22 January 2013

Class Exercise 2

Task: Analyse the following 2 infographics, apply C.R.A.P. in your analyses.
  1. Baumgartner in Space
  2. The Three-Trillion-Dollar War
C.R.A.P. is the four basic principles of design as stated by Robin Williams in her book "The Non-Designer's Design Book". C.R.A.P. consists of Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity.


Baumgartner in Space
The first infographic gives us a sense of Felix's proximity to space when he made the historical jump.

Contrast
There is an obvious contrast between the information given with regards to the height where Felix made his jump which is written in red, as compared to the others which are written in white. People can thus easily focus their attention on the height where Felix made his jump.

As the height gets higher, the blue background becomes significantly darker. This give people a sense of the height. The background colour is also contrasted with the land, which is indicated with a green background.

Repetition
There is a consistency in terms of the style of the written information. The height indicator is written in a bigger font, while a smaller font is used to give additional details pertaining to that particular height. Dotted lines are also used to mark the respective heights, ensuring consistency throughout the infographic.

Alignment
The written information is neatly aligned, giving people a sense that those information are connected to each other, which in this case gives information regarding the height and an accompanying detail pertaining to that height.

Proximity
Proximity is well utilised in this infographic since the space between the words give people a sense of the proximity to space.


The second infographic gives us a sense of the expenditure for the operations in Iraq.

The Three-Trillion-Dollar War
Contrast
There are some colours used in this infographic. Blue, red, grey, white and black. These colours however does not seem to mean much as to how we should be viewing this infographic since there is no obvious reason as to why certain colours are used for certain items.

However, credit should be given as to the choice of contrasting background colour that was used in this infographic that is black and grey. Those information in the black background are details complementing the graphics on the grey background.

Repetition
There seems to be clusters of graphic were repetition can be seen. It is easy to spot the lorries, tanks, wheelchairs, hot air balloon, etc. While repetition brings consistency throughout the infographic, some repeated items might be unnecessary and makes the infographic seems too cluttered.

Alignment
While effort is seen in trying to group the clusters together, there is no apparent alignment for this infographic other than the case of the information at the black background. As stated earlier, the infographic seems too cluttered with repetitive items all over the place.

Proximity
The way the items are placed does not allow one to read the infographic in an orderly fashion. Fortunately, the key terms are given a number, allowing one to be able to cover everything in the infographic without accidentally overlooking at certain clusters.


As a concluding statement, I would say that the first infographic is better since it has the C.R.A.P. element in it.


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