design economy and kinetic typography…

Tufte’s final chapter seems to reinforce the principals found throughout the text, those of data and design economy. And I was glad to see his remark that there are some information graphics for which there is no formula. How unfortunate that those are the ones we want to imitate the most!
His disapproval of the pie chart is surprising, since it seems this graphic is by itself a faster way of comparing quantitative data than viewing the same in a data table. The book sample with dozens of overlapping pies is a poor example, though it IS successfully multivariate – the pie location gives geographic identity, their subtle changes in circumference indicate changes in population density, and each pie visually compares the same data set. Perhaps a few pie charts, side by side, with the geographic location written rather than shown would be a more successful relational study in this case.
Tufte’s rules for line weight and lettering prove that if everything is heavy and competing for attention then hierarchy disappears. I have seen too many a threatening worksheet with ten fonts sizes, half bolded, bulleted, numbered, and underlined in a teacher’s attempt to convince students that everything on the page is important. Tufte reminds us that within a successful information graphic, if the text is present, one can assume it is important and should therefore not be further decorated.

Designing with Time…

silly beeps and quacks:)
I appreciate Dan Boyarski’s concern for more practical, purposeful sounds in our everyday software. It does seem that most of computers’ complimentary audio is nothing more than irritating gimmicks which compel me to turn off the speakers as soon as I hear them, as I do with the infamous “Mr. Paperclip” when he dances to offer assistance.

“I think also future designers have to be proficient to some degree with some programming.” This is a growing concern of mine as I feel far behind on most software learning curves and most of all on employers’ requirement of advanced knowledge of various “coding.” I would not be surprised if in the near future all design students were required to take advanced CS courses.

Claiming that perhaps using a computer for static imagery alone was becoming redundant, or rather, not using the device’s full potential Boyarski remarks, “Don’t replicate one in the other. Why replicate paper on computers, when computers have nothing to do with paper?” Once an artist has a concept and basic composition in their mind or sketched out of a piece of paper, I think the computer is what brings beauty and precision to an idea. Even without taking advantage of visual tricks and effects only possible in photoshop, we can explore and experiment much more efficiently and freely with type, arrangement and color with a computer.
In some ways, I feel it is equally challenging, if not more so, to create a successful static piece because the composition must read both as a whole and in the correct hierarchical order. Whereas with “kinetic typography” you do, as Boyarski discusses, have control over every moment of the viewer’s experience, static typography challenges us to create movement, emphasis, and sensory experience with no more than the ink on paper. Perhaps this relates to the importance of teaching foundation art courses with very limited use of technology, so students’ do not become jaded with too many “special effects” at one time.

“Now if you want to present a fact that moves people to some action, then you have to shape the information in a way that it will in fact affect them, upset them, excite them and move them to some kind of action,” says Boyarski in reference to a student work that paired money spent on advertising in one day in the US with the number of teens who began smoking. This is a good example of a persuasive use of a relational data set we have discussed in class. It reminds me that one approach to creating such a comparison is to think about what may have caused or influenced one set of data, then presenting your hypothesis as a visualization. This is also the ultimate goal of the ManyEyes website, to help instigate change in revealing new connections.