We also agreed on exactly how to draw it. Some thought it was “the bull I ate for the dinner” others thought it meant “Danger, bull in this area.” Then we came up with a brilliant idea – all of us can agree on what the picture of the bull meant. Except, what did it mean? Everyone in the cave had a different take on the bull. Words were hard to come by so we invented drawing. In the beginning, we were sitting in caves and wanting to talk to each other. Then the real question is: how do we use both logic and emotion, both text and picture, both data and narrative without making each lose its meaning? Solving The Problem of Communication
So then, do we become poetical lawyers? Or lawyerly poets? Sadly, “emotional logic” and “logical emotions” negate each other leading to complete confusion. Laywers can give you clarity if you listen for a while.
You might be thinking, “What if we used both at the same time?” Poets can deliver emotions fast. Clear communication comes through logic and language. Fast communication comes through emotions and senses, like seeing pictures, for example. We have a record of bouncing between being either clear or fast but not both. So the trillion-dollar solution to the communication problem is finding a shortcut to clarity and speed at the same time. This puts us in a double bind: if we explain it fast, it will not be clear if we make it clear, it will not be fast. Here is the problem: to send a message to another person, you need to communicate it both clear and fast.
Surprisingly, communication itself is an unsolved problem. When this happens to me, I wish I was a subway map which brings me to the big problem all of us are trying to solve with infographics: the problem of human communication. They might have picked a word out of context, or they took issue with your tone or complained that you said it too loud. But instead of listening to what you were saying, they focused on how you said it. Remember the last time you argued with someone? You probably tried to explain your point. Speaking of attention, we all run into this problem. It just looks so matter-of-fact, so self-effacing that you would not think to pay attention to it. There is nothing to ignore about it either. And it is not that you would ignore this kind of design. Yes, the irony is that as a designer the best design I can do is the one you will not notice. And this is something we rarely experience in visual communication. This is the hidden power of infographics. A transparent design shows you the information, not the design. You saw the substance without seeing the form. It means the map succeeded in showing you information without you noticing how it did it. You might be thinking, “That’s a pretty obvious design… how else would you design it?” Bingo. When is the last time you met a stranger and she understood you perfectly? Exactly. This almost never happens between people. Whether you go to Hong Kong, or Tokyo, or Kiev you will use the same map as the rest. And this is what makes it so genius: no matter which country you are from, your language, age, or background, we all understand it the same way. That is work better than any other type of pictures for understanding complexity. This transparent thing is what makes infographics work. It is not obvious because it is transparent. By “data”, I mean both numbers and facts. Here is what most people agree on: that infographics are some combination of data and design. Since then we have not reached complete agreement on what infographics are. The word “infographic” first started appearing consistently in the 1960s. This is a different challenge than maps used to solve describing the world as it is. Infographics are our tool to deal with complexity. Why invent a new name? Because there is something special about now: we are looking at mountains of new data with no radically new tools to make sense of it. So “infographic” is simply a new name for an old thing. Infographics are rich maps for information in general. So what is an infographic? It is just a map. To start our discussion, first, it makes sense to de-mystify infographics.
0 kommentar(er)
