After watching “Journalism in the Age of Data”, I realized that everything I have learned so far in the iMedia program was in this video. Though I hate to admit, this video was both boring but very informative. One of the points that I got out of the video is that if you want to understand visualization, you must start making them. That’s what I’m taking out of making an inforgraphic design of Hurricane Ike as my group assignment. It seemed so easy when my partner Alexandra and I started to sketch, but once we started working on the computer and looking up statistics, that’s when we started to get worried. We both wondered if people from all over the world would understand our design, which in a fantasy world would be placed in the new National Hurricane museum in New Orleans.
Information design is apparently all the rage, and some people are not happy about it. Some in the video feel that it’s strayed away from telling a story, and has become full of just numbers. Also, the design concept has become too complicated. Instead of just telling a straightforward story, many info designers are more worried about the creativity and the beauty of the design.
Another point made in the video was designing code that can be used multiple times, such as a map or a bar graph. When you make a design too unique, you can’t really use it again, which means wasting time creating a new one for a new assignment.