Category: Second Brief

For our brief, we had to make sure our infographic would fit an A2 page, a smartphone screen and a desktop.

To create my infographic, I started off by making it with A2 dimensions. This means the text can be smaller as if this infographic were to be printed, it would all be blown up to fit an A2 page. I also decided to make it a long, thin design (as long as an A2 page but thinner/in need of cropping) as a lot of infographics are a long, thin shape. I also added a bleed to this page as it has been designed to be printed. This is my A2 infographic:

For the phone layout, as well as shaping my infographic to the dimensions of a phone screen, I made the text bigger so that it is more legible from a smaller screen. I stuck to the long, thin, style, but just enlarged certain areas so that you can read it on a phone. To check it would work, I placed my phone against the screen and made my infographic the same size next to it to ensure I could read it. Here is my phone infographic:

For the final layout, I had to totally rethink my infographic. A desktop is landscape and my design had previously been portrait, so I had to create a new grid that would fit a landscape page. To make sure there was still hierarchy, I made the boxes to the left (where you start to read a page from) larger and the text bigger, and then made everything smaller as it goes across the page. I also used square boxes instead of rectangles to divide my information as it fits the page better. Luckily, as I already had a colour scheme at hand and all of the text available, this did not take too long to do. Here is my desktop layout:

Final tweaks will be made to these before I submit them, but for now I am happy with how they look and the progress that I have made.

I wanted to add some little, not necessarily noticeable details, to my infographic. Here are some examples:

I decided to add a curve to this box. This is because the fact above it is about ‘curvature’, and so I thought adding a curved bottom to the box would add to this fact, as well as make the box look more interesting.

This fact is about speed, and a way of portraying speed is often by using arrows. I then decided to change the shape of the box by adding two arrows on the sides of it, to visualise the idea of speed.

To make the word ‘slower’ actually appear to be slower, I decided to make the text bold and italic, as though it is heavier and so being slowed down. I then made the ‘fast moving’ light and italic, to make it appear as though it is moving fast and is lighter than the word ‘heavy’.

Einstein had a lightbulb moment when coming up with the equation E=MC2, so I decided to give ‘E’, which could represent Einstein as well as energy, a lightbulb too.

This is the first infographic I created:

Things I like about this

• The space colour scheme from Adobe Kuler
• The typeface used for the title
• The typeface for the main body
• The stamp I created in the top right corner

Things I don’t like

• The layout is messy
• There is no hierarchy
• The bottom speech bubble

So after creating my first infographic, I decided I would go back to looking at other people’s infographics. I needed to work on the hierarchy of my information as there was no order on my page, so I initially thought of turning my infographic into a giant, colourful grid to try and make it easier to read.

This is my second attempt:

Things I like

• The new colour scheme – there is more variety than with the first one

Things I don’t like

• The squares system does not work
• Still no hierarchy

So after creating this, I noticed something else about other infographics: they are often long so the viewer has to scroll down, which creates hierarchy and an order of reading on the page. So I decided to create a longer infographic where my reader will have to scroll down or read down the page too. To separate the information, I then decided to put my information in boxes that span across the page.

My third attempt:

It is still working progress, hence the screenshot with my colour scheme on Illustrator. However, I much happier with this final infographic idea. It still fits an A2 page, but is easier to read, more pleasing to the eye and has an order to it.

http://www.creativebloq.com/web-design/why-web-design-losing-its-soul-51514950

“I feel like responsive design has sucked the soul out of website design. Everything is boxes and grids. Where has all the creativity gone?”

I do not agree with this – I am afraid that without grids, design looks messy and is a lot less easy to read. If websites such as BBC did not follow some sort a grid system, the information would be all over the place and you would never be able to find the stories you want to read.

Personally, I like things to be lined up anyway – books on a shelf look better lined up, posters on a wall look better central and straight and everything on this planet looks better when it follows some sort of grid. I do not think that it means there is a lack of creativity, it is just simply a rule that you have to follow.

The only type of design that does not particularly need a grid, is for if you are using a scene or an illustration:

This is because parts of it like the countryside behind would look a bit odd and unrealistic without a grid. However, there is still a strong layout in this image – things are not just placed randomly.

I wanted to create a stamp-style circle on my infographic to make it look as though Einstein had stamped my infographic with the date he came up with his theory.

To do this I drew an ellipsis within an ellipsis using the shape tools. I then found a line that looked more like a brush, changed the outlines of the circles and then, using my mouse, wrote ‘Einstein Discovered 1916’.

This is how my stamp turned out:

I like the inky effect that I found and feel it works well as a stamp. I also like how my type turned out considering I drew it with a trackpad. I will be using this stamp in my final infographic.