Information Design - Exercises

3/2/2025 -  (Week 1 - ) 

Aisya Diva Anwagodsa (0365505)

Information Design / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

Exercises

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TABLE OF CONTENT

1. Exercise 1
2. Exercise 2

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LECTURES

Week 1

Infographic: A powerful way of communicating an idea (it consists of information and with the help of design it could attract people.)  But design is not only for attraction purposes,  it is also a way to convey a message visually.  There are 8 different types of infographics:

1. List infographics: Appear in the form of a list, this can be full text or visual but can be both as well.  This infographic could help people remember the message or the data more easily as it's well arranged.
2. Statistical infographics: Infographics that include charts in it.  This type of infographic could make the audience easily understand the data from the infographic.
3. How-to infographics: Basically an infographic that will teach people to do/make something (tutorial) without bombarding people with a lot of text.
4. Comparison infographics: One of the ways to help people understand a contrast or difference in a topic.
5. Map and location infographics: This infographic is used for various purposes, but generally this type of infographic was made to communicate demographic data or other location-specific information.
6. Flowchart infographics: A graphical representation of an information stream, such as a sequence of different steps or actions.
7. Process Description infographics: Infographics that explain the steps of a process, the aim is to communicate a technical information or a complex series of actions to the audience.
8. Timeline infographics: Which show the information using timeline.  This type of infographic is visually appealing and best in use for history or revolution time.

Week 2

L.A.T.C.H theory is one of the ways to make an  infographic by categorizing information based on 

Location, Alphabet, Time, Category, Hierarchy.

1. Location: determining the location of the information in the infographic.
2. Alphabet: Arranged/organized the content inside the infographic
3. Time: To tell the audience about the time of the event.
4. Category: To group the content based on the function or group the content based on its kind.
5. Hierarchy: To arrange information by any order, such as size, cost, or the popularity.

Week 3

Miller's Law of Memory

This law explains how short-term memory is limited.  For example when a person receives more than seven information "objects" the information does not last longer than 30 minutes.  This law suggests how we can understand the information that we get.

• The Magical Number Seven, Plus, or Minus Two: Most human brains cannot hold more than roughly seven items in their short-term memory at once.  Seven is the limit, this works in advertisements as well, for example when creating a tagline brands usually do not use more than 7 words so their target can remember the brand (for example: just do it).
• Validating Miller's Rule: The Paradox of Choice: More like how we could categorize stuff to make people easier to understand information.
• The Art of Refining Options: Our brain processes just a certain amount of information in any communication, but not always can grasp and recall the memory to a full extent.  That is why the clustering of information or data is a technical response to Miller's rule of thumb. If the message is delivered through smaller chunks of information, our brain has the opportunity to work within the limits of short-term memory.

Week 4

Manuel Lima's information visualization manifesto helps to provide clarity on why information visualization differs from information art or infographics.

1. The form follows function: The purpose should always be centered on the explanation, which in turn leads to insight.” Start with a Question: Your work should always be driven by a query.
2. Interactive is the key: Allows for investigation and learning through history.
3. Cite your source: Always disclose where your data originated.
4. The power of narrative: Humans love stories. Elaborate your information into storytelling to make it more interesting and memorable. 
5. Don't glory aesthetics
6. Look for relevancy
7. Embrace time
8. Aspire for knowledge
9. Avoid Gratuitous Visualization

Week 5

Tips on how to make work more productive, by using constructive workflow: 

1. Understand the question
2. Construct a strategic plan:
• Evaluate data & information
• Identify pros and cons
• Create a content creation plan
• understand your outcome
• build case study
3. Fill in the blank: 
1. Create empty folders as a structure
2. fill in each folder with a progress
3. synchronize all working files for each software requirements
4. Get some ideas & inspiration
5. Set a perimeter:
• Ideas are limitless
• Time is a constraint
• Identify your strenghts
• Reference is just a benchmark
• Solution is the answer

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INSTRUCTION

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EXERCISES

Exercise 1 - Quantifable Information

- Quantify raw data and visualize information as a photograph
- Visual representation of numerical data that allows for easy interpretation and analysis. 

Instruction:
Gather a set of objects and separate them into categories such as color, shape, pattern, and another quantifiable factor.

Example:
1. Box of Lego
2. Jar of button
3. Jar of marble ball
4. Set of colorful rubber straps & more.

This exercise require us to analyze the sample we got from selected item and then divided it into 2 - 5 categories.  The final result would be our visualization of the data we gathered.  For this task I choose paper clip with different colors.

First thing first, I separate the paper clip based on the color: 

Fig. 1.1 Object before getting sorted

Fig. 1.2 Sorted paper clip based on its color
(4/2/2025)

After grouping all of the colors, I began to count the paper clips of each color, below is the data: 

• Pink  = 12
• Yellow = 12
• Blue = 11
• Red = 11
• Green = 10 
• White = 9
• Purple = 2

Once all the paper clips were identified, I continued arranging the paperclip based on its color and the amount.  Below are my attempts:

Fig. 1.3 Arrangement attempts
(4/2/2025)

At first, I wanted to categorize them based on the color categories (primary color and secondary) but I changed my mind and categorized the paper clips based on the number, arranged them accordingly from the most to the least, and finalized by adding snakehead because it looked like snakes. 

Fig. 1.4 Before finalization
(10/2/2025)

After finishing adding snakeheads, title, and information, I scanned the result with my phone.

Fig. 1.5 Final result
(10/2/2025)

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Exercise 2 - L.A.T.C.H 

For exercise 2 we were told to make an infographic based on the L.A.T.C.H Theory.  LATCH theory basically consists of how we categorize information in our infographics.  It should be based on Location, Alphabet, Time, Category, and Hierarchy.  For this task, we can pick any topic we want.

I decided to go on a 'Traditional Footwear in Asia' for the topic.  First I did some research and put all of the data into a Microsoft Word file.

At first, I found it hard to categorize the data and arrange it based on the LATCH theory.  It took me a week to do that so I was way far from the others (I think too much).  On my topic which is about traditional footwear I categorize all of the information based on the below:

• Location = Asia
• Alphabet = Arranged accordingly in the hierarchy section
• Time = When the footwear was found
• Category = The function, for everyday wear or for special occasions
• Hierarchy = Based on the look or the difficulty of making the footwear

Designing Process

Before designing I started by making sketches of the whole infographic: 

Fig. 

On my sketches it can be seen that I wanted to focus on the timeline and the rest will follow.  Because I thought it was the easiest way to make the infographic work.  I decided to go with the left sketches as a guide. 

I looked up the picture of the footwear on Google, and then I adjusted the brightness, exposure, etc on Adobe Photoshop.

Fig. Edit the pictures in Photoshop

After that, I download all of the pics in PNG format and bring them to Adobe Illustrator.  In Adobe Illustrator, I made the background of the infographic and tried different layout settings to see which one was the best.

Fig. First attempt

In picture number 1 I tried to adapt a half circle and turn it into a timeline but it didn't work because it made all of the pictures look like they were squeezed so I used the basic timeline graphic with a vertical line (picture 2).  For the other aspects like alphabet, hierarch,y, and category I placed them all next to the picture as a description.  I also used color labels to indicate the hierarchy.  When I showed this to Mr. Shamsul, he said that there are a lot of things that could be improved from my poster, from the design he said that I need to incorporate elements from the past or give the ancient vibe and play more on the graphic rather than using text.  He also suggested arranging the hierarchy based on the size like big to small?  I was a bit confused but then I remembered the iceberg meme, it's like using iceberg to rate popular things, the most known will be placed at the top, something like that.

After getting the feedback, I changed the whole infographic and decided to utilize an ancient map as a style guide.  I came across the internet and tried to find a rolled map illustration asset.

Fig. Second attempt

This was my second attempt result, which not giving LATCH vibes.  The only thing I did just modify the title and make a paper illustration using mesh features and texture from the internet.  Other than that, I just dumped all of the info, I can't believe I did that.  At that time I didn't have any idea or was still stuck on my thoughts about the L.A.T.C.H.  I also made changes for the hierarchy, previously I used colored labels, but I changed it to the star rating.  Two stars for the moderately intricate and three stars for highly elaborate footwear.

In the third attempt, I decided to use an illustration of a literal map of Asia and use it to represent the category and the location of each footwear.

Fig. Third Attempt

Description for each picture:

1. Placing all of the footwear based on its origin, I also added a color background to indicate the category, dark brown for formal footwear and lighter brown for casual wear.  I mainly used brown for the map because I wanted it to have an ancient look, so I used different shades of brown.
2. Continue to the next part where I will apply a hierarchy to the footwear, I arranged it from the footwear that looks detailed to less detailed.  I also arranged all of the footwear alphabetically in each hierarchy level.  Highly elaborate (J, K, L, P) and Moderately intricate (G, S).
3. I added the tagline/heading for the poster.
4. Finishing the look by adding another element and texture.

Final Outcome:

Fig. Final outcome
(22/2/2025)

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FEEDBACK

Week 1

Specific feedback: Make the arrangement look more appealing appealing

Week 2: Public holiday

Week 3

Specific feedback: 

- The topic is interesting but the design can be improved, especially around the title

- To represent each country could use elements like flags or graphical elements instead of using description

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REFLECTION