Project Type: Student Work
Client: Fictitious
Designer: Avery Brown
Theme: Envisioning the quantitive data (approach to charts/diagrams design
Software: Adobe Illustrator
Introduction
We are flooded by a daily surge of figures: stock market figures, budget
figures, deficit figures, population trends, increasing traffic trends, falling currency rates. How do we cope with them? Too many of us are scared by figures. We do not understand them. We would rather not look at them. We would like someone to explain them to us. Except to the trained few, figures are so anonymous, so flat, so obscure, and yet at the same time so threatening, as though they hide some secret that, if only we could see it, would reveal the horrible or wonderful truth of their subject. The caretakers can unlock the secrets of the figures. He or she can make their meaning visible, literally. A simple chart is no more than a set of statistics made visible. It shows what has happened in the past and what might happen in the future. But it can do more as well. It can engage the viewer by capturing his or her imagination. It can interpret the figures as well as present them. In fact, to simply parade the numbers as a set of bars or a rising and falling line does only half the job. It gives no clue as to the subject being dealt with. In certain contexts it might be perfectly proper to display the figures without any other visual help, but soon the charts will all look the same and therefore fail to be helpful, losing the interest of the consumer in much the same way as the bald figures themselves did before.
Assignment Process
The infographic poster was based off the statistic:
9.6% – Decline in median income of U.S. college graduates since 2000, a difference of more than $ 4000. (Find how the average tuition and other education-related costs per student were growing since then).
The poster compares the average tuition, starting salaries, and debt of recent college graduates. It also has supporting information about inflation, college debt, and average student loans. The statistics are simplified and organized in a circles and the center is organized in a compare and contrast formation. There is a simple calming color scheme with an easy to read typeface (Avenir).
