{ posted by Maggie, senior designer }
As a graphic designer, it's understood that I'm a visual person. But, actually, most people are, even if their jobs focus more on numbers or mechanics than fonts and colors. Human beings have a long history with infographics (visual representations of information), which started with early cave drawings. Sometimes the information being conveyed is critical and urgent: the location of emergency exits and fire extinguishers. Other times, infographics are used to present and explain information in an easy-to-understand format. For example, in the July issue of WIRED Magazine, there's an article about the Somali pirates by Scott Carney. The facts and background about the business of piracy, combined with lettering by Michael Doret and illustrations by Siggi Eggertsson make for a very interesting read.
Through charts, graphs, and clever equations, readers learn why pirate attacks occur in that part of the world, what happens in an attack, where the money comes from and where it goes, the parties involved and more. Of course I was aware of the pirate attacks before reading this article, but I was mis- or under-informed about many aspects of the situation and I feel that the clear (and cool-looking) graphics really helped me learn more (and made it more fun).
It's not a simple thing to express complicated data in a clear and concise format (we've all seen bad pie charts and confusing bar graphs), so it's a relief when it's done well (nice colors and pretty fonts don't hurt, either.) Thank you, WIRED Magazine. Nice job.
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