Bin Laden's bunker in Tora Bora

When we talk about bad practices in infographics somo of us use to draw one clear example in our brains. The biggest example of plagiarism, absolute lack of rigor and the most 'creative' infographic in the last years. Here you are Bin Laden's bunker in Tora Bora

Photo: mstrmnd.com

I don't know where was it published in Spain, not even if this one is an actual graphic published in media, but there were not just one, but some newspaper in Spain and around the world which published an exact copy of this graphic. Even with the same words. I don't know also which one was the first newspaper publishing it. But, what I think it's clear, is that nobody went into the bunker to get the data, neither had a secret document from the army with the blueprints.

What I remember clearly is that I was staff at Malofiej that year. And there were four entries with the very same graphic. Same drawing, with little changes. Same words just translated sometimes. One of those graphics that someone invented and started spreading internationally.

Share

Data + design. You don't need more to build a great graphic

Great graphic by The Guardian showing the wages of the different people who got paid from the public money. From the Queen to the teachers.. No 3d, no animation, no GIS: color code, sizes by ammountand a put them in order. And, the main thing, very good data.

Graphic: What we pay them



Share

Circles, circles, circles...

That is the topic of the second volume of Visualisation Magazine, an issue that would mean a declaration of war to Alberto Cairo :-)

Take a look





Share

Big Boston Warm Up

Maybe it's just an sthetic exercise with a very good excuse: a campaign to donate coats for homeless people. But what a aesthetic exercise! They explain with simple but,a t the same time, ellaborated graphics (the concept is simple but the drawing it's not just iconic). It's a good cause and a beautiful site... so, this time, I won't be the usual boring professional complaining about 'less is more' and those kind of things... enjoy bigwarmup.com!

Share

Tomas Ondarra, on the media crisis

Image from Imagen Vasca

Another of the conferences of the World Summit of Press Design in Córdoba was Tomás Ondarra, graphics editor at El País, the most important spanish newspaper. He talked about the media crisis nad, particularly, the crisis of infographics.

I just took note of the main ideas, so these are not quotes, just ideas:

• Our newspapers are going down... and it looks as if we don't care

• In the firsts days of the free newspapers everybody said that they were the futuro and the traditional media were about to dead. And lokk what happened with the free press

  Note: In Spain, the crisis is hitting much harder the free press than the traditional paid media.

• Soitu (a spanish just-online news site) closed some days ago. and its director, Sindo, had always talked about the end of the print media. But the crisis is something that is affecting everybody, not just print media.

• Which are the differences between print and online? The constant updating? The online media do not update everything...

• Is the animated graphic the modern way? They move too much, they come late and many are jut encyclopedics, or better said, 'wikipedics'

• We don't care about the news of the day nowadays. We just go for the big ones, for those that could be awarded

• We use many times a bigg illustration with the data on the side. But we do it on the sports pages. We don't do it in the economy section. If the formula doesn't work on both, it means that that isn't a good way of doing things.

• Now, with The New York Times style ruling, the infoilustration is over. The new multimedia graphics don't have to look for animation, but for interactivity.

• There are many news infographics gurus, but they don't work in newsrooms. And there are no infographics subjects in the spanish universities.

• I don't send works to the awards, I just do it if my department or my director ask me to do so. The first Peter Sullivan Award (the top award at Malofiej) was given to Time Magazine, for a graphic they copied for The New York Times. These years, Jaume Serra was revolutioning infographics. And he never got a Peter Sullivan.

• If you got friends in the jury, is easy not to lose. They don't look at the sources or the dates. They look to the big things, the beautiful. If Sullivan came out of the grave, they would forbid the awards.

Share

Jaume Serra: art, infographics and philosophy

The VI World Summit of Press Design of Córdoba have just finished.
One of thest conferences was teh one by Jaime Serra, the man who reinvented infographics when he ruled the infographics department of Clarin in the 90's. Philosophy, art, infographics... All together. A conference that you may have seen if you were at the last SND summit of Buenos Aires.

Sorry, but the videos are in spanish!

He shared some data of his private life and thoughts and made visualizations about it. As he describes it:

"Two useless works of information graphics -or the closest to art I’ve ever pictured in my mind:

1. Dorme bem, perdição (1999-2000)

2. Sexual life of a stable couple (1990-2009)"

Quoting would be useless, I can just tell you some of the ' visual experiments':

- Comparing searches in Google of some words

- Tracking the sexual activity of three couples during a year

- Tracking on a map each time he smoked during a trip

- Visualizing all the SMS sent by a couple meanwhile they travel separated around Europe

How he did it exactly ... I won't tell. You have some clues on the videos. Just be sure to attend to any of his conferences if you can.

Share

Infographics: a twitter list

For all those that could be interested, I made oine of those new Twitter lists with people who talks about infographics (or are just great professionals on it, and although they don't talk too much about it, it worths to follow them just in case...). The name is very very original: infographics.
I'm sure I'm forgetting many follow-worthy people, so suggestions are wellcomed...

Update:
Glauco Lara, and thanks to @_jkeane, also Guardian Datastore, Vizeds (how could I forget this?) and Information is Beautiful

Share

Flash graphics on iPhone... not yet

Vía The Inquirer

Is The New York Times an innovative newspaper?

Just click on the image and take a look to the showcase...