Week 11: Information Graphics

1)     Look at the following information graphic broken down into a series of 4 images and answer the following questions:

The original photograph is called “Skull with cigarette, 2007” by Chris Jordan. It has a caption below the photogtaphs which reads: “Depicts 200,000 packs of cigarettes, equal to the number of Americans who die from cigarette smoking every six months”. Why didn’t the photographer just present the information in numbers? Why explain the statistics in graphical form?

“My graphics have a good story to tell, and the art of designing a good graphic is the art of telling a good story.” (Ryan & Conover, 2004, p.216)

“Visual communication relies both on eyes that function and on brain that makes sense of all the sensory information received” (Lester, 2006, p.1). Therefore, in order to convey a message, it is better to use visual aids. Barnard (2005), states that “‘Kalman says that graphics is a means of communication’.” So, the use of the skull graphic is acceptable in order to communicate with the audiences. According to Barnard (2005, p.153), “Graphic design is the production of the texts, imagery, and information that are communicated by the media and those texts, images and information graphics are undoubtedly both ideological and political. Story without a narrative is just incomplete. This is due to the hanging story which then create questions to the audiences. According to Lester (2006), the images which are combined with words are seen as more meaningful and powerful.

In the photo above, it shows the image of a skull. The image of the skull is actually an illustration of the graph which shows “Depicts 200,000 packs of cigarettes, equal to the number of Americans who die from cigarette smoking every six months”. The photographer tends to use this type of information graphic is probably because he/she wants to make the viewer of the image understand and also remember the image.

According to Barnard (2005, p.19), “Graphic design is the production of the texts, images and information graphics.”  Lester (2006), states that the information graphics “educates the producers and consumers in the ways that data and images can be combined to communicate complicated information quickly and memorably.” This shows that by using the data and images, both of them can make the audience understand the message quickly, thus they will remember the message conveyed from the data and image.

The photographer above uses the skull image to represent the smokers who will eventually die because of smoking. He also included the different types of ciggarets in the photo. The purpose of the image is to inform and also remind the audiences about smoking that will cause death. According to Lester, (p.198), “Charts (graphs) were invented to display numerical information cocisely and comprehensibly and to show trends in the data that a reader might overlook in a verbal format.” However, the photographer above tends to choose to use data and images together to perform a powerful message to the audience.

“The best info graphic designs “draw the viewer into the wonder of the data”.” (Lester, 2006, p.197). This means that when an info graphic design attracts the viewer’s attention, that graphic design is the most powerful data conveyed. According to Ryan and Conover (2004, p.225), “The best illustration – whether it’s portraiture, editorial, or information graphics – starts with a good research.” This means that, in order to show an illustration by using information graphics, the photographer must have done a good research about the data.

As a conclusion, the photographer tends to convey the information by using the image of a skull is because he aims to let people know and also remember that smoking will cause death. According to Harris, (1999, p.204), “Legends are often critical to the understanding of a chart because they frequently contain information necessary for decoding the data graphics. The three major functions of legends are:

1.    To identify what the data graphics represent.

2.   To medicate certain characteristics of the thing represented.

3.   The quantitative information is encoded to enable the viewer to estimate the values that individual data graphics represented.”

Therefore, images with data is a better way to convey messages to the audiences.

References

Barnard, M., (2005), Graphic Design As Communication, p. 18-19, Routledge, USA and Canada.

Harris Jr., R. L., (1999), Information graphics: A comprehensive illustrated reference, p. 204, Oxford University Press, Inc., New York, USA.

Lester, P.M., (4th ed.)., (2006), Visual Communication: Images with messages, p.1-187, Cencage Learning, USA

Ryan, W. E., & Conover, T. E., (2004), (4^th ed.). Graphic Communications Today, p. 216-225, Cencage Learning, USA