Following the sold-out success of last year I returned to Singapore this October for a two-day workshop at Singapore National Library, in partnership with Gestalten and Methodology.

Workshop Contents

As designers we are living the most interesting and challenging age of the news industry. The technology used in writing is undergoing a huge transformation, addressing itself to a multitude of languages. The great challenge of our time is to combine different languages, in order to increase knowledge and understanding, to inform and clarify.
The workshop aims at highlighting the potential of #InfographicThinking as modality to approach and interpret reality: not only limited to the traditional graphic design disciplines, today infographic is able to translate a complex issue into an effective and recognizable visual form, producing new knowledge and revealing new meanings.

Objectives

The course aimed to strengthen the capacity:
— to understand the evolution of the visual communication languages, from the origin until nowadays increasing quantity and complexity of data and information produced
— to develop a whole ‘infographic project’, approaching the various process phases critically and properly, from the initial access to data, their understanding, manipulation, interpretation until the final communication by using the appropriate visual representation
— to conceive infographic as a process of visual production able to generate knowledge and better understanding of reality
— to realize how infographics have wide ranging applications beyond news dissemination, in several other domains such as scientific visualization, product design, education, information technology, business communication and entertainment

Didactic Structure

The didactic structure of the workshop reproduced the process to create an infographic, providing participants with the needed theoretical background and practical skills. During the two days, the different project phases were approached through the direct project experience: starting from the extraction, selection and interpretation of data until the organization of the contents into the most effective visual form, able to combine simplicity and complexity of the communication. For each project phase, the related conceptual basis were investigated and practical guidelines were provided.

The Project

Workshop participants — a good mix between designers, editors, and illustrators — were divided into five small groups and under my guidance, they produced an infographic about the Singapore’s 50th anniversary of independence.

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