I haven’t posted anything for a very long time. And I could explain why, but it’s beyond boring.
Anyway, this blog (somehow) still gets a good number of views.
This question will probably change the course of human history, but it has to be asked: Which posts have been viewed the most?
GEMS FROM MICHAEL STOLL’S INFORMATION DESIGN COLLECTION.
I’ve posted a number of times about Michael Stoll’s outstanding, and ever-growing, information design collection.
(Several links are at the foot of this page.)
These examples are from two twentieth-century books that were included in a presentation that Michael gave recently to one of my classes. The joy of making infographics comes shining through.
Above and below, NATURE CROSS-SECTIONS by Richard Orr, 1995.
Michael Stoll: “The visual blocks act like paragraphs of text. The information is divided up and easy to explore in this block-by-block format, but is still connected through style and content.”
MAN’S REACH INTO SPACE by Roy A. Gallant. Illustrated by Lee J. Ames, 1959.
Michael Stoll: ”The vivid colors and color contrasts, plus the extreme perspective views and clear layout, support understanding of these complex topics. I’m sure that the American people’s high level of knowledge about all things related to the Space Race contributed to the pure excitement back then.”
PREVIOUS POSTS ABOUT ITEMS IN MICHAEL’S COLLECTION (Yes, it includes a 1965 Cadillac.)
This newly-published book is written from the perspective of a designer who works nearly exclusively with scientific content. It’s aimed at a broad audience of students, scientists, science communicators, and fellow designers.
In Jen’s words: “The book reflects what I’ve learned from collaborating with scientists and artists while creating science graphics for Scientific American, National Geographic, and textbook publishers for over 25 years. It’s a practical guide for anyone interested in creating static scientific illustrated explanatory diagrams.”
There’s more information about the book, including the table of contents and a list of “More to Explore” links (for those who want to dive into specific themes in more depth) at BuildingScienceGraphics.com.
The heart of the book is composed of two step-by-step graphical worksheets, developed to walk both novice and experienced designers through the process of conceptualizing and building a science graphic. Here’s the first spread from one of them.
Click on the image for a larger version.
Below, more example spreads from the book.
Close to home A graphic of mine with insightful comments by Jen. Click on the image for a larger version.
The AK Peters Visualization Series editors are Alberto Cairo and Tamara Munzner.
Nigel Holmes is a brilliant designer of infographics, but it’s his inherently human approach that makes his work so effective. It’s as if a friend is guiding us through the information. Indeed, many of Nigel’s graphics contain illustrated people pointing out, or discussing, key details.
Obviously, there are various degrees of warmth and humor that can be applied to visual communication, and where we position the fun dial depends greatly on the type of information and the intended audience, a point that Nigel clearly makes in this book. I know one thing for certain: In a sometimes cold and alienating world of infographics, there’s plenty of room for the Nigel Holmes approach.
Humor post
A previous (and much-viewed) post by Nigel about the use of humor in infographics: https://wp.me/p7LiLW-iZ
From the book
Below, a typical Nigel Holmes graphic: solid information, engaging presentation. For Attaché magazine.
Nine (or ten) chapters On one level this is an infographic autobiography. We find out why Nigel thinks about graphics the way he does. The influences, the development of his approach. It’s also a seminal book on how to add warmth to our work.
Here’s the list of contents which, by the way, uses numbers inspired by those on British raffle tickets from long ago.
More examples Nigel calls the people commenting at the bottom of the graphic, “the Greek chorus.”
For Attaché magazine.
A size comparison of eaten birds for Taschen’s “Food and Drink Infographics.”
How the book began Nigel explains: “Alberto Cairo*, my editor, came up with both the idea for the book and the title. I was initially concerned that my work, and the way I would write about it, might not be a good fit for an academic publisher. But Alberto assured me that I should just go ahead and write it the way I wanted to, and that the publisher wasn’t expecting a textbook. The more I wrote, the less like an academic book it became. I wondered if it was too much like a memoir—even further away from the kind of book that the publishers typically produced. But they said I’d been around long enough in the field to be a little indulgent about my infographic influences and early life.”
Below, an early (1967) illustration for the Observer Magazine.
Steeplechase obstacles for the Radio Times (1972).
Designing for an audience
Matching the approach to the people viewing the explanation is crucial.
This Attaché magazine graphic is intended for casual readers as opposed to car enthusiasts.
Icons, icons, icons
Nigel has made a crazy number of icons during his long career.
Here’s a complete set for the Billion People Project. And how they look in use.
For a recycling feature in Stanford magazine.
Yoga sun salutation. Unpublished.
For Smithfield Farms.
Big metrics
Nigel has often tackled the task of explaining large (and frequently misunderstood) numbers and distances.
This size-of-money explanation was made for a presentation.
How far to the nearest star? From the Radio Times, 1974.
Wait for the hardback
A note from Nigel: “If you’re tempted to buy the hardback version, don’t do that yet; the publisher made a mistake and applied their generic book cover, not the custom yellow one you see on various sites. The problem will be fixed in a few weeks. Meanwhile, the paperback is fine (and costs about a quarter of the hardback price!)”
* Alberto Cairo is the Knight Chair in Visual Journalism at the School of Visual Communication of the University of Miami. He’s the author of three infographic/data visualization books, and he’s working on a fourth.
James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti’s latest book doesn’t follow the traditional idea of an atlas that depicts visible geographical features. This collection of maps, developed using large datasets, reveals hidden patterns that tell a specific story.
The U.S. and U.K. editions are available here: https://www.atlasoftheinvisible.com
Below, boundaries based on commuting.
Names by continent.
Glacial movement.
The world’s oceans connected.
MAKING DATA-DRIVEN MAPS I asked Oliver and James about the way the ideas were developed. This is very much a geographer (James) and designer (Oliver) collaboration, from ideas to initial plots, back and forth (through GitHub) looking for a strong story before moving towards the final visuals. They describe this sequence as “topic/data/angle/form.” It’s a rigorous process: around 50% of the initial ideas for the Atlas didn’t make it into the book. Overall, they’re trying to avoid being too generalist, and instead hone in on a focused narrative. A clear primary takeaway, followed by secondary and tertiary information.
Here’s the process for two aircraft-related maps that had different developmental approaches. Carbon Overhead is a visualization that evolved toward greater simplicity, Bombshell Reports was more about wrangling added complexity. In both cases, the formal choices were in response to the angles Oliver and James had chosen for each topic.
An editor’s note here about the importance of words: In both the examples below, and throughout the book, the use of carefully-crafted text (written by the authors) introduces and supports the graphics.
CARBON OVERHEAD TOPIC: Flight data
ANGLE: Choosing to fly is one of the most carbon-intensive choices an individual can make.
The carbon idea was originally inspired by this graphic from one of their previous books, “London: The Information Capital.” Incoming flights to London’s airports were colored by their continent of origin.
The first step for the new graphic was to see what the flight data looked like plotted across all of Europe. In this complex tangle of lines, blue indicates low altitude where planes take off and land.
Next, James began to clean the data, while Oliver dropped a recolored plot into a layout to begin thinking about the overall spread design. (It was not ideal to have the book’s gutter bisecting the continent.)
Note that they don’t wait until the end of a project to put things into a layout. They test layouts early: 1) to ensure the exports will work on the page, and 2) because when they don’t, that discovery often informs new approaches.
Oliver began to explore whether a celestial color palette might better suit the density of lines at different altitude levels.
Ultimately, they realized that for a story about the impact of airplane emissions, it was clearer and more appropriate to reduce the color scheme to black lines only. Oliver shifted the text to a righthand panel to allow the gutter to fall in a less intrusive area. A locator map orients readers since James and Oliver chose to keep labels off the main image, which resembles a charcoal drawing.
BOMBSHELL REPORTS
TOPIC: Declassified data on the secret bombing of Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam War, plus the largest bombardment in military history (Khe Sanh).
ANGLE: Knowing where bombs fell helps nonprofit groups locate and defuse these lethal remnants of war.
Here, Oliver was using James’s initial exports to block out how a three-part story might be arranged across multiple pages: a) bombing in a region; b) bombing in one country; c) bombing in one particular battle.
More-developed rough spreads: On the Cambodia map, data is colored by year. On the Operation Niagara map, data is sorted by aircraft type and colored by month. Oliver and James realized that there was too much going on.
At this point, the basemaps were being revised to show Cambodia and South Vietnam’s roads, rivers, railways and urban areas in 1975. On the Khe Sanh map (below), the elevation and vegetation basemap were recolored to reduce visual noise.
For the Operation Niagara map, Oliver needed a place to put the text, captions and locator map. Then he remembered a map James once showed him by Emma Willard (1836, from the David Rumsey Map Collection) that isolates a geographic area through a gap in the clouds.
The final pages (below) have a right-hand gatefold. The data on the Cambodia map was regrouped and recolorized into three missions instead of five years. James and Oliver also did away with graduated quantities in favor of targets. That made it easier to see the change when Nixon ordered bombings—illegally— across the border in Cambodia. On the Khe Sanh map, all B-52 bombs were grouped together, and the month-by-month color coding was reserved for fighter bomber sorties only. For greater clarity, the bombs-dropped quantities in the key were regrouped from four bins to three.
The authors James Cheshire is a Professor of Geographic Information and Cartography at University College London. https://jcheshire.com
Oliver Uberti is a freelance map and infographic creator, and a former senior design editor for National Geographic. https://www.oliveruberti.com
A NEW SHOW EXPLAINS HOW SEVERAL OF HIS INFOGRAPHIC MASTERPIECES WERE MADE.
The first post about Fernando’s process (in February) featured the story behind his National Geographic sabertooth project: https://wp.me/p7LiLW-3iR
It also previewed an exhibition (then under construction) that provides a comprehensive look, for the first time, at the development of Fernando’s Nat Geo infographics for print and digital.
The team behind the show Nina Krug (above), an Augsburg University B.A. student, was responsible for the concept, layout and design.
Professor Michael Stoll, Augsburg University
Professor Roland Hauscheer, Lucerne University
Dr. Aiko Onken, Adobe
Me… I was involved with the text side of the project, which was a great opportunity to study all the elements of this insightful show.
And, obviously, a huge contribution was made by Fernando put all this together.
Adobe Max 2021 Fernando and Michael are speaking about the exhibition at the free virtual conference next week.
They are both in these two sessions: https://adobe.ly/3G0kFgJ
Register here: https://max.adobe.com/emea/
This four-page sabertooth feature appeared in the December issue of National Geographic Magazine. As with many of Fernando’s projects, the presentation was rethought for the online, animated version. Click on the image for a larger version.
Fernando takes us through the development of the project, from initial idea to finished version.
I’m always looking for ideas for graphics, and usually these are topics that I’m really interested in. I love the sabertooth, it’s such an iconic cat. I read about a huge skull that was discovered in Uruguay, the largest one found so far, which is from a species called Smilodon populator. This mega-cat weighed almost twice as much as a modern lion, around 960 lbs (408 kg). So I proposed this idea to the creative director and the director of the front section of the magazine, and it was approved. Below, the skull.
Photograph: Aldo Manzuetti
We hired Patricia Healy as the researcher, and started to compile the information and develop the presentation. I decided on a design over a total of four pages: a single page and a three-page gatefold. The first page would be a hunting scene showing that these cats hunted large prey like the Giant sloth. However, the experts later recommended another large species to represent the prey, Macrauchenia patachonica, which is related to even-toed ungulates. It looked like a mixture of horse, camel and tapir.
For the three gatefold pages, I thought that a comparison between the mega-cat and the modern lion would tell the reader a lot. Lions are very powerful, but when you compare bones and muscles in both species, it’s clear why the Smilodon populator was such a phenomenal predator.
Elements shown at actual size are often included in my graphics. It’s something that can only be done in a print format. In this case, the skull of the Smilodon is in the background along with a lion’s tooth. Other secondary elements add different layers of information. I spent a lot of time on the layout, trying to organize the information in a way that is easy to read.
Preliminary versions I made three main rough drafts and decided to refine the third one. Patricia Edmonds wrote the text, which involved a complicated back-and-forth discussion with the experts.
Expert advice We worked with nine experts to be sure that we had the most accurate information, which is sometimes very specific. We used one expert just for the size and weight of the human of that period, and another for the lion’s tooth. Patricia Healey spent around 100 hours researching the project. There were hundreds of emails.
Below are the answers to our questions from just two of those experts. Color-coded by Patricia.
We determined the overall size of this saber-toothed cat (the biggest discovered so far), by using the skull that an expert found in Uruguay, and the skeleton provided by another expert. The overall size of the Smilodon was calculated by extrapolating the skull to an average skeleton. We adjusted the angle of the legs to match this size. (The sabertooth hind limb has a lower angle, like it’s flexed. The hind limbs being lower than the forelimbs is a factor in the back sloping like a hyena’s. In the case of runners, like lions or cheetahs, the angle of the hind limbs is higher, leading to a more erect pose. This is one of the reasons why experts think the sabertooth wasn’t a very good runner.) Both of our experts approved this revised skeleton.
Building an accurate model When I was finally satisfied with the design and the information, I started to create a model to help me to figure out light and texture for the illustrations. The final pose was sketched using the measurements from the approved skeleton.
Aluminum wire matches the proportions of the skeleton.
Aluminum foil covering the wire to help support the polymer clay, and to keep the model lighter.
I started to work on the muscles using references from books that had been approved by the experts.
Refining the details and the pose. I constantly checked the measurements against my references. Sometimes I needed to remove a section and start again. In this version, the neck and forelimb wasn’t correct, so I removed them and made the adjustments.
Final model. Glass eyes added, and for the whiskers, some bristles from a brush. We used this model for the animation.
Model rotation. Click on the image to see the video.
Sculpting the model.
The materials and tools used.
The illustrations I made several drawings, from initial sketches to more refined pencil drawings.
Usually I start an illustration with a pencil layer on top of a painted background, and color is added with Photoshop. My model was the reference for lighting and volume. And some textures from the model were used for the Smilodon’s back. I like using this kind of the effect because it’s irregular, from the strokes of the tools, and not super-realistic,
Animation Our animation was designed to work primarily in Instagram for mobile with chapters, in a vertical format. I made the first storyboard and script to determine the information that we would include, and worked with Monica Serrano to plan the animations and transitions. Monica is an expert in After Effects, which she uses to animate, to add all kinds of special effects like atmosphere, and to hide mistakes or wires when we use puppets. There are three styles in the animation: models, two-dimensional illustrations and cave painting details. In the two-dimensional style, we have movements like a mouth opening, or the sabertooth hunting or walking. These things are very difficult to do with models. The models don’t have a lot of movement, and the main movement comes from the camera. Usually there are several layers in the background that give the feeling of movement. We used the three styles throughout the animation to unify the style of the video, and tried to blend the video narrative smoothly with the infographics. Below, the first storyboard. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Obviously, we are not Pixar or DreamWorks. We have around two months to produce an animation, while working other projects at the same time, so we need to organize the workflow carefully.
This kind of animation is a team effort. We need people to help us get a project completed. For example, Diana Marques worked on the vector animation of a saber-tooth hunting it’s prey. Christopher Turner worked on the lion and human walking. Cosima Amelang and Brian Gutierrez, from the video team, joined the project. Cosima was the video editor, and Brian was the narrator. Both worked from the initial script to make a cool narration. Oscar Santamarina gave us ideas during our meetings. We met several times, and little by little we refined the different parts of the video.
I started to make models and build sets in my apartment, which was not easy as it’s pretty small. The sets were in a corner of the living room.
For some of the scenes, I made sketches to find the best point of view.
Some of the principal models.
I made trees and bushes from real plants, and used a material that is intended for model railroad scenery for the small ones in the background.
Creativity is a big part of the animation process. My wife, Begoña, made the grass with bristles from cheap brushes. For another scene, I bought a doormat to use for the overhead view of the savanna.
We started to shoot scenes to give Monica time to add special effects using After Effects. Every scene has some of those effects to unify the project. At the same time, we made a mockup of the video where we could test how the visuals and narration worked together. Kevin Laba, a freelancer, provided the sounds, which were added in the last few days of production. We faked the perspective and positioned the camera so that it looked like there is a big landscape in the background. Here I’m working with Monica Serrano and Steven Loh on the first (and most complex) scene featuring the megafauna, the huge animals of the period.
Fernando Baptista Exhibition 2021 A comprehensive exhibition, which reveals the process behind several of Fernando’s projects, will be on show at various locations this year. The dates depend on the pandemic situation. The first venue will be Augsburg University of Applied Sciences (Germany), which put the show together in partnership with Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Art (Switzerland), which will be the next stop. The exhibition is sponsored by Adobe.
Editor’s note: I was very fortunate to be involved in the preparation of this exhibition. The show’s emphasis is not on the final, brilliant graphics, but on the way that they were created. It’s an in-depth look inside the mind of an infographic master.
There’s approximately 25,000 paper feathers in the model, and each one was fringed and scored by hand.
Work in progress
It took Lisa about three months to make the model, working three or four days a week on it. The skeleton is made of strong card, and there’s a wire that runs along the top of the wings to give necessary support. The eagle’s wingspan is 6.5 feet (2 meters).
This is my 250th post, over a period of four years and four months. (Including a five-month break after the pandemic took hold.)Back at the beginning, I posted twice a week, then once a week, then once a month (or less). I could keep following this trajectory, but once a year might be a little too infrequent. Basically, I’m surprised that I’ve had more than fifty ideas, and indeed many of the posts were suggestions from interested people. In some cases, they were completely put together by much-appreciated infographic friends. (Oh, if only I had more of those.)
Total visitors to date: 71,006. Total views: 119,253
Frédérik Ruys (an infographics friend) took this photo at his local sports center in Utrecht, the Netherlands. A multi-use floor can be a visual challenge when it has markings for korfball,* volleyball, badminton, baseball and soccer. Frederik says he can’t properly watch his children play korfball because of a color-vision condition that makes it difficult for him to separate the relevant set of court markings from the others.
(I suspect it could be quite hard work for me too.)
*A non-contact sport, similar to netball and basketball, but with four female and four male players in a team.
Testing Some example images from the well-known Ishihara 38-plate test (which was first published in 1917). The numbers in the circles are repeated at the bottom of this post.
You can take it, and other vision tests, here: https://www.color-blindness.com/color-blindness-tests/
Numbers and variants Around 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have a color-vision deficiency of some form. Approximately 300 million people worldwide are affected. So this is clearly a topic that all information designers should consider. Deuteranomaly is the most common type of red/green color deficiency, and is mild. Many people are not even aware they have this condition, unless they take one of the tests. This is the one that affects Frédérik.
Below, a TV test card seen through a color blindness simulator, which can be downloaded here: https://colororacle.org
First, the original image.
Protanopia: Relatively common.
Deuteranopia: Relatively common.
Tritanopia: Rare.
Achromatopsia: Extremely rare.
Eyewear EnChroma makes color-recognition-correcting glasses. I don’t have any information about how effective this technology is, but it’s an area worth investigating. https://enchroma.com
Resources Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop have built-in proofing for protanopia and deuteranopia available under View > Proof Setup > Color Blindness. And there are other online resources, like this: https://bit.ly/3eFML2a
Editor’s note: “Color blindness” could perhaps imply a complete lack of color recognition, so I’ve tried to avoid that term here, although it is still widely-used to describe color deficiency.
(The sample Ishihara test numbers are 12, 8, 5, 2, 26)
The model is obviously not to scale. The Earth would be tiny, and a huge distance from the Sun. This earlier post was about the scale of the Solar System: https://wp.me/p7LiLW-A8
Below, an image from Smith’s Illustrated Astronomy (1850) with an orrery in front of a diagram of the planets and their orbits.
This 1776 painting by Joseph Wright of Derby shows a lecturer discussing an orrery. There’s a lamp in place of the Sun.
A tellurion (or tellurium, or tellurian) shows the Sun and the Earth. This one was made in 1776.
It’s hell out there The planets look benign in planetary models, but in reality they’re hostile environments, to put it mildly. For example, Venus (shown below) has a toasty average temperature of 870°F (466°C), and Neptune is somewhat cold at -350°F (-212°C), plus it has brisk winds in excess of 1,200 mph (1,931 kph).
