Contents
1.Designers are not scientists
2.Good infographics are about more than good facts
3.A completely unscientific taxonomy of facts
4.Inspirational Infographics
5.Good designers worth working with
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Designers are not scientists
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They won't understand half of the content you send them
As communicators of science, we need to take the data which are scientists
give us and translate it for the designers
• Lots of fiddly little things you need to be responsible for:
1. Clearly identify scientific units and population sizes
2. Ensure units are consistent (Gt and Mt)
3. Ensure sourcing is consistent
4. Ensure data label requirements are clearly outlined
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Good infographics are about more
than the facts
•
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They are about a story
The message is as important as the fact
Representing the message visually requires good communication cues
Examples:
Facts
Message
Visual Cues
Bacterial growth rates
approximately double
with every 10 °C rise in
temperature above 10 °C
Climate change will affect
food safety
Spoilt food
Agriculture contributes
some 56% of global nonCO2 greenhouse gas
emissions
Agriculture is the largest
contributor of non-CO2
emissions
Cows
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Sample template for briefing designer
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A completely unscientific and
incomplete taxonomy of facts
•
Qualitative statements
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One big number – percentage or absolute frequency:
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Agriculture emits 5 billion tonnes of CO2 every year
To meet global food demand in 2050, agricultural production must be 60% higher by weight than in 2005.
Percentage of a population facts:
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Due to droughts, trees are becoming more vulnerable to higher mortality rates
Agriculture contributes some 56% of global non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions
Changes in absolute frequencies – univariate or multivariate
•
The current population is 7.2 billion. In 2050 it is going to be 9.6 billion. In 2100 the total population is 10.9
billion.
•
Causal Relationships
•
If women had the same access to productive resources as men, they could increase yields on their farms by
20–30%. This could raise total agricultural output in developing countries by 2.5–4%, which could in turn
reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 12–17%.
Different facts lend themselves to different infographics and impose limits as
to what designers can do
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Qualitative statements
Tips and Tricks:
• These are hard to make look scientific
•Need to brief the designers with very strong visual cues
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Big numbers as absolute frequencies
Tips and Tricks:
• There are not many options with facts like this.
• You only have one fact and don’t have the population size it belongs to.
• BLOW THE NUMBER UP: make sure to get the balance of text to numbers to
pictures right
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Big numbers as absolute frequencies
Tips and Tricks:
• You only have the percentage change figure
•Scientists often think they’ve given you more
detail than they have
•No absolute frequencies mean no data labels
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Percentage of a population facts as
infographics
Box Charts
Focus on Numbers
Pie Charts
Tips and Tricks:
•Can use really simple charts
•Think of every chart as a stand-alone piece, is all the data on their if people
want to use it in a presentation?
•Do you want to include frequency numbers of population sizes on charts as
well as percentages?
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Comparative data – one variable across
different region/ populations/time etc
Tips and Tricks:
•Lots of options for charts – this is what scientists tend to be after
• Keep simple and add a clarifying qualitative statements
•Think about data labels, scientific units, etc
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Comparative data – different variables
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Causal relationships
Flow-charts with icons
Traditional Flow-Chart
Flow chart with icons
and data
These can be tricky for designers and require the most oversight and
direction. We normally sketch a traditional flow chart and write down the data
labels and text that need to be added
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Example concept sketch for a causal
relationship infographic
About a third of all food produced is lost in the food supply chain
100% of food supply
agriculture
Food Supply
66.6 % of food supply
Storage
Transpo
rt
40%
Possess
ing
of food losses
in low-income countries
occur at storage, transport
and processing levels
Retail
Consum
er
40%
of food
losses in high-income
countries occur at
retail and consumer
levels
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Links to Inspirational Infographics
Inspirational Narrative Infographics
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The World Bank’s Infographic Series:
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/06/19/Infographic-Climate-Change-in-Sub-Saharan-Africa-South-Asia-Sou
East-Asia?cid=EXT_TWBN_D_EXT
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Netherlands Global C02: http://infographics.pbl.nl/website/globalco2/
The Institute of International and European Affairs Waste Not Want Not Series:
http://www.iiea.com/blogosphere/waste-not-want-not-the-problem-of-food-waste
Greenpeace Save the Arctic:
http://columnfivemedia.com/work-items/greenpeace-infographic-save-the-arctic-tour/
Inspirational Dynamic Visualizations
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U.S. Gun Deaths Data Visualisation: http://guns.periscopic.com/?year=2013
Inspirational Visualizations that represent multiple variables cleanly and simply:
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Fathom’s Health Visualisation: http://fathom.info/healthviz
Fathom’s Ageing Visulisation: http://fathom.info/aging
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Links to Good Designers
Infographics:
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Column Five - http://www.columnfivemedia.com/
Speak to Jake Burkett, jburkett@columnfivemedia.com & Travis Keith,
tkeith@columnfivemedia.com
Data visualisation:
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http://fathom.info/about
http://www.periscopic.com/
http://developmentseed.org/
Free sources to construct your own:
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http://www.tableausoftware.com/public
http://infogr.am/
Infographic library:
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http://visual.ly/ - do not recommend their paid-for infographic development service but they host a
library of infographics, similar to Flickr which I recommend you upload your infographics too
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