Challenge: Infographic Without Typography
The first project of Special Topics in Brand Design is designing an infographic for Good Magazine using only forms to depict the wild horse problem in USA. Here are the data that are needed to be shown in our work:
· The amount of Wild Horses “on range” (81,000+ horses and burros)
· The amount of Wild Horses “in holding” (49,000+ horses and burros)
· The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) recommended Appropriate Management Level (AML) (26,000 horses and burros)
· BLM Total habitat acreage (53,000,000 acres)
· BLM Herd management acreage (31,000,000 acres)
It was a big challenge for me to come up with an idea to show these 5 number without any typography, which means no words or numbers. That took me some time to think of the ideas focusing on the relations between these numbers rather than just showing the quantities. In my mind, I was trying to figure out a graphic having all these 5 data in it without breaking them into two different ones like one for horse numbers, one for acreages. So, I started to search for the information about the relations between horse numbers and land usage. Here are what I found:
BLM recommended that 27,000 animals lives in 27,000,000 acres land, which means the best biological density is 1 animal for 1000 acres;
“ As of March 2017, the BLM estimated more than 73,000 wild horses and burro existed across 27 million acres of federal herd management areas in 10 western states. ”
Based on the information in 2017 above, we can come to a conclusion that in 2018, the AML 26,000 is the horse number that BLM recommended to have in their 31,000,000 acres herd management lands; and the 81,000 is the actual number of horses that is living in the herd management lands.
Understanding those data, My first idea was making a pie chart showing the relation between BLM total habitat acreage and herd management acreage. The green piece of pie also represent the AML 26,000 horses should be living in that area. Then I use 26,000 as the base number, adding two same pieces of pie to triple up the horse number to 78,000, which is approximately equal to 81,000, the wild horses on range. Also, by piling up these three pieces at the same area, it shows these are the horses living in the same area. In the same way, another two pieces of pie in grey represents 52,000, which is approximately equal to 49,000, the wild horses in holding. Below are the sketches and initial digital version of this idea.
The second idea was showing the ideal situation versus the actual situation, using different density of grids to represent the horse number in that area.
The third idea has the same basic concept as the first one. I use one horse figure to represent 26,000 horses here. It is more clear this way to have horse figures to show the idea.
Based on the feedback I got from Jay, it seemed like it was hard for him to understand the first idea without explanation. However, he liked the third one because it was more clear. Personally, I kinda feel the third one looks a lot like the graphics would show up in my first grade math quiz though, hahaha. So, in my refinement, I tried to combine these three ideas together to make it more clear and interesting. Below are the story boards and animated graphic that I did in PowerPoint.
Next round, I am going to try to learn Animate CC. So that I could refine it with more movement.
