Hello again. I've not been feeling great today so this blog may read like someone's acid trip. I can only apologise in advance as I doubt my aching joints will have to energy to scroll through and edit the mistakes once I finish this.
I started the day by going out to Kensington with my oldest and dearest friend Karimah. I love our days out; we essentially do the same thing every time so it's like moving on autopilot around the high street. It's comforting in a way, a routine. We see each other pretty regularly for our 'fat days' as they were christened very early on and it's nice to chat with someone I know so well and love so much but who is, mostly, outside of the social circle I see all the time.
That paragraph, that one you just read up there, is exactly why I hate blogging about my real life. I know to a certain extent that is the point of a blog but do you guys really care? Maybe you've already closed the window/tab. If so, you'll miss (although I guess it's they'll because you must still be here to read this) an amazing rant.
Well not amazing, short because I think I contracted death from Amy at the YouTube gathering. Let this be a lesson to you: never share a water bottle with someone who has lost their voice. I know: that's a newsflash so surprising it nearly tops Breakfast News' "Did you know thickly sliced bread has more calories than thinly sliced bread?"
And while we're talking about BBC News (which I generally love, trust and cherish) I think 'Information is Beautiful' was badly represented by Newsnight tonight. It's a website a friend turned me onto not long ago and I've seen their graphics all over since then, each time more staggered not only by the statistics themselves but the new, inventive and, above all, informative way different pieces of information are presented.
The thread of the argument seemed to be 'To make information beautiful is to take away from the seriousness of the message'. I disagree. For a start, while 'Information is Beautiful' is a good name it is not entirely accurate. Yes the information is presented beautifully but it is also presented well, not in a way which impedes your interpretation or understanding of the data but which enhances it.
Secondly, too often people separate design from function, whereas I would argue you cannot be good at one and not the other. These graphs (and that is what they are - graphs - pictorial descriptions of data) are nice to look at but they also work as a description of data. They are not, as I think the man opposite David McCandless said 'A puzzle you could easily get lost in'. Instead, they are a puzzle which fits together perfectly and are presenting pure facts in a way which makes them engaging to a wide audience.
It is wrong to assume data has to be a stream of numbers - we've known that ever since Florence Nightingale invented the pie chart. Different people look at and understand information in different ways and as we move closer towards a web-savvy society more and more people are going to have an understanding of graphic design/fonts/graphics like there to name but a few. Because online, as in life, the things which are designed well (and, to some extent, look good) are the most functional. Much better than those flashy, inefficient joke websites.
As you can probably tel from this post, I am no expert and am not well-versed in graphic design at a serious or academic level. But I can tell you this much - 'Information is Beautiful' is a great website making interesting, beautiful but above all informative graphs which makes information easier to digest and often brings it together from different sources to show you the whole picture.
And it does no detriment to the whole picture that it's a pretty picture unto itself.
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