Caring about journalism means caring about data

Pt 2: Learn from the Best

Read part one here.

An info graphic has to be crafted with the same mindset that the writer in you uses to craft a narrative. Before you even sit down to begin building graphics, take a look around and analyse the work of professionals. Here are some people that shaped my visual mindset. Be open to discover their work. Be open to learn from the best. Listen to their advice and let them guide you on your way to a well-designed graphic.

Edward Tufte: Kill your non-data ink

Everything begins with Edward Tufte. His writing about design is highly technical and not exactly inviting. But understanding his design philosophy opens the door to good graphics design.

Don’t be afraid and open that door. Follow Tufte. Take an ordinary Excel graph or any graphic you see on the web, stop and dissect it. Disassemble it piece by piece. Then think about each piece’s necessity for the whole graph.

Let’s venture into a real world example to make this a bit clearer. We could pick Tableau Public or, if you have it handy, Adobe Illustrator, or really any other software that creates graphics. Fire it up, create a quick graph and analyse what you’ve got there on the screen.

Do you see all those tick marks? All those lines and text boxes? Do you need all those decorative elements — Tufte would call it non-data ink — to present the data effectively? Or might the presentation be clearer if we would take stuff out?

Give it a try. Explore Illustrator or whatever app you’re using. Literally play with the programme and free the graph of its junk. It’s a liberating experience — for the graph and for you. You’ll see what it means to keep it simple, clean, and clutter-free. Most people think all those little decorative items need to be there, simply because they were always there by default. But in truth, we don’t need them.

Explore Tufte further with his book about the theory and practice of data graphics, The Visual Display of Quantitive Information.

Nigel Holmes: Pictures marry words

Nigel Holmes comes from a bit of a different position. He is similar to Tufte in that he wants to accomplish clean and clutter-free graphics. But Holmes is more welcoming towards using pictures, pictograms and the like. Maybe we could sum it up as: same goal (clean, simple graphic), different ways of getting there.

Holmes is more likely to turn a graphic into a shape that matches the topic. Just look at his graphic called Diamonds were a girl’s best friend. It’s obviously an eye-catcher. But if we look at it from the pure data presentation, I have to agree with Tufte — this is chart junk. A simple and clean line chart would give the data itself the spotlight, not the visual associated with the subject.

There are, however, examples that prove Holmes’ approach can have its value. His Netflix illustration comes to mind as an example when ‘fancy design’ can help tell the story (or even tell it without the need for words). Holmes achieved to explain the process of renting DVDs almost without using any words. Instead, he used a sequence of graphics that show the process more effectively than words could ever do.

I’m definitely a big fan of his definition of a good graphic, which he describes as a marriage of words and pictures. Discover Holmes’ theory here or through this interesting interview.

Alberto Cairo: Use a graphic to create a mental image

We’ve already heard from the next person on my list. It was Alberto Cairo who made me start thinking about graphics as storytelling tools. There’s an excellent discussion with Cairo and the folks of the Data Stories podcast on the role of storytelling in data visualisation. I recommend you give it a listen if you’re interested in visual storytelling.

What resonated with me the most from Cairo’s words on infographics and visualisations was the concept of the mental image. He said that a good graphic encourages the human brain to establish connections between data points and helps generating a mental image. A good infographic helps readers to understand the data and connect it to real-life-scenarios.

Yet, the power of graphics is lost when journalists just throw in a nice picture. Aesthetics need content to work, which translates into a very useful lesson: report for a graphic as meticulously as you would for a story.

I highly recommend The Functional Art, the book in which Cairo gives his introduction to infographics and data visualisations.

Sergio Peçanha: Simplify the complicated

Another designer to get to know is Sergio Peçanha. I like how his graphics accomplish a simple and clean look of complicated issues. The graphic on New York’s new voting system or the multi-layer locator maps about Bin Laden or Egypt are strong examples. He is also a good source of inspiration for the use of icons. Check out this set of icons, for example. They are all simple, clean icons that tell us what we need to know the moment we look at them.

The takeaway point so far is that successful infographics are build on simplicity. It takes a lot of hard work achieving simplicity, but it’s what sets your graphics apart. Don’t just make it colourful and vibrant because you can or because it’s easier. Think about the data, the message it has to tell, and how you can present it best for readers to receive that message. Great visuals can be part of the game, but only if the context is right.

Next time, we’ll look at the next step of planning infographics — sketching.