Contents

1.

Designers are not scientists 2.

Good infographics are about more than good facts 3.

A completely unscientific taxonomy of facts 4.

Inspirational Infographics 5.

Good designers worth working with 1

Designers are not scientists

• • They won't understand half of the content you send them As communicators of science, we need to take the data which are scientists give us and translate it for the designers • Lots of fiddly little things you need to be responsible for: 1.

Clearly identify scientific units and population sizes 2.

Ensure units are consistent (Gt and Mt) 3.

Ensure sourcing is consistent 4.

Ensure data label requirements are clearly outlined 2

• • • Good infographics are about more than the facts They are about a story The message is as important as the fact Representing the message visually requires good communication cues Examples:

Facts Message Visual Cues

Bacterial growth rates approximately double with every 10 °C rise in temperature above 10 °C Climate change will affect food safety Spoilt food Agriculture contributes some 56% of global non CO 2 greenhouse gas emissions Agriculture is the largest contributor of non-CO2 emissions Cows 3

Sample template for briefing designer 4

A completely unscientific and incomplete taxonomy of facts • • • • • Qualitative statements • Due to droughts, trees are becoming more vulnerable to higher mortality rates One big number – percentage or absolute frequency: • • Agriculture emits 5 billion tonnes of CO2 every year To meet global food demand in 2050, agricultural production must be 60% higher by weight than in 2005.

Percentage of a population facts: • Agriculture contributes some 56% of global non-CO 2 greenhouse gas emissions Changes in absolute frequencies – univariate or multivariate • The current population is 7.2 billion. In 2050 it is going to be 9.6 billion. In 2100 the total population is 10.9 billion. Causal Relationships • If women had the same access to productive resources as men, they could increase yields on their farms by 20 –30%. This could raise total agricultural output in developing countries by 2.5–4%, which could in turn reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 12 –17%.

Different facts lend themselves to different infographics and impose limits as to what designers can do 5

Qualitative statements

Tips and Tricks: • These are hard to make look scientific • Need to brief the designers with very strong visual cues 6

Big numbers as absolute frequencies • Tips and Tricks: There are not many options with facts like this. • You only have one fact and don’t have the population size it belongs to.

• BLOW THE NUMBER UP: make sure to get the balance of text to numbers to pictures right 7

Big numbers as absolute frequencies • Tips and Tricks: You only have the percentage change figure • Scientists often think they’ve given you more detail than they have • No absolute frequencies mean no data labels 8

Percentage of a population facts as infographics Box Charts Focus on Numbers Pie Charts Tips and Tricks: • Can use really simple charts • Think of every chart as a stand-alone piece, is all the data on their if people want to use it in a presentation?

• Do you want to include frequency numbers of population sizes on charts as well as percentages? 9

Comparative data – one variable across different region/ populations/time etc •

Tips and Tricks:

• Lots of options for charts – this is what scientists tend to be after Keep simple and add a clarifying qualitative statements • Think about data labels, scientific units, etc 10

Comparative data – different variables 11

Causal relationships

Flow-charts with icons Traditional Flow-Chart Flow chart with icons and data These can be tricky for designers and require the most oversight and direction. We normally sketch a traditional flow chart and write down the data labels and text that need to be added 12

Example concept sketch for a causal relationship infographic About a third of all food produced is lost in the food supply chain 100% of food supply 66.6 % of food supply agriculture Storage Transpo rt Possess ing Retail Consum er Food Supply 40% of food losses in low-income countries occur at storage, transport and processing levels 40% of food losses in high-income countries occur at retail and consumer levels 13

Links to Inspirational Infographics

• • • • • • •

Inspirational Narrative Infographics

The World Bank’s Infographic Series: http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/06/19/Infographic-Climate-Change-in-Sub-Saharan-Africa-South-Asia-South East-Asia?cid=EXT_TWBN_D_EXT Netherlands Global C02: http://infographics.pbl.nl/website/globalco2/ The Institute of International and European Affairs Waste Not Want Not Series: http://www.iiea.com/blogosphere/waste-not-want-not-the-problem-of-food-waste Greenpeace Save the Arctic: http://columnfivemedia.com/work-items/greenpeace-infographic-save-the-arctic-tour/ •

Inspirational Dynamic Visualizations

U.S. Gun Deaths Data Visualisation: http://guns.periscopic.com/?year=2013 • •

Inspirational Visualizations that represent multiple variables cleanly and simply:

Fathom’s Health Visualisation: http://fathom.info/healthviz Fathom’s Ageing Visulisation: http://fathom.info/aging 14

Links to Good Designers

• •

Infographics:

Column Five http://www.columnfivemedia.com/ Speak to Jake Burkett, [email protected]

& Travis Keith, [email protected]

• • •

Data visualisation:

http://fathom.info/about http://www.periscopic.com/ http://developmentseed.org/ • •

Free sources to construct your own:

http://www.tableausoftware.com/public http://infogr.am/ •

Infographic library:

http://visual.ly/ - do not recommend their paid-for infographic development service but they host a library of infographics, similar to Flickr which I recommend you upload your infographics too 15