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!
The team are enjoying the disco delights of Walter Jones, especially their underground hit ‘Living without your love’. Watch the YouTube video below or call us and ask to be put on hold for a short office boogie!
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!
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??
To many of us this isn't a big shock, the shock is that the research of the 500 brands in the
2009/10 Superbrands list showed that nearly 75% of them don't have any social media presence!
And when you think of the numbers of the UK population using these platforms its even more bewildering. Again its strange especially when PC's now outsell TVs, yet these same brands continue to drop huge budgets into TV!
Maybe its not the brands though that need to heed this headlines but us agencies, we have enough PC and Mobile users out there to communicate effectively with the population on social networks, but still brands don't feel we are giving them a media they feel comfortable investing in. We have work to do…
Nielsen's last research, shows the most interesting recent on-line trend is the take up of social networking by older groups – infact the power of the grey click (well, would be grey if it weren’t for a bit of help from the bottle) is never to be underestimated. By this month there’s as many 35 – 49 year olds on Facebook as there are 18 – 34 year olds. Move over kids, Gr’mars 'comin ta town!
There's an awful lot of murders in Midsomer considering only 4 men and a goat live there. Clearly they've had to look for more unsuspecting victims and visited Hemel last Sunday - just outside Silver Towers.
"Just need to change this wrench…" murder looks like the least of John Nettle's problems.
When Creative Director, Terry returned from his Meat Free Monday client meeting recently and told us he'd been singing with Paul McCartney we honestly thought he'd spent too long in the sun.
That was until we had the proof. Terry, (sitting directly next to PMcC) seems to be quite at home, in an awkward, self conscious, musical sort of way. Apparently he sings like an angel ;-) take a look at the full video by clicking here
We adore webinars at SC – it's an amazing way to feel part of a global virtual classroom, expand skills bases and share and absorb information – does anybody remember the good old days though?
This blogger recently made contact with a journalist colleague (also an experienced conferencer) located many miles away to re-create the joys of old-style conferencing on line. To fully recreate the ambiance we synchronised comfort breaks and coffee, we laid out nice note pads to doodle on and "sucky-sweets" to stop us nodding off. The web-cam focussed break out area – the garden, looked just like a hotel lawn (not). We also re-enacted the very awkward few moments at the end when we all used to look for another lost soul with whom to pass polite conversation/talk about one's dog/family/M25/weeks it took us to get to or find the location.
Hain (who we work with on the Linda McCartney Foods business) have just been voted the 10th best green business in the UK – hooray! One statistic that even wowed us was their 90% water recycling rate! For the full artcile >Click here.
