0224 The Functional Art-Ch8, Ch9
02/24/2020
JMM331-O
Reading Chapters 8 and 9 in The Functional Art, I learned “Creating Information Graphics” and “The Rise of Interactive Graphics.” In these two chapters, Professor Cairo emphasized on how to make progress on some simple graphics practically.
Firstly, Professor Cairo utilized several pages to focus on the population of Brazil and the changing of the community over the years. He talked about what grabbed the readers’ attention and interests the most.
Also, he mentioned a thing he missed several years ago that is the designers needed to consider some special groups of people, such as the color-blinded ones.
In this example, the designer Michelle Rosenker chose the topic “The Science of Habit.” (https://melbournedrugrehab.com/science-of-habit-vs-addiction-infographic/) He then related the poplar habits to popular addictions, which let people think about what is “habitual.”
As a student double majoring in Interactive Media and Media Management, I have known the rising importance and usage of the interactive objects.
As Professor Cairo described the traditional graphic design that “entities of similar nature should look alike,” it is essential to apply “consistency” to every single art. Through different kinds of interactions, the viewers are much more able to communicate with the graphics than reading the paper-based graphics.
This example “Music Is in Our Blood” in the book was quite commonly used in our daily life. When people see this graphic for the first time, it could make people to try to click and play the strings on this traditional Spanish instrument.
I read an article from FastCompany titled “The Problem With Interactive Graphics,” written by Meg Miller, https://www.fastcompany.com/3069008/the-problem-with-interactive-graphics. In the article, she mentioned the uniqueness of the interactive graphics. As she said, the interactive graphics are more based on one’s personal needs of information. Since the readers can click to search and view the information they want, they probably explore more related to that field.
And Meg Miller also wrote another article titled “Are traditional design degrees still relevant?” (https://www.fastcompany.com/90465466/why-the-ipad-is-still-shaping-the-future-of-computing) She talked about the evolution of infographics on digital devices and the benefits these devices bring to people over the years.
I found a very interesting example from http://html5readiness.com. It is titled “HTML5 &CSS3 Readiness.” When you click the years on the top, you can just choose which year you are willing to see. When you use your mouse to hover over each line, you can see its category. The style of this graphic is simple, but it contains a lot of information that is hard to show in a non-interactive graphic.
Another example I found also related to the evolution of the web, http://www.evolutionoftheweb.com. This one is more complicated with more functions. When you click the icon of the app, you can even see how it looked like on specific dates. It is a brand new way for me to access the detailed development of each website.
