:: CATALOG TREE

Since I've stumbled across infographics, I have been keeping my eyes peeled for some interesting inspiration
I found the work of Catalog Tree in a book called "The Layout Look Book" (which is an AMAZING book, I'd recommend it!) I absolutely love their work. It's the first chance I've been able to find out information about the work, and get an understanding of what has been show. So it gives me an idea of all the various different topics there work has been based, from car crashes, to drug use, to family ties etc.

They has so much more work I would love to put on, but this is just a handful of the ones that caught my eye.
Catalog Tree have published a book with all the printed version of their online archive, but unfortunately it has sold out. But I'm going to keep searching for it.


The sixth poster in a series of nine about the road between Arnhem and Nijmegen. The poster shows all accidents happened 1998 and 2003.


The 8th poster in a series of nine about the road between Arnhem and Nijmegen. The image is a translation of traffic-intensity data gathered at a complex crossroads.



Second poster in a series on Parking Violations by Diplomats in New York City, 1997-2005.
The diagram shows the development of violation-frequency of the 20 most violating diplomats in 1999. Accumulated violations are shown per week. Frequency in- and decrease is shown as left and right curves.



Infographic for ESPN Magazine showing origin of Basketball talent.


First poster in a series on Parking Violations by Diplomats in New York City, 1997-2005.
The graphic shows all violations/hour for each hour of 1999 to 2002. The violations are plotted in relation to the sun position as seen from Central Park


"When bots attack" – Illustration for WIRED Magazine about a fictive DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack on the US. In collaboration with Lutz Issler (postscripting).


Infographic for the infoporn column of WIRED magazine showing the rise of psychiatric drugs over the last 95 years.



Chart for the Knoxville voice, showing family ties between Knoxcounty employees.



Mapping a talkshow with Aaron Koblin, Wilfried Houjebek and Catalogtree
on 03-09-2007 as part of the Info Aesthetics Symposium organized by LUST, The Hague, NL. In collaboration with Lutz Issler (Processing).

:: DAVE BOWKER

Featured in this months IDN magazine, this guy has only just graduated from a degree in multimedia at the University of Huddersfield.

WOW!

Some inspirational infographics right there...
I think I need to do some prioritizing...so this kind of stuff can actually happen..

:: I heart INFOGRAPHICS

Iv just received the latest edition of IDN (International Designers Network) and it's FABULOUS!!!
I'm currently putting together a presentation for when I begin my final year of my graphic design course. Basing it on what my proposed plans are for the final year and the experiences I've had over he summer.
I'm encouraged to think about my design practice, what do I want to be? Who might I want to work for/with? What kind of work would I like to produce etc.

Juan Velasco, graphics editor of 'National Geographic', describes infographics as...
1. A visual explanation that helps you more easily understand, find or do something.
2. It's visual, and when necessary, integrates words and pictures in a fluid, dynamic way.
3. It stands alone and is completely self-explanatory
4. It reveals information that was formerly hidden or submerged.
5. It makes possible faster, more consistent understanding.
6. Universally understandable.

We are surrounded by infographics - in the media, in published works, in road signs and manuals. They act as a visual shorthand, they illustrate information that would be lots and lots of text. It's the content plus beauty.



I think I want to be an INFOgraphic designer!

I somehow want to incorporate this new direction with the subject of my third year dissertation, 'Can Graphic Design be sustainable?' I think it can, it just needs understanding more, it needs to be made clearer in some way. So many written facts and figures about how we as people are ruining everything but all so confusing, but we as designers have to ability to improve things. we are trend setters. I want to instruct and explain, I just need to find a balance between beauty and effective communication.
I just need some clarity, I need to be clear on what I'm trying to communicate. Not to over-complicate or over-simplify, just to show everything I need to and nothing else. i would need to consider who it's for? What is the most important statement.

This is all just an idea, it's just got me thinking whilst putting this presentation together....what direction do i ACTUALLY want to go in!?!?!
It's something that I am really interested in, cos i think me as a person needs things simplifying sometimes, so make it clearer. So it's something I could relate too....but could we all! I'm just concerned that a lot of it would include stuff I should have learnt in maths classes at school, which unfortunately wasn't a subject I attended very often...oops.
But this is something I definitely want to look into some more.
We'll see what happens...

:: ROMAN JASTER

I discovered the fabulous work of Roman Jaster in this months issue of IDN (International Designers Network). Automatically caught my eye, his work is bold, straight-forward and makes an instant impact.
He's a Los Angeles based Graphic Designer, but born in north-east Germany. He received his BFA from the California Institute of the Arts last year.

Roman Jaster prefers working on projects for cultural and non-profit organisations and is interested in 'compassionate and responsible design' that contributes towards 'positive change' - a perfect designer to look at with help towards putting together my dissertation. He has the right ideas to make a change, he's trying new techniques that will interest people, which is the key way to get people to notice what needs to be done.





Poster for the end of year show of the CalArts graphic design department. The poster is constructed from two press sheets and includes one design from every student in the department. The poster also functions as invitation, business cards, banner, and a small book. Also, exhibition design. Continued with the elements from the poster design.


Poster for the annual Ping-Pong Party for the CalArts graphic design department



Intervention for political action workshop with Marlene McCarty. In order to encourage shoppers to reduce waste by reusing their shopping bags, 150 overprinted grocery bags were handed out in front of a Ralphs supermarket in Valencia, CA




The ecological intervention PAPER NOR PLASTIC criticizes the obscene amount of paper and plastic bags that Americans consume.

I designed and hand-crafted custom tote bags. These bags were handed out for free




Installation of a custom made traffic sign



Absolutely love this poster design. You can't really see it very clearly, but it's a really clever use of typography. Crossing out letterform to make other letterforms. (check out Roman Jaster's website for a clearer example of this, to get a better idea than my rubbish explanation!)





Roman Jaster's website - www.romanjaster.com
Please take a look!

:: PRINTING.COM AND THE ENVIRONMENT

This is the time when I need to be focusing on the research for my dissertation....(oh no!)
As I am looking at sustainability and the design industry, I thought it might be useful to look at the place of my work placement and see what they are doing to help the environment and what changes they are doing...

"Our business works because we're as efficient as possible. We use as few resources as we can. Fewer resources mean less waste. But we're never content...

All our processes are constantly refined to ensure that we minimise waste. What waste we do produce, we separate into seventeen distinct streams for easy recycling or reprocessing. We compact all of our waste paper to minimise transportation, prior to being recycled. Our printing plates are recycled and our used chemicals are disposed of responsibly.

We use vegetable-based inks, pumped straight from large drums, rather than smaller cartridges in wasteful packaging. And talking of packaging, we've drastically reduced the volume of waste we pass onto you too. All of our cartons are produced from unbleached board.

This year we're giving you even more choice to do your bit for the environment too. We've introduced many new products printed on 100% recycled paper. Where possible, the rest of our paper stock is made from wood pulp which is Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF). All pulp is sourced from well managed forests, where trees are farmed as crops – just like wheat.

What's more, every order you place contributes to our great big goal of planting 50,000 trees with David Bellamy and Tree Appeal." - Printing.com

This is good to see!

Whilst working in the studio, I did notice that they did recommend the recycled paper to a lot of clients, even if it is a bit more money.
They didn't appear to have a recycling bin in the studio though...
and they did seem to get through a lot of paper.





50,000 Tree Appeal

"You've helped us plant 25,000 trees so far. Well done! Together we've collectively helped improve the natural beauty of our landscapes and created habitats for a whole host of birds, mammals and insects. We don't think we should stop there and with your help, we'd like to double our target and plant a massive 50,000 trees.

That's not all. We also want to encourage local schools to make the most of their grounds by planting trees. This helps create woodland habitat, increases bio-diversity and, most importantly, provides an excellent learning resource - planting trees, watching them grow, seeing how wildlife is encouraged and charting the changing seasons and weather.

We need your help... Our partners Tree Appeal will plant a tree for every 8 orders we receive. You can make a difference by choosing us for your leaflets, stationery, posters and other printing and telling your friends about our Trees For Schools campaign and nominating your school. Help us reach our target of planting 50,000 trees!" - Printing.com

:: BECCA'S BEAUTY

My cousin, Becca, has recently finished her beauty course at college, and although works full time as a beauty therapist somewhere in Harrogate, she has also been doing some freelance work in her own time. But was just using a list of prices she'd typed in a word document, so she asked me if I could put her something together. Something simple that would cost her no pennies and produced fairly quickly. She already had the name for herself, so I tried to do a logo for her (since doing my work placement, there is a lot of improvement I could do on the logo I did for her), seen on the photo's below.
It's only small, but fits all necessary info on, without being too small to read!

:: WORK PLACEMENT - WHAT HAPPENED....

It's all over...which is a huge shame.
It was a really inspirational experience, I just wish I could have been there longer.
I learnt so much in that one week, about myself, where I might what to be in a year, the way I work and my abilities.

It took a while for things to get moving. The first day I got to know the two guys I was going to spend the week working with, what kind of work they had going on and how they were responding to briefs. I also put together some sample packs of the paper stock that they use, that were then sent out to potential clients.
The second day, they set me off on some tutorials using the software which they use. I've only really ever used the Adobe software, but they used something called Freehand MX, which is kind of like an older version of Illustrator and Photoshop combined. It's a program which Adobe has bought, and is trying to replace and remove. But these guys were stuck in there ways, but too be honest it was a really nice program to use, things were much more straight forward.



I then got set two live briefs (unfortunately I wasn't able to keep any of the work I'd produced, which is so annoying!!!)
The first was a business card for a builder, including a logo design. But the client wasn't too fussed about the logo design because he wasn't wanting to spend much money on the artwork. But I did one anyway.
The second was a logo design for a freelance marketing lady. She already had something in mind. Something to do with the shape of the river's bend near her house in Goole, where she worked from, so she wanted to incorporate something using that idea. It was a nice idea, but I was also encouraged to give the client other options, away from her initial idea, without the river bend.
With both of these briefs I produced about 3 or 4 ideas that were emailed off to them, they then decided what they liked, what they didnt etc....and it got altered until they were happy and in the end, for both clients, my designs were sent off to print.



With each design, for the colours I had to refer to the pantone colour chart that they provided. Having this in front of me made it so much easier when selecting colours.

Towards the end of the week, they set me a larger brief, one that I could print off and they would provide for my portfolio. It wasn't a live brief though, which, in a way made it slightly easier, cos then I didn't constantly have to worry what someone else might think (which i know, is not what I should be thinking, at all!)

The brief was to design a logo for a photography comapany called "Northern Wave - photography), then to design a letterhead, A5 promo postcard and a business card.


I started out with some simple doodles



And by the end of the day this is the logo that I designed.
I was encouraged not to dismiss any ideas I might have just because I didn't know how to do it using the software. If I wanted to do something that I wouldn't normally do, I had to draw it, then either Sam or Andy explained the best ways I might go about doing it.


Using the logo, I then created a business card (on the right, showing the back and the front) and a compliment slip. There is also a letterhead aswell, similar layout to the compliment slip.



The A5 postcard, both sides.

I'm really happy with the work I was able to produce. I'm going to get in touch with them, and see if it's possible to get them to send me some the other work I produced, including another compliment slip for a gardener.

The one thing I have learn, is that I need to learn to understand what OTHER people might like, not just what I think is right or pretty. The client is who I've got to sell my idea to!