Exemplo de Infografia: "Popular Science magazine" - Proj. #3

Encontrei um, exemplo que gostei muito, de uma infografia publicada numa revista científica. 

Esta foi publicada na revista "Popular Science magazine" para auxiliar na compreensão do artigo "138 YEARS OF POPULAR SCIENCE". 

Após alguma pesquisa consegui encontrar a explicação do autor desta infografia e resolvi partilhar. 

"The graphic is anchored by a kind of molecular chain – decade clusters in turn contain year clusters. Every atom in these year clusters is a single issue of the magazine, and is shaded with colours extracted from the issue covers via a colour clustering routine. The size of the issue-atoms is determined by the number of words in each issue.

Surrounding this chain are about 70 word frequency histograms showing the issue-by-issue usage of different terms (like ‘software’ or ‘bakelite’). I used a simple space-filling algorithm to place these neatly around the molecule chain, and to stack them so that one histogram begins shortly after another ends. This ended up resulting in some interesting word chains that show how technology has progressed – some that make sense (microcomputer to e-mail) and some what are more whimsical (supernatural to periscope to datsun to fax).

Picking out interesting words from all of the available choices (pretty much the entire dictionary) was a tricky part of the process. I built a custom tool in Processing that pre-visualized the frequency plots of each word so that I could go through many, many possibilities and identify the ones that would be interesting to include in the final graphic. This is a really common approach for me to take – building small tools during the process of a project that help me solve specific problems. For this visualization, I actually ended up writing 4 tools in Processing – only one of which contributed visually to the final result.

My working process is riddled with dead-ends, messy errors and bad decisions – the ‘final’ product usually sits on top of a mountain of iterations that rarely see the light of day. To give a bit of insight into the steps between concept and product, I’ve put together a Flickr set showing 134 process images that came out of the development of this visualization."

Como se pode perceber fazer uma infografia é um processo demorado e complexo, exige esforço e dedicação. Mesmo para um profissional é algo complicado de fazer: existem erros, más decisões que precisam de ser corrigidas, dúvidas na altura de se fazer as escolhas. No entanto, o resultado final tem sempre que transmitir algo enquanto um todo constituído por diversas partes e nada é escolhido ao acaso: tudo tem um significado e uma razão de ser, tudo está conectado e interligado de algum modo para transmitir a informação.