Graphics Iron Chef

By Tim Martin
Eastern Illinois University

They had but six hours.

Three teams. Three formats. One goal: Make the best infographic of the SNDSJ opening reception.

Teams of two representing 3-D, vector and hand-drawn styles battled off. The duos had six hours, with a competition shaped after the famous cooking show The Iron Chef. The goal of the session was both a competition and a clear way to differentiate among the three methods, seeing their strengths and weaknesses.

The groups had worked for five hours before the session, and the final hour progressed real-time, during the session.

Kevin Hand of Newsweek and Tonia Cowan of the Toronto Star worked as the 3-D artists, producing a dark shadowed, textured graphic. The graphic had a high "cool rating" one judge said, but the complexity lowered the score.

Bill Pitzer and David Puckett of The Charlotte Observer used the vector format, supplying a graphic with multiple viewpoints of the opening ceremony area. It was the largest in size.

Javier Zarracina of the San Jose Mercury News and Fernando G. Baptista of El Correo in Spain used hand drawings. Their graphic proved to be the most user-friendly, as it incorporated "news you can use," like admission info and mingling techniques.

All of the competitors had won regional, national and even interntional awards.

But only one team would win.

The overall presentation, hosted by John Grimwade of Conde Nast magazine and Linda Eckstein of Fortune Magazine, drew laughs from the crowd. The presentation hit lulls, but the perpetual conflict of who would win kept
it interesting.

At times, the presentation incorporated some wacky events, like an abrupt entrance of a dancing, singing, balloon-twisting chef. Another moment, Hand, the 3-D artist, had a pie slammed into his face. During the initial five hours, an Elvis impersonator jumped into the room.

During the final hour at the session, the judges glanced over the competitors shoulders. Short bio movies of the teams flashed across a movie screen. The audience asked questions.

Deadline loomed, then passed. But who would win?

The judges reviewed each graphic and awarded scores in clarity, content and execution. All three graphics could have ran in one judge's newspaper, The Chicago Tribune.

But there was only one winner: the hand-drawn graphic of Zarracina and Baptista, which received a perfect score, along with a tall trophy.

Afterwards, audience members swarmed the stage, complimenting, viewing the graphics and snapping photos. Extra copies of the graphics wereprinted out.

Although the hand-drawn graphic won out, a crowd member told Zarracina that each three has its place in the paper. Each has its own strength.

Zaracina, a senior graphic designer for the Merc News, thought for a moment, then agreed, nodding his head.

Beyond Infographics: How to Tell a Story Visually

By Marissa Widdison
Brigham Young University

Haeyoun Park and Sharon Henry gave a presentation sprinkled with hilarious anecdotes and clever infographics this morning in the Gold Room, where every chair was taken and some audience members were sitting or standing in the aisles. Park and Henry talked about how they came up with ideas for infographics: through news, through events, through sources, and through just plain ol' wierd experiences.

One example that particularly interested me was when Park spoke about how she came up with an graphic describing a tornado hitting a small local town. Instead of just resigning herself to the usual locator map pinpointing where the tornado hit, she focused on the destruction of one street within that area. Her infograph was an aerial view of the street, highlighting which buildings were damaged in what way. Taking a more narrow approach allowed her readers to view the event through an angle nobody else had.

Park gave an example of drawing inspiration from personal events when she described creating an infograph about how police disperse riots... after she was caught in riot herself, and shot at with rubber bullets on the way to work!

"I picked up a rubber bullet as a souvenir and thought to myself, 'How can I make this into an infographic?'" Park said.

Henry pointed out that time is an infographic artist's best ally. She described walking around for hours getting a behind-the-scenes tour of stadium facilities. She said that the lengthy tour gave her a lot of material to work with in creating an infographic about the trainer for the Los Angeles Lakers. Although "when the manager started showing me the athlete toilets and reading material there, I thought 'I think I can go now!'"

Henry emphasized that infographics take collaboration, especially with the reporters who write the articles that either inspire or accompany them. In many ways, infographic artists are indeed "visual reporters."

Challenges Art Departments Around the World Face and How They Overcome Them

By Carrie Whitaker
Bowling Green State University

In this session, speaker Jeff Goertzen of the St. Petersburg Times described some of the problems he found when working with newspapers abroad. There were examples from China, Sweden and Costa Rica, among others. He used distinct examples, explaining how the information was collected for the graphics. It is important he said, to always work collectively.

Some of the problems he identified included:
• Not understanding the culture, making it difficult to cater to the audience
• Abusing graphic space, filling the portion of the page with too much stuff or not enough stuff
• Bad content editing, repeating information in the story and again in the graphic
• Having no respect for graphics, not understanding what they do and the importance of them
• Having no structure in the art department, which creates a power struggle
• No planning or communication

Some ways of how to improve:
• Define the product
• Get commitment from management, sometimes there is a trade-off, I'll give you this, if you you give me the freedom to do this
• Set goals and objectives
• Conduct evaluations
• Give incentives, make your art department want to work
• Have fun! Get involved in the story, it will produce better art.

Business Graphics: How to Tell Meaningful Stories

By Tim Martin
Eastern Illinois University

Pablo Ramirez Banares, a graphic journalist in Spain at Recoletos, discussed how his paper tackles informational graphics.

Not surprisingly, the answer is very similar to how American newspapers view the role of infographics.

He asked: Do we need this graphic? Do we have enough time? Should you use graphics that are fast or slow reading? Are readers interested in Iraq war coverage that sounds like a military encyclopedia?

The presentation was in Spanish, so many had to use translation.

Information or Reality Show: a Conversation with Nigel Holmes

By Erica Frederick
Michigan State University

The average American eats an average of 45 pounds of cheese every year. That's nearly twice as much as the 25 pounds a year they ate in 1990. Cheese is addictive. As we digest it, we create a chemical in our stomachs that goes to the brain and has a similar effect to that of morphine.

So, what would be the best way to get this information accross in an infographic? Nigel Holmes says infographics do not have to be hyper-realistic. The point of infographics is to get accross a set of information. If we create infographics that are simple enough to perform their functions without being excessive, then they will inherently look good. So leave off the excess and stick to what you need to make your point.

Nigel's discussion came down to this: Simplicity versus reality. The realistic approach calls for great detail and often ends up in infographics that are overdone and complicated. To illustrate his point, Nigel is creating a book that contains no words, just simple diagrams that describe how to perform simple tasks, like making a grilled-cheese sandwich. With as few as six simple drawings, he can cross language boundaries and get an idea accross.

At your service: a discussion with wire services

Graphic design is an integral part of newspaper design and is just as demanding as any other facet of the newsroom. Sometimes, there's just too much to do, too much to cover or just plain too much, right? That's where KRT Graphics and AP Graphics say they can help out. They do what you, at your (maybe small) newspaper can't.

Not knowing when or if their graphics were used, these designers work from sun up to sun down to provide quality graphics to newsrooms across the nation. While they're technically (and physically) not part of one specific newsroom, they find themselves tied to and a part of every newsroom in America. That's a lot of responsibility. And that's a lot of work.

in order to do this, they need feedback from you. Artists are always outnumbered in the newsroom so they have to pick and choose what projects are most important and do them. They work around your deadline and try to make sure they meet it.

Good graphics start with good information. The information is just as important as the visual aspect and graphic. At KRT, an illustrator and a researcher work together on a graphic to make sure they're getting both the best information and the most stunning graphic.

All in all, KRT Graphics and AP Graphics want to better serve their clients, whether that means making their Web sites more user-friendly or adding a help line, give them feedback and let them know if you like their material or what they can change to help you better.

Janelle Poore
Brigham Young University