data from the US military 'SigActs' database which was made public by Wikileaks. The image on the right side shows deaths as they happened over time. The result is a confusing mess of color. The clearer image on the left, that looks like an abstract painting, presents the same data. This time it is grouped by the characteristics of those killed revealing precisely what the other one conceals: a simple truth that civilian deaths massively outweigh military ones. Neither image would work as well on their own, but the difference between them allows people to contrast two narratives about the Iraq war.

Humor

Is this yours? Greenpeace. 2007. Photograph by Alex Hofford.

It is hard to get it right, but when we contextualize humor and hone it for the audience it can be a really effective technique.

Humor is commonly used in campaigning to try and get a point across quickly, to engage people and to encourage people to pass things on to others. Humor also comes in many different forms, such as wit, parody and irony. 

recap

Visualization can turn complex ideas into something the viewer can relate to by creating a bridge between the problem and the audience.

1. creating the bridge between the problem and the audience

2.

• Visualising Information for Advocacy, tacticaltech.org • Designing for Social Change, Andrew Shea • informationactivism.org