Eye-candy... but of a serious kind: Tips on how to display figures
Visualizing Information for Advocacy:
An Introduction to Information Design
By John Emerson
Tactical Technology Collective
http://tacticaltech.org
Printed in India, January 2008
Creative Commons License
Downloadable from
Reviewed by Frederick Noronha
[log in to unmask]
You've got data. Now what do you do with it? Can you tell an
effective story with the information you have? Can you "move
your audience"?
This is a manual that "offers an introductino to information
design". And it is indended to provide non-government
organisations "with a useful and powerful tool for advocacy
and research."
TacticalTech's Marek Tuszynski, who announced this booklet,
said: "Modern life is saturated with ever increasing amounts
of information, advertising and media with little time to
digest what is being said. Against this background, NGOs and
advocates too often find the information they want to
communicate, either buried in long reports full of
professional jargon and statistics, or overlooked in an
endless stream of media releases."
Next, we go to the link between information design and
advocacy, analysis, consumer education and strategy. To make
it practical, there's a "how to begin" chapter, and another
how-to on "planning your information design".
Keeping in sync with the tone of the book, the short,
visually-rich chapters of the book focus on assessing your
data, sorting and sketching, assessing your media, designing
your graphics, clarifying your graphics and more.
This publication has been sponsored by Soros' Open Society
Institute Information Program. It leads you thought an
explanation of what information design is, how you could use
it, and specificially where it fits into advocacy.
But this is a practical book. Using images and comparisons,
for example, it explains how spectrum lobbying works.
It points to sites like justvision.org, and the time-line on
it, as examples of the good presentation of data (of stories
of Palestinians and Israelis working together for peace, in
this case). See http://justvision.org/en/timeline
There's more eye-candy (but of a serious kind!) too. A
project of Greenpeace, Exxon Secrets charts funding by the
Exxon Foundation to institutions and individual 'climate
change skeptics' working to undermine solutions to global
warming and climate change. The interface makes it easy to
visualize and navigate the research. See
http://exxonsecrets.org
Some fascinating use of facts, figures and images here. As
we're told: "Information design uses pictures, symbols,
colours, and words to communicate ideas, illustrate
information or express relationships visually."
There are practical tips:
"There are many ways to tell a story or to present
data. How do you know what kind of presentation to
use? The main thing to consider is: how will your
information design be used? Is it for planning? Or
advocacy? Are you trying to tell a specific story?
Or are you trying to create a more neutral map to
guide a process of discovery?"
In its 25 pages, there are a whole lot of examples ... that
really make you think.
Of special interest is a section focussing on how Free
Software tools can be used in these tasks. OpenOffice does
your office-computing work. NeoOffice works for Mac OS.
Ajax13 is a web-based office suite at [http://us.ajax13.com]
InkScape is a vector graphics editor "with capabilities
similar to Illustrator, Freehand or CorelDraw".
PDFCreator will create PDF files from "nearly any Windows
application that can print". Scribus can create layouts for
newsletters, stationery, posters, training manuals, technical
documentation, business cards and more. The GIMP is an "image
manipulation programme". GIMPShop is a version of this tool
modified to be more user-friendly for Photoshop users.
You could write for copies from [log in to unmask]
But why waste forests when it's just a download away? Click
to get this book for free from
http://www.tacticaltech.org/infodesign
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Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph +91-832-2409490
The Goa books blog: http://goabooks.wordpress.com
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