Week 7 - Ten of the best creative infographics

I've always been drawn to infographics, a discipline which involves conveying information, data or knowledge in graphical form. Infographics take many forms, from simple road signs and pie charts to timelines, maps and diagrams which show complex relationships and interations between the data being examined. A good infographic makes the most complex information easier to understand, and a great infographic, in my opinion, not only does this but also manages to present it in a visually appealing, creative manner.

In that vein, here, in no particular order, are ten great infographics. They all contain quite a bit of information so it's well worth clicking on them to see the detail.

The Very, Very Many Varieties of Beer
Links between the major styles of beer along with examples of each type and glassware recommendations
Author: Pop Chart Lab

Underskin
Tracing the routes of the systems of the human body
Author: Sam Loman

Periodic Table of Typefaces
Author: Cam Wilde

 The Apple Tree
A visual history of Apple products
Author: Mike Vasilev

Geological Time Spiral
Showing the time scale of the evolution of life on earth
Author: Joseph Graham, William Newman, and John Stacy

Waiting Time
Infographic detailing time spent waiting in one week
Author:  Ruth Tsang

Trustworthiness of Beards
Judging the trustworthiness of a person based strictly on beard style
Author: Matt Macinerney

Burning man Festival
The history of the festival, from it's days as a simple gathering on a beach to the present.
Author: Flint Hahn

50 Years of Space Exploration
Traces over 200 space missions
Author: Sean McNaughton, National Geographic & Samuel Velasco, 5W Infographics

Noob Guide to Online Marketing
A very comprehensive 6-month action plan for marketing your business online
Author: Oli Gardner

Challenge 52

Right - in a concerted attempt to try to write more often on this blog (and also to get working through my supplies stash!) I've set myself a challenge-for the next 52 weeks I need to complete a brand new project, photograph it and write about it here. This could be making a new product for my online shops, a personal project (making something for me or producing a promotional item for example), a tutorial showing you how to make something, a new design for t-shirts/hoodies or a new project in my graphic design business. Basically anything that's new!


I'm hoping this is a good way to keep my business moving forward and to spur me to spend time creating promotional material (something i always put to the back-burner) and discovering new product lines; and hopefully make my blog interesting for you to follow.

Big challenge I think will be documenting it all, finding time to write up pieces and, more so, photographing things as this is where the Scottish weather works against me. Here's hoping the spring comes back soon and we get some nice, camera friendly weather.

So wish me luck, and if anyone else wants to join in with the challenge just add your blog link below and we can start out own wee challenge 52 club!

what to do....

I bought these beads a while ago and because I bought them online they turned out to be a lot bigger than I imagined in my head! I had bought them with the intention of making a bracelet but I'm thinking now that they're maybe a bit too chunky for this?

They're amathyst but have veins of varying colours through them too so vary from deep dark purple to light lilacs, whites and brown tones. 

I'm hoping someone has a bright idea to give me some inspiration! Leave me a comment with your suggestions...

Packaging and promotion

This week I got some nice promotional goodies sent to me from Lady Umbrella, a new T-shirt brand that takes their promotion work very seriously. They sent me some stickers and also a pin badge (see below)










I first found these guys on a t-shirt makers forum over a year ago and so saw the thorough approach they took to setting up their company and working towards a launch date. They fully launched their line this February and have already been featured in National media and one of their t-shirts will be in a new feature length movie Booked Out. Their approach to promotion is very inspiring. Now that I've started selling more items I really want to get definate packaging and promotional materials designed and made...watch this space!

Winners, busts and new stock

My personalised pendant giveaway ended on saturday there so using a random number generator (http://www.random.org/) I drew the two winners and emailed them to let them know. The first winner got back to me right away and is looking out her picture for the pendant but I haven't heard back from winner number 2 yet so I think I'll give it till the end of next week then draw another winner if I still haven't heard. So if you're reading this winner number two email me back!

I'm indending too to make personalised pendants (i.e. with your own photo) available for sale. Because of the process they would have a turnaround of a week to 10 days. Is this something people would be interested in? Please leave me a comment with any thought you have.

I'm trying to develop my product photos as seeing as customers to my online shop can't physically pick up and inspect my pieces having good photos is very important. I've yet to work out how to get any good ones at all of my t-shirts or hoodies but I'm working on it! The jewellery is slightly easier because it's smaller but I've proved to myself I can't get good photos of it being worn (seeing as I'm not a contorsionist or professional photographer!) so I think my next project will be to try to make a display bust for necklaces at least. Rena Klingenberg gives a tutorial on her blog showing how to make a simple one like the picture above that I might try out (picture from Dana's Jewellery Design)

I've been listing some new items in my online shop and there's more to come, I managed to get some time to spend making new stuff and so have a batch of resin pieces that need finished. Before I get to much more up for sale I really want to concentrate on developing my logo and packagin material. Right now I'm trying out some different ways of packaging including gift boxes, mini customised cotton drawstring bags and pillow packs. I need to decided and settle for my packaging 'look'. Some items that I'll be listing in the next few weeks...

Alphabetti Spagetti

I dont know if it's a side effect of my graphic design work but I really love typography based design.

These typography drawers are my absolute favourite, they're from Kent & London and are handmade. A little out of my budget though!






Typographic soap from Soapy Love, scented with crushed peppermint the soap was molded from a unique silicone mold.





A - Z shelves, used to be made by Pottery Barn but have been delisted...they're crying out to be home-made though, hmm - if I ever have time!

6 inspiring paper artists

How people interact with physical designs is a big area of interest to me, when studying product design it was relatively easy to see how to consider this with actual physical products, but in my graphic design work it's a harder matter as you are mainly dealing with simple 2D materials (posters, flyers etc). Because of this I became interested in pop-ups, and through researching these realised that the world of making 3d forms from paper was a lot wider and exciting than i first thought.

Pop-ups, origami, kirigami, paper architecture, paper illustration, Mon-kiri, scherenschnitte, paper art...there is no one term that can cover the variety of facets in this field. Below I've compiled a very short list of some of the most inspiring artists/craftmens in this field. Hope you like it!

Eric Joisel
Amazing paper sculptures that almost look like they've been carved from stone. The root of Joinsel's work lies in origami, and the "Creating Process" section on his website shows how complex the folding pattern are. Amazingly most of his figures are created from single sheets of paper.









Jen Stark
Instead of folding, Jen Stark's paper art uses a technique of cutting through stacks of coloured paper to produce sculptures reminiscent of wormholes and fractal patterns.









Peter Callesen
A combination of paper folding and cutting (origami and kirigami) give Peter Callesen's works a feeing of delicate fragility. He uses the basic white A4 sheet to produce the majority of his creations.








Rob Ryan
Rob Ryan's impossibly intricate paper cuts contrast romantic images with the darker sentiment of the words carved within them.











Ingrid Siliakus
Taking inspiration from the founder of this particular type of paper art Masahiro Chatani, Ingrid Siliakus uses the complex art of cutting and folding to create precise architectural forms. Unlike origami where several sheets of paper can be used in paper architecture the intricate models are made from just one sheet of paper so cuts have to be carefully calculated.










Yulia Brodskaya
A graphic designer, Yulia has developed a unique style using cut and curled paper to make colourful, flowing typographic illustrations.