Picture This: The European Commission
Though many of us might know who the president of the European Commission is (possibly as Ursula von der Leyen is the first ever female to hold the office), we might not be particularly sure what she or the Commission actually does. With significant institutional overlap — as in the case of the European External Action Service — and the many mechanisms that require cooperation between EU institutions, the what and how of the Commission can be more than a little unclear.
This is why the UNC Center for European Studies has taken the initiative to try and visualize different EU institutions using infographics. With the help of UNC Data and Visualization Services Librarian Lorin Bruckner, and the know-how of one of our program assistants, we have worked to train one of our undergraduate EURO majors to develop infographics that explain different EU institutions and processes. What follows is an example of their work, which describes different aspects of the European Commission, and their insights on the process of creating it.
Planning an infographic is a lot like planning an essay. You might know what you want to say, or really only know that you are interested in one particular fact. As with an essay, you know that you need evidence, and that you need to set a tone and mood to frame your argument. Similarly, you need an introduction and conclusion, and transitions to help the work flow. However, one enjoyable — and challenging! — aspect of an infographic is that the structure and format of all these elements is much more fluid.
For example, where most academic essays have an introduction that lays out the topic, and hints at the nuances of your particular argument, an infographic’s introduction can be (much) less developed. Because space is an element that the designer must always conserve, the introductions of infographics can take many different, and sometimes abbreviated forms. Sometimes, a succinct sentence or two can be all you need to introduce your topic — other times, you might need a whole paragraph (which can be a real headache!). Depending on your format, you might not even need an introducation: the title can both announce and explain. Or maybe a well-placed icon or photo can introduce your topic.
Another area in which the designer gains flexibility is in the body of the argument. Again, cutting down text is almost always a must, so a designer can use icons to tell a story. For example, in the above infographic, there are only two specific Directorates-General named, but the corresponding icons suggest that climate and agriculture, health, sport, and translation are all competencies. Similarly, designers can use visual metaphors to help visualize a topic. For example, percentages of smokers by age might be illustrated using a bar chart formatted to look like cigarettes. While budgetary constraints might have you drawing your own icons, or scratching your head to think of potential combinations and workarounds, this exercise is a great opportunity to expand your own understanding of a subject.
Finally, the conclusions of infographics also have lots of flexibility. Like an essay, it is usually important to have a call to action for your audience, to encourage them to act on the information you have just presented. However, coming back to text constraints, you might not have the room to tell them everything you would like. This is why it can be helpful to link to outside sources, or have a very clear and direct action. For example, ours is “Learn more at jmce.unc.edu.” This is a point where the infographic is perhaps more similar to an advertisement, and the organizational roots of the argument really show. Maybe you are encouraging someone to contact their government representative, or maybe asking them to buy your lemonade. Whatever the case, it is often true that an infographic’s conclusion is intended to motivate the viewer to do something in the designer’s favor.
In short, there are a lot of similarities between essays and infographics — we might think of the latter as the visual counterpart of the former. However, with infographics, the directive to “use your words” undergoes an intense level of scrutiny as designers work to balance verbal content with visual. As a result, infographics become a space for visual innovation as designers brainstorm new ways to visualize data and processes.
Interested in reading more about the work CES students do? Check out the Students tab on our blog!
Curious to see our other infographics? Head over to the Infographics tab on our blog!
This post was produced by EURO major Brett Harris.
This post’s production was supported by a 2018–2021 Jean Monnet Center of Excellence grant from the European Union.
The European Commission’s support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
