Visualization

GDES-396 spring 2019 (David Ramos, American University Design)
ramos@american.edu · office hours

Explore a dataset of your own choice, ask a question about the data, and create a set of visualizations responding to that question.

Specifications

Tools and methods

Use what you like. For manipulating or analyzing data, and for preparing rough visualizations, a spreadsheet, Workbench, or R would serve well. You should edit and improve your visualizations in Illustrator, another drawing program, or by hand.

For background, return to chapters 4 and 5 from The Truthful Art.

Phases of work

1. Explore datasets and ask a question

Bring your own datasets. You might return to one of the datasets we used in previous assignments, find something yourself, or try a new one.

Some possibilities:

Start exploring the data, producing rough visualizations to help you understand what’s going on, and arrive at a question to explore. Then examine that question in more depth.

Help with data wrangling

I’m happy to sit with you to help you find datasets that will help you answer your question, so far as I can. (For non-spatial data, I’m best equipped to talk about the ACS and current Census data. I also might point you toward a subject matter librarian.) I may also be able to convert data that are in formats that are not amenable to analysis, either because of organization or file format. Email me and schedule an appointment, or come by office hours.

2. Design studies

Start experimenting with ways of visually presenting your data. Think of this as sketching—try different graphic forms, scales, and methods of encoding. At some stage, you’ll also need to consider how to fit this onto the page.

For this project, you need to sketch out several different approaches, with a small but representative amount of real data, but you do not need to develop multiple versions to the final stage.

3. Final design

Polish your rough design. You might want to produce new base graphics from a spreadsheet/stats program. Move on to a more visually expressive and typographically-oriented environment to prepare the final graphics—perhaps Illustrator, another drawing program, or (yes) working by hand.

Tips

Font suggestions

This project leans on good typography as much as on the graphic side of information graphics. If you want type tips, look to the “Letter” and “Text” sections of Ellen Lupton’s Thinking with Type site, or check out the book.

Choose legible, well-drawn fonts.

Free/open source suggestions: Source Sans Pro, IBM Plex, Barlow, Cormorant Garamond, Libre Caslon, and Libre Baskerville. (More libre fonts.)

Commercial suggestions: Adobe Minion, Adobe Garamond, Caslon, Frutiger, Trade Gothic, Franklin Gothic, Myriad, Meta, DIN, Helvetica, Jenson, Archer, Gotham, and Whitney.