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Infographics: a twitter list

Posted: November 6th, 2009, 6:18pm PST by CHIQUI ESTEBAN

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For all those that could be interested, I made oine of those new Twitter lists with people who talks about infographics (or are just great professionals on it, and although they don't talk too much about it, it worths to follow them just in case...). The name is very very original: infographics.
I'm sure I'm forgetting many follow-worthy people, so suggestions are wellcomed...

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Flash graphics on iPhone... not yet

Posted: November 3rd, 2009, 5:22pm PST by CHIQUI ESTEBAN

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Vía The Inquirer

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Is The New York Times an innovative newspaper?

Posted: November 2nd, 2009, 5:30am PST by CHIQUI ESTEBAN

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Just click on the image and take a look to the showcase...

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Old masterworks, modern graphics

Posted: October 29th, 2009, 7:55am PDT by CHIQUI ESTEBAN

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The Thyssen Museum of Madrid shares on its web an infographic to navigate through time and artworks of its collection. And when I say share, I mean they give you a code to include it on your own web. Your product could be old and classic, but you can sell it on the most modern ways

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MotionGraphics

Posted: October 21st, 2009, 6:06pm PDT by CHIQUI ESTEBAN

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This is what Zack Wise is preparing for nytimes.com...

NYTimes After Effects Demo Reel 2009 from Zach Wise on Vimeo.

Looks great. Via @drewvigal

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Visualizing crowdsourcing: Trendsmap

Posted: October 16th, 2009, 5:44am PDT by CHIQUI ESTEBAN

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We all know nytimes.com is an innovative newsroom. A good example of that is this Twitter map of the Superbowl.

The location of the tweets during the match showed very interesting. And now, these kind of solutions with Twitter can be found on Trendmaps, a trendtopics visualizator for this microblogging service.

This is an example on the visual power of the crowdsourcing data. Visualization has become a powerful way to understand trends and what's happening on thsi interconnected world. So you know what you have to do: tell your children to become infographic experts: there's a future for them! :)

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Links to all the ÑH6 interactive design and infographic Awards

Posted: October 14th, 2009, 9:30am PDT by CHIQUI ESTEBAN

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The linked post is in spanish, but you don't need to know much spanish or portuguese to understand the graphics.

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ÑH6: the Best design of Spain & Portugal

Posted: October 9th, 2009, 10:25am PDT by CHIQUI ESTEBAN

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Image: The judges (snd-e.com)

The ÑH6 are the design awards of the spanish chapter of the SND. They choose the best works of Spain and Portugal of the last year (from september to september). The big awards (best designed) have been for Expresso (print, large), i (print, medium), Heraldo de Soria (print, small), Magazine de El Mundo (magazine), as.com (web, large) y lainformacion.com (web, small). I'm specially glad for the awards to lainformacion.com, where I work, and i, where I have a very small role as infographics consultant. But let's talk about graphics, although if you want to know all the awarded here you are the complete list in a PDF.
PRINT NEWSPAPERS
Breaking news
Mention La Voz de Galicia (A Coruña). 'Quince revisiones exhaustivas en un año'
Mention Diari de Girona. 'Els casos confirmats a tot el món…'

Features
Gold Público (Madrid). 'F1, las novedades de la temporada'.
Gold Jornal i (Lisbon). 'Exterminador Implacável'.
Silver Diário de Notícias (Lisbon). 'Atentados mais mortíferos'.
Silver Público (Lisbon). 'O mapa-múndi do CO2'.
Silver Público (Lisbon). 'Presos na baía de Cuba'.
Silver Público (Lisbon). 'Arrancam hoje as obras do metro para Gondomar'.
Silver Público (Lisbon). 'De onde vem a nossa luz?'.
Silver Diario de Pontevedra. 'Por dónde se movieron los tres candidatos'.
Mention Público (Madrid). 'Los 191 números uno de la Motown'.
Mention Público (Lisbon). 'Onde pára o défice'.
Mention Diario de Burgos. 'Semana Santa, paso a paso'.

Portfolios

Gold Público (Madrid). Portafolio 'Elecciones europeas del 7-J'.
Silver El País (Madrid). 'Catástrofe aérea en Madrid'.
Mention El País (Madrid). Portfolio 'Alerta sanitaria'.
Mention El País (Madrid). Portfolio 'Fórmula 1'.

MAGAZINES
Features
Gold Revista Única, Expresso (Lisbon). 'As idades do sexo'.
Mention Revista Única, Expresso (Lisbon). 'A grande mentira!'.
Portfolios
Mention Noticias.CUN (Pamplona). 'Portfolio'.

ONLINE
Breaking news
Silver www.marca.com (Madrid). 'Calendario Copa Confederaciones 2009'.
Silver www.lainformacion.com (Madrid). 'En busca de la caja negra del A330 de Air France'.

Features
Silver www.marca.com (Madrid). 'Así funcionan los difusores en la Fórmula 1'.
Silver www.lainformacion.com (Madrid). 'Antes de ver Harry Potter y el Príncipe Mestizo'.
Mention www.marca.com (Madrid). 'Las claves del juego de Rudy Fernández'.
Mention www.marca.com (Madrid). 'Raúl máximo goleador histórico del Real Madrid'.
Mention www.publico.pt (Lisbon). 'Energia das ondas em Portugal'.
Mention www.publico.pt (Lisbon). 'Há morcegos no Alviela... E na web'.
Mention www.eitb.com (Bilbao). 'La autopista Eibar-Vitoria AP-1'.
Mention www.lainformacion.com (Madrid). 'Influencias de Michael Jackson en la música hip hop'.
Mention www.lainformacion.com (Madrid). 'Explorador de población extranjera en España'.

Specials
Silver www.marca.com (Madrid). 'La hoja de ruta del Tour 2009'.
Mention www.lainformacion.com (Madrid). '40 años en la luna'.
Mention www.hiru.com (Bilbao). 'Portafolio gráficos': Barrenadores, Cambio climático, Energía eólica, Arrastre de bueyes, Levantamiento de carretas, Recogida de Mazorcas, Carreras de sacos, La trainera, Calzada romana, Segalaris, La vida en las cuevas, Aizkolaris, Parlamento Vasco, TDT, Txistu, Trikitixa y Pandero, La dultzaina, Yunque, Fardo, Sokatira, Levantadores de piedras, Trontza, Txingas.
Mention www.consumer.es (Elorrio, Vizcaya). 'Portafolio de gráficos': Casas prefabricadas, Baño en la playa para discapacitados, Marcapasos interno, Ultraportátiles, Videocámaras, Edifcios ecológicos, Granizo, Cajas negras, Cámaras digitales cuatro tercios y micro cuatro tercios, Faros costeros, Skateboarding.

Innovation
Silver www.marca.com (Madrid). 'Trayectoria de los equipos dentro del Resumen de la Liga 2008-2009'.
Silver www.lavanguardia.es (Barcelona). 'Hemeroteca de La Vanguardia'.
Silver www.tv3.cat/hd (Barcelona). 'A la carta HD'.
Mention www.marca.com (Madrid). 'Calendario de los Juegos Olímpicos de Pekín'.
Mention www.lainformacion.com (Madrid). 'Matisse en el Thyssen'.
Mention www.lainformacion.com (Madrid). 'Así suena Madrid'.
So, just focusing on graphics, the medals leave this list:1. Público (Madrid): 2 golds, 1 mention2. Revista Única: 1 gold, 1 mention3. i: 1 gold4. marca.com: 4 silvers, 3 mentions5. Público (Lisbon): 4 silvers, 1 mention6. lainformacion.com: 2 silvers, 5 mentions7. El País: 1 silver, 2 mentions8. Diario de Noticias: 1 silver-. Diario de Pontevedra: 1 silver-. lavanguardia.es: 1 silver-. tv3.car: 1 silver12. publico.pt: 2 mentions13. eitb.com: 1 mention-. hiru.com: 1 mention-. consumer.es: 1 mention-. noticias.CUN: 1 mention-. Diario de Burgos: 1 mention
Sorry for not uploading examples and just linking our examples. I hope I can upload sime works and link more online graphics soon, but I'm still without internet connection in my new flat, so if you have some examples just send them to me or link them on comments. I will post them as soon as I can.

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Infographic-design-journalistic details of my trip to USA

Posted: October 6th, 2009, 12:39pm PDT by CHIQUI ESTEBAN

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I have just arrived from USA, where I have visited NY, Boston, Cape Cod and Vermont. As infographic journalist there have been some details that called my attention:

1. The New York Times has a department with the only task to analyze trends and details form the public statitistics. Other detail: the director, Bill Keller, works with the rest of the journalist, as the chief editors. Keller's office is actually really small, but he's always outside. This details make you understand a little better why this newspaper makes so good journalism.Foto: Mediabistro
2. Respect to infographics. Xocas (The New York Times) and Javier Zarracina (Boston Globe) explained how are the infograhics department treated on their respective newspaper: as any other section. It could sound as logical, but things don't work always that way. Adn, in this difficult times for media, Boston Globe, in a very hard situation, has kept its five members of the infographics department meanwhile the rest of the departments of the journal had many people fired. At NYT hirings are frozen. But infographics department has been the one and only department to hire people in the last years.
3. More organized, less visual. NY (and some other cities) uses numbers to name streets and avenues. This make much easier to find them, and it's very difficult to get lost. Just a liitle detail: as Manhattan's first settlements were on the south of the island, the numbers grow from south to north (and from east to west), just the opposite of how we read. In other hand, the traffic signals uses much more text than the european ones, where a very high percentage is iconic.
4. The success of Gotham. Fairey's Obama poster used Gotham typeface. Now you can see Gotham in many many many shops, posters or flyers. Don't if that has been always that way or just people has associated Gotham with success.
5. Fascinated by maps. Don't know if it's just my impression, or northamericans love maps. Public libraries have good collections of them, and looked like the most important pieces on them.

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It had been stopped for a while...

Posted: September 30th, 2009, 9:54pm PDT by CHIQUI ESTEBAN

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The causes: I moved to a new house which, at the moment, continues without internet connection. The other cause is that I'm now abroad, in a little trip around New England (USA). As soon as I'm back, I'll start posting again, almost daily. Sorry!

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Spanish-fashioned english infographics

Posted: September 13th, 2009, 7:28am PDT by CHIQUI ESTEBAN

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This graphic could look like a classical big infographic published on a spanish (or Southamerican) newspaper. Central illo, two big figures at the sides showing the two starrings, map and some details. Like many of the published by El Correo, ABC or El Mundo. The topic is also very hispanic: Moctezuma II, the aztec king.
The important thing of this graphic is that it's published by the Daily Telegraph, made by Stefan Bailey and Ciaran Hughes. An english newspaper publishing spanish-fashioned infographics. Or not so spanish. Maybe remembering some great works of the englishman Peter Sullivan... They are returning to their bests moments, the moments we spanish used to build our bests ones.
Michael Agar is head of graphics at the Telegraph group. He is renewing the infographics of the group since he arrived. English infographics are the cradle of the discipline, and they are rising again. This graphic could be seen by us (spanish and southamerican) as something already done, forgotten, but we also were fascinated by circle charts two years ago and it was already a classic in other countries. It's like they are walking fast again and doing all the way to be again one of the countries with the best inmediate future in infographics.
Via iGraphics Explained

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By the way...

Posted: September 3rd, 2009, 3:18pm PDT by CHIQUI ESTEBAN

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We, lainformacion.com are nominated to the ONA Awards, and we're very proud. We are nominated at the General Excellence in Online Journalism, Non-English, Small Site category, along with the italian Il Centro and Radio Azzatyq from Kazahstan.
Last year, this awards was for the spanish online newspaper soitu.es, nominated this time at the same category, but for large newspapers.So, good luck to everybody (but I really hope we will got better!)
Links:- www.lainformacion.com- Graphics of lainformacion.com- All the nominated- Online News Association

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Election days for SND members

Posted: September 2nd, 2009, 5:08pm PDT by CHIQUI ESTEBAN

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The Society for News Design (SND), the most important professional association of news design, is celebrating presidential elections.
The resign of Matt Mansfield some months ago left the organization headless, and now Kris Viesselman and Jeff Goertzen are candidates to fill that gap.Those who use to attend to Malofiej will know both well, as they use to participate in the infographics summit.
But members also have to choose before September 11th vicepresident and secretary/treasurer. For vicepresident the candidates are Steve Dorsey, who was a member of the last SND team, and Patricia Cox. For secreatary/treasurer, the contendents are Jonathon Berlin, also from the last team, and Lily Lu.
I can say I am supporting one or another. I am not voting (I forgot to update my membership) and I haven't read their programs. But some of the professionals I respect the most are endorsing Viesselman.
Anyway, both know infographics very well, so that's good news. We don't have to way much longer, the deadlione is in 9 days time. Good luck for both.
Interesting links:- Candidates biographies- Kriss Viesselman page- Jeff Goertzen page

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History of infographics in La Vanguardia: we don't need computers

Posted: September 1st, 2009, 5:54pm PDT by CHIQUI ESTEBAN

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La Vanguardia, a spanish newspaper from Barcelona, published this january an article by Mercè Balada about the history of infographics at this catalonian newspaper. It starts with a definition of infographics, very important to understand what come next:
"Against what we use to think, 'info' on 'infographic' doesn't come from 'informatics', comes from 'information'. Infographics are, by definition, images created with informative purposes, including graphics and text."

This confussion in very common in spanish. But if infographics would be just those works made with computers, works as the 100 years old brazilian graphic published in this blog the other day or the examples shown in the article couldn't be infographics. And they are.Some as good as this one, made by an english scientist that calculated what a man could drink, eat or smoke in 70 years and published on La Vanguardia in 1899:

This idea could be signed by Jaume Serra, today head of infographics at this same newspaper and who have never needed much computers to create great graphics. Tools are just tools.

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A 100 years old brazilian graphic

Posted: August 23rd, 2009, 6:43pm PDT by CHIQUI ESTEBAN

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This graphic was published 100 years ago by O Estado de Sao Paulo (Brazil). I saw it in a tweet by @tattiana and it reminded me these other examples already published on this blog:

Image from the book Malofiej 14,article by Fermín Vílchez 'Origin and evolution of graphics in Spain, 1856-1936

This second example is from a spanish newspapers in the thirties. Bazil was 20 years ahead then...

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Information is beautiful

Posted: August 22nd, 2009, 1:00pm PDT by CHIQUI ESTEBAN

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I don't know how, but I didn't know this blog, informationisbeautiful.net. But some days ago, dumaker (I don't know his/her real identity, (s)he contacted me by e-mail) sent me a link. Just some days after that, my editor (Mario Tascón, you may know him), sent me also a link from it. And other people. And I thank them. I could spent hours surfing through its posts, visually delicious. Clean graphics with very good information. Smart, simple, direct and effective graphics. Many of them have been succesful on Menéame, Digg or Twitter, what demonstarate that general public (or at least those a bit interested in technology) also like those graphics that are not spectacular, animated or with magnificent use of the tools. They also like those that can communicate with data, with information. Sometimes that information can be trivial, but it is presented and a clear way. So, this page is already on my blogroll: informationiseautiful.net.

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Laws of simplicity, by John Maeda

Posted: August 14th, 2009, 8:53pm PDT by CHIQUI ESTEBAN

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I've been on online holidays. I've been reading, and as some of us can't forget our jobs, among the books have been some about infographics. 'Laws of Simplicity' by John Maeda, who teaches at MIT (and anonymous comment tell me that he is now director of RISD) and visual artist, has been the chosen. And I may say that I made the right decission.
It's the perfect book for the summer: you can read it in an afternoon at the beach or during a plane travel. And it's an useful book, for infographics and for life.
If you can, buy it, but here you are a little advance with the ten laws:
1. Reduce: thoughful reduction2. Organize: makes a system of many appear fewer 3. Time: saving in time feel like simplicity4. Learn: knowledge makes everything easier5. Differences: complexity and simplicity need each other6. Context: what lies on the periphery of simplicity is not peripheral7. Emotion: More emotions are better than less8. Trust: in simplicidty we trust9. Failure: some thing can never be made simple1o. The one: subtract the obvious, add the meaningful

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Three reasons journalists shouldn't use Flash

Posted: July 21st, 2009, 6:25pm PDT by CHIQUI ESTEBAN

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Great article in 10000 words. For online visual journalists, Flash is the one, big, necessary tool. There are many others, but Flash is the king. But sometimes Flash is not the right tool. The three reasons are better explained on the complete post, but here you are the headlines (comments are mine):

1. Flash projects take a long time to create
There are many ways to create graphics, so think twice before starting a Flash prohject that could be explained perfectly as a text or as a video... But, you really need to do it not just with Flash, do it also with print graphics.

2. Many projects don't need to be animated
That's true, many time it looks like we don't know that online graphic can be static. An image. If it doesn't need to be animated, don't do it. If you don't use it properly, animation is sometimes more a disturb than a help. Maybe sometimes we just don't need a Flash.

3. Most journalists are not designers
Want a professional product? Be professional. It not just the tool. You have to think visually. Let visual journalists work on visual news. It's not just the 'how to', is also the 'why'.

And I must thank the 10000words people. They give three examples on when flash infographics works: one about blue whales on National Geographic, other about construction deaths in Las Vegas and another about how a classic orchrestra works, done by Carlos Gámez at lainformacion.com, the web where I work as New Narratives Director.

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Cairo and Xocas in Mosaic

Posted: July 19th, 2009, 7:30am PDT by CHIQUI ESTEBAN

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Sorry for being disappeared these days. You know, the summer, when you have free time you use to try life far from computers. And, also, this week we've been busy with a special about the man on the moon, the new Harry Potter movie (this graphic, in english) and other things.
That's why I'm delayed to tell you that Mosaic, the online magazine of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Open University of Catalonia) have produced a new issue with the galician infographics dynamic duo Xocas and Alberto Cairo.

They interviewed Xocas and published an article wrote by Cairo. The magazine is in spanish, so I translated the best sentences:

Xaquín G.V.: "Infographics are the brilliant blue in the feathers of a peacock"

"You have to be a good journalist, a great information visualizator and a good supervisor, you must understand and fend infographics as another journalistic genre."

"The multimedia documentarie is the multimedia journalistic genre most underused on mass media"

"Journalist with deep computer programming knowledge are very important"

"Shape should follow content. The beautiest visualizations are so not just for being beautiful, but because their shape makes the content easier to understand."

"Infographics are a hard-to-find and expensive product, but they really differenciates you from the others. The media that will know how to integrate, use and seize graphics will survive in these hostile times of crisis. Multimedia features and interactive graphics are working on NYTimes and they worked in other places before. Infograhics are the brilliant blue in the feathers of a peacock. Can you live without it? Well, if you wnat the specie to survive..."

Alberto Cairo. Visualization and knowledge. A short invitation to infographics

"Graphics works better than a table because, when give a visual shape to data, I'm creating a tool useful to accelerate (and sometimes replace) the processes the brain follow to reach its target"

"A big amount of journalists and readers think you need to draw well to be an infogrpahic journalist. (...) But it is not so for the most basic infographics (...) You can produce great maps and charts just if you draw a cow and people don't think it's a dog"

"If we consider infographics as a just-artistic discipline many people won't get involved on its ellaboration. It is a tool that everybody can handle, very important to communicate some kind of content"

"My personal method when I create infographic projects is very easy. It has three stages: research, planning and final art"

"The complexer the information gets, more basic should be the style to represent it"

"If you really want to become a communicator in this era of readers-creators, take a pencil and give infographics a chance"

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The most original infographics are not published in newspapers

Posted: July 5th, 2009, 1:14pm PDT by CHIQUI ESTEBAN

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Today, when everything is spreading all around the world through internet, when the tools are availabale for everybody and are easier to use, when citizen infographics are a fact, in these days, the most original ideas for infographics are not being published in newspapers, but in blogs, flickr or another personal pages, but with echoes all around the web that make them ananymous most of the times. Here ypu are some examples:

If extraterrestrials are watching our TV, what are they watching now?

Just making an operation with the distance of some stars and planets and the speed of electromagnetic waves, you can have this graphic.

This could be the original source

What do different positions think about different sexual behaviors?

Although you can find several mistakes (Catholic church is not neutral about homosexuality, or that is my perception), the idea is direct and easy to understand.

A possible original source, although it looks like anadaptation.

The browser wars

This one is already a classic.

I found this here

How do you want your coffee?

Another classic, already posted on this blog

This one has father, Lokesh Dhakar.

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