Statistics & Infographics
An infographic comes from combining the words “information” with “graphic.” As its name suggests it is a visual way of presenting information. Infographics have the advantage of being able to explain relatively complicated concepts or processes in a simple way that any person can understand. The purpose of an infographic is not to represent all the complexity of a given topic but to explain at least the basics.
Your Midterm for Computer Graphics is to create an infographic. You will have one day to plan and one day (The day of the final) to execute the project.
The topic of your infographic is looking at humanity through a simple analogy: Imagine that the entire human population (Currently over 7.6 billion people) could be condensed into a society of just 100. That means each person would represent about 76 million people. How would certain figures look in this hypothetical society? As you work on this project, think about what is the advantage of visualizing figures in this way?
Your job is to represent this humanity in infographic form and answer 5 of the following 11 questions. Make sure you write down your source. You will need it. The answers should be in form of percentages:
How many people have access to internet?
How many people have access to clean drinking water?
How many people live in a democracy? How many don’t?
How many people are literate?
How many people speak english?
How many people have a college education?
How many people experience war?
How many people have access to adequate healthcare?
How many people live in poverty (less than $2.50 per day)?
How many people live with the threat of starvation?
How many people are refugees?
Step 1 - Choose your look:
Go to google and search for infographics. A lot of examples will come up. You want to look for a color combination and an arrangement that you like. You will base your own infographic on this. You can also copy one of the designs below.
Remember. You are only looking to copy Colors and Arrangements. Not the data!
Step 2 - Set up your file:
Create your infographic using Adobe Illustrator.
The size of your page should be 11x17 inches and have the appropriate title.
Copy the settings from the screenshot.
Step 3 - Set up your document:
Use a rectangle to create a background based on the colors you chose. You can actually chose a specific color by using the Eye Dropper tool. Notice I'm using the colors from the first example above as well as the font. The font here is DIN Condensed.
After making the background make sure you lock your rectangle by clicking on it and going to Object > Lock > Selection.
Add your Title and make a text box to copy the text below:
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The world is a fascinating place full of interesting statistics. If the world were condensed to just 100 people, these are some of the distributions we would see. Of course, these are only estimates and should not be taken as an exact percentage. Visualizing information after all is about getting a general picture of a certain topic.
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Then divide your document into 5 sections using the line segment tool. Your sections can be any arrangement. Make your lines dashed.
Step 4 - Write down your Data and Sources:
The next step is to add the following information to each section. To make things easier do one box and copy the text to another box and change it so you keep the same colors and fonts:
- A subtitle
- A rounded percentage with the appropriate label
- The exact percentage
- The source of your information in a small font
Notice that my examples do not match your questions. So use your own data. Don't copy!
Don't worry about the graphs just yet. Make sure you also don't cram your page. You want to make these text small and leave enough space around your objects and enough space for your graphs.
Step 5 - Create your graphs:
There are basically 3 types of graphs that I want you to use:
Icon graph
You vectorize a relevant icon from the internet and make 100 copies of it. Then change the color to some of the icons so they match the percentage of your data.
For example. Above you see icons of people. 50 of them are a different color because roughly 50% of the people on earth are female.
Pie Chart
You create decagon and using your pen tool start tracing around your decagon counting the sides. Then click in the center and back to the beginning. Then you change it's color
For example. Above you see two pie charts. The one on the left represents 25% and the one on the right represents 10%.
Area Chart
You create a rectangle made up of 100 rectangles right next to each other (it also works with hexagons). Then you count out the percentage you need.
For example. Above you see a large black rectangle. The are in grey represents 20% because even though you can't see them, they are 20 of the total rectangles painted grey.
In order for you to complete this task take a look at the resource below. This guide, courtesy of visme.com is a helpful document detailing certain considerations, including how to organize your information, how to choose colors and fonts and how to represent things in visual form.
How to Make an Infographic - A Visual Guide for Beginners By Visme 2.pdfSarabia's Example:
