A report on this weeks BBC’s Newsnight programme saw graphic designer Neville Brody and Information is Beautiful’s David McCandless debate the growth of data visualisation. Originally from a journalist background, David McCandless found himself swamped by information on a daily basis and decided to experiment with different ways of seeing this information visually, using colours, design and illustration. However by visualising data in this way does it become less informative? Neville Brody seems to think so, in the report he commented that data visualisation was creating little more than pretty pictures, fit for hanging on a wall rather than drawing information from.

So would we be more inclined to read and take in data in its original form of numbers and text, or in this age of information overload do we need to see our information displayed in a different, more visual way. Some would say it’s all about the balance, give someone a table of information to read and they will take it in, but may find the experience dull, but ignore all rules of graph making completely and create a visually arresting image and the lines become blurred, are you asking someone to look at a a graph or a piece of art? Another question to address would be, is the data being accurately presented, or while creating these pieces is some of the core information lost in the creative process? But are we all missing the point? Graphic design is about communicating information, but it is also about style and grabbing peoples attention, and if an info graphic in a newspaper makes someone stop to read an article they were otherwise going to flip past then surely it has done the trick!

Watch the Newsnight report here

D&AD’s New Blood promotional posters have taken an interesting turn this year, after some harsh criticism for appearing too pompous in it’s 2009 campaign. This time round the posters feature members of the creative community again, but this time captured at the point of ending it all: the talent of new blood proving too much for them to cope with. But yet again the posters have caused great debate amongst graduates and members of the creative community alike, some finding the posters extremely offensive, while others asking why they focus on prominent creatives rather then showcasing graduates work. However this would be hard to do as it would be impossible to show the breadth of talent on one poster. By showing the quality of its membership instead, D&AD hope to inspire young graduates, but at the same time they run the risk of looking too elitist and self-indulgent. The posters aren’t all doom and gloom however, the photography is dark and sordid, but at the same time humorous,  highlighted by the funny captions stating ‘no one was harmed in the making of this poster.’ One thing is for sure the posters aren’t boring, they have caused outrage and received admiration and will be very memorable…until next year anyway.

Congratulations to Hain Celestial UK who have come 41st in ‘The Sunday Times 60 Best Green Companies 2010′ list, with help from one of it’s most famous brands, and our client, Linda McCartney Foods leading the Meat Free Monday campaign to fight climate change. The organic food company was also the second highest ranking food and drink company on the Green List!

To read the full article and for more information on how they achieved their green place – >Click here

A very creative South Korean student has won the Brit Insurance Design of the Year award for his folding plug. Although its a great design and its scary to think the plug hadnt been redesigned since 1946 – I would have liked to have seen a designer tackle the issue of using less power on the MacBook. (pic below courtesy of Creative Review) For more coverage and praised entrants >Click here

Imogen Heap, British singer-songwriter attended the Grammy awards in a ‘twitter dress’ she had created, so that her fans could be part of the awards ceremony with her. Her necklace was a digital sign displaying twitter messages from her fans, the tweets were relayed to her jewellery through a wireless router embedded in her dress. Her handbag also doubled up as an iphone featuring photos people were sending to her online. Heap has been dubbed the “queen of social media”, she invited her fans to provide song lyrics and remixes of her songs through social networking sites when she was writing her latest album. A sign of how influential social networking has become, especially if it gets you into vip award ceremonies ;-) …

Sophie had one of these magnum temptations ice cream bars the other day and was shocked by the amount of packaging for a small ice lolly! The four ice creams come in a box, which is wrapped in plastic and the the four ice lollies are individually housed in their own box, sitting on a piece of corrugated card, with a lock style seal! She understands they are trying to brand the product as a naughty temptation that should be locked away, but the packaging is excessive, when we are all trying to cut back on packaging to do less damage to the environment. A case of a brand being out of step with society!

The packaging promotes a website – 'a world of pleasures' (you get the packaging pun now!) They have missed a trick here as they have just provided a poor mans YouTube experience, asking us to load pleasure videos zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. So now the packaging feels even more of a waste…

It's a fact…social media and television are becoming more and more intertwined. A monster Tweet storm usually accompanies shows like The X Factor and every weekend keywords related to the show occupy half of Twitter's global trending topics. Even more impressive than that though - about 5% of worldwide tweets mention the finalists' or judges' names.

The word is out that whilst TV has been a little slow in integrating social media there are plans by a range of suppliers (one being Canvas a proposed partnership between the BBC, ITV, BT and Five to build an open internet-connected TV platform, subject to BBC Trust approval) to include social content-sharing features as well as integrating Twitter. Canvas may take too long to be a standard, with the Trust consultation!

But TV is finally waking up to the internet :-)

 
  
Just as we are all careful to maintain a responsible carbon footprint – we should also be aware that our digital footprint can make us individually vulnerable…

What you do on the internet builds up your online reputation and it is becoming essential to keep an eye on our internet persona's – now there is an app for it.

Aaron Zinman, a PhD student  has now created an internet application that “aggregates” your online identity and visualises it as a beautiful bar-code. “It is meant for the viewer to reflect on our current and future world, where digital histories are as important if not more important than oral histories, and computational methods of condensing our digital traces are opaque and socially ignorant," writes Aaron Zinman.

All you have to do is enter your name or the name of the person you want to check out, and the application will start to build a persona. Scary huh??

So what do you look like? read more click here

We're talking Twittering – so, supporting our belief that social networks hold a valuable mine of resources the Guardian revealed a few days ago the results of a YouGov survey of more than 2000 adults – of whom 200 used Twitter regularly. The results, though more a pure social comment than marketing specific, still showed just how far this media has evolved – especially amongst those with a more liberal way of thinking. In fact libertarian campaigns really flourish. So, got a cause? a crusade? a march? want to ensure the survival of mankind? animal-kind? – in fact almost anything so long as it's kind… get Tweeting. Click here for the full story http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/nov/18/twitter-users-survey-poll-britain

Fran is our resident Twitterati, tweeting like mad to give an insiders view of her life in Silver Towers plus a few laughs, groans and even possibly her Christmas wish list. Follow her on http://twitter.com/FrancescaRC

Conversation between creative types, has reached fever-pitch…so just in case you didn't know, Ikea has changed its global font from Futura to Verdana. Some are saying that instead of looking industrial, functional, and tough it now looks more crafted and rounded, mature… A bit like replacing Kate Moss with Stirling Moss.

Some say it's lost the feel of good practical design – which is now more eggcup than Ektorp. Online forums and typomaniacs, of which we follow, have taken the news badly! Verdana is one of the most widely (commonly) used fonts in the world and folk who are passionate about these things dislike the way our words are becoming homogenised, mashed, blended and stodgy.

In reality, it's just a business, it's not dangerous and the new font probably won't stop me holing myself up in one of their swish sheds for days with nothing but a meatball and large danish for company. But consider…the real reason for this change is probably commercial efficiency, what would happen to our appreciation of the world if all decisions were based on this alone?

With that I'm off to see what our studio bods have done with my wingdings.
for the full story and more on the famous font…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/sep/02/ikea-verdana-font