Information Design: FLIP classroom

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03/01/2021 - 14/01/2021 / Week 01 - Week 07
Ngu Kah Shin / 0347666
Information Design / B' in Creative Media / Taylor's Design School
Exercises: FLIP




 INSTRUCTIONS 

FLIP Classroom
In your groups, you will be given topics to learn and share with the class about important concepts in information design. The topics are:
  • Types of infographic 
  • Saul Wurman’s L.A.T.C.H
  • Miller’s law memory (Chunking)
  • Manuel Lima’s 9 directives manifestos
You will be given teaching kits to help kick start your research on your topics. Each FLIP delivery will be evaluated as part of your group work assessment. Present your findings in less than 8 minutes to the class. 

 


 FLIP 1: Different types of infographics & online tools

Fig 1.1 FLIP 1 Brief (06/01/2022)

My groupmates were efficient and divided the tasks right after the briefing was done by Ms. Anis. I worked on the 'What makes a good infographic' and 'Mixed chart infographics' parts. I also edited the slides to make sure they are designed in such a way that the information can be easily digested by audiences and more importantly, doesn't look boring, haha!
 
Fig. 1.2 Group presentation slides (PDF) 

Fig. 1.3 Group presentation (Video) (11/02/2022)
After showing Ms. Anis and our coursemates our presentation, Ms. Anis gave us some feedback on how we could improve our presentation next time. The content was sufficient and explained well, but the narrative style of the presentation should be more consistent. For the parts I have done, I presented in a way that is more casual, whereas my groupmates were more formal. I should have discussed with them before doing things my way. Lessons learned!

Below are the works of the groups on the FLIP 1 presentation. 

Section 1
Group 1: https://youtu.be/khODo2p78-Q
Group 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dng_UdI-I6k
Group 3: https://youtu.be/O5lluwK89sY
Group 4: https://youtu.be/BRBNByoSih0
Group 5: https://youtu.be/eoKaIA5emqU
Group 6: https://youtu.be/VeEdeLQ6KdQ
Group 7: https://youtu.be/29TfZcKdTV8
Group 8: https://youtu.be/toTZ5RUHQgc

Section 2
Group 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_PuqG3Bn1g
Group 2: https://youtu.be/0YNh4HIdOKM
Group 3: https://youtu.be/f0e7VVu-EB4
Group 4: https://youtu.be/f9G8zfZPuaI
Group 5: https://youtu.be/wXJfjkF2_Ag
Group 6: https://youtu.be/xDWrfkdHXn0
Group 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRanEPJb22s
Group 8: https://youtu.be/glno7okZ1V0

For the second part of the assignment, it was an individual task where we had to find a poorly designed infographic and reconstruct it through our own experimentation with a selected design tool. 

Pick one free online infographic tool and re-design one poorly constructed infographic poster through your own experimentation with the selected tool. Record the process into your blog and present the redesigned infographics with before and after comparison and their personal rating + review of the online tool for
  1. Difficulty, intuitiveness
  2. Usefulness
  3. Design templates, choices

I have chosen this infographic poster by Seattle University. Some of the problems detected are:
  • Misleading
  • Lack of explanation for statistics
  • No hierarchy

Fig. 1.4 2020 Sustainability Infographic (13/01/2022)



Fig. 1.5 Redesigned: 2020 Sustainability Infographic (13/01/2022)

This infographic poster was redesigned using an online graphic design platform called Canva. Below is my personal rating and review of Canva:

Difficulty, intuitiveness: 
3/5
There’s little doubt that Canva has gained similar recognition in the deign community as when Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator was first released. Canva has become a staple as pseudo designers, people who have rudimentary design skill’s or who are intimidated by the complexity of Photoshop. As someone who is familiar with the fundamentals of the Adobe ecosystem, I found it  regressive to use Canva as a design tool for several reasons. Firstly, the lack of flexibility in designing my poster, made it difficult to turn my vision into reality. Canva lacks the ability for me to illustrate my drawings directly using a stylus which lengthens my workflow because  i have to draw my designs out on illustrator first, before exporting  to Canva. Without  a doubt, Canva is a great design tool for beginners because the process of designing is guided, whether the designed would  like to use templates or simple drag-and-drop functions to design, their design experience becomes more streamlined and less complicated at a cost of flexibility. Canva is a great tool for beginners ans i would highly recommend it to people looking to tip their toe into design, however, i would still revert to using Adobe illustrator personally , as i am comfortable with the workflow, and it has allowed me to create my assets in a fast, efficient and unbounded manner.

Usefulness: 
4/5
What I do like about Canva, is the speed at which I can create ready-made complete designs. Using the templates provided within Canva, I can easily make the designs I need. Although I did not use a template to create this poster, I have used Canva previously for creating social media posts, and I could easily create a high number of posts quickly using templates. I hypothesize that artists or creators who would like to create unique one-of-art pieces might not find the appeal in Canva, but designers who need to create quickly and efficiently (social media managers especially, will benefit from the seamless and intuitive templates that Canva provides.) 

Design templates: 
4/5
Speaking about design templates, I am very impressed by the quantity and quality of templates Canva has. Canva has over 400 hundred thousand templates, with different applications which can then be customized according to your needs. For this assignment, I did not find a template that suited my needs, therefore I opted to design my poster from scratch from Canva. As you can tell, I am a very fussy customer, however, I can clearly see the appeal and effectiveness of the templates provided by Canva. Whether you need a social media post, a logo, a cover for your podcast, or anything else, you can rely on Canva to have Mr. Right or Mrs. Right in the form of template. I personally prefer creating my art pieces, as I have full flexibility over the outcome, but if push comes to shove, and I am running tight on a deadline, I would seriously consider Canva's templates as an option.

 FLIP 2: Saul Wurman's L.A.T.C.H. 

Fig 2.1 FLIP 2 Brief (11/01/2022)

Richard Saul Wurman, in his legendary book “Information Anxiety,” wrote:

“Information may be infinite, however… the organization of information is finite as it can only be organized by LATCH: Location, Alphabet, Time, Category, or Hierarchy. I’ve tried thousand times to find other ways to organize, but I always end up using one of these five.”

Wurman devised the L.A.T.C.H method for organizing visual information with each of the letters in the acronym standing for a different approach to organizing the same set of images.

Location – with the information organized into groups dependent upon its geographic location.
Alphabet – information arranged in alphabetical order.
Time – information arranged in chronological order.
Category – information organized into defined categories, perhaps based on the subject matter, information type, etc.
Hierarchy – information arranged in a hierarchical order, perhaps dependent upon size, age, etc.

For this project, our group was not required to do the task and presentation as it was the other groups' turn. In class, we watched and listened to their presentations.

Below are the works of other groups on the FLIP 2 presentation. 

Section 1
Group 1: https://youtu.be/NPCHU0Q5POE
Group 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brq8jmvIQ2c
Group 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tudMqZpIDN0

Section 2
Group 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIyv-8F12Fk
Group 7: https://youtu.be/h9SdpVWEc84

 FLIP 3: Miller's Law (Chunking) 

Fig 3.1 FLIP 3 Brief (20/01/2022)

Once again, thanks to our group leader, Se Win, we began allocating tasks and roles to each of the group members so that we could begin researching and gathering relevant material for our Google slides. This topic was rather eye-opening for me because I had always attempted to use this chunking rule without even realizing it was an existing rule! After completing this project, I have a much better understanding of how information may be presented such that a user can benefit from a collection of information to the greatest extent possible.

Fig. 3.2 Group presentation slides (PDF) (25/01/2022)

Fig. 3.3 Group presentation (Video) (25/01/2022)

After our presentation, Ms. Anis commented about how it is good that we have broken down the importance as well as chosen the right examples for each sub-topic. She even praised us on how well our slides and material were prepared, and that our group has the current best presentation! Our friends from another section revealed to us that Ms. Anis showed our group's work to the other class. Nice!

Below are the works of other groups on the FLIP 3 presentation. 
Section 1

 FLIP 4: Manuel Lima's 9 Directives Manifestos 

Fig 4.1 FLIP 4 Brief (03/02/2022)

Below are the works of other groups on the FLIP 4 presentation. 
Section 1

Section 2

 FINAL SUBMISSION 

Fig 5.1 Redesigned infographic (PNG format)


Fig 5.2 Redesigned infographic (PDF format)

Fig. 5.3 FLIP 1 Group presentation (Video) (11/02/2022)

Fig. 5.4 FLIP 3 Group presentation (Video) (25/01/2022)



 REFLECTIONS 
FLIP assignments really increased engagement between students and teachers as well as within students ourselves. Having to do our very own research and come up with slides to present and 'teach' the class really helped me understand the concepts of designs in greater depths and created more meaningful learning opportunities. The collaborative discussions among my peers also helped me develop my communicative skills, along with higher-order thinking skills such as problem-finding and problem-solving with the help of our lecturer and peers.

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