ixtract Projekte

Daten professionell veranschaulicht, Visualisieren Sie ihre Botschaften. Wir visualisieren ihre Botschaften, Infografik für Ihr Business. Diagramme, Prozesse, Erklärungen Grafiken für Web, Print, Animation! Diagramme, Prozesse, Erklärungen Grafiken für Web, Print, Animation! Wissen verständlich, klar gestalten Infografiken präsentieren Infografik für Ihr Business. Infografik professionell. Infografik-Agentur. Agentur für Infografik. Themen verständlich kommunizieren! visual knowledge transfer. ixtract erstellt: Diagramme, Erklärcharts 3D Business Infografik Produkte prägnant visualisieren, setzen Sie Ihre Leistungen in Szene Daten professionell veranschaulicht - 3D Schulung in Cinema 4D Modelling, Texturing, Camera, Light Anfänger und Fortgeschrittene 3D Agentur - Infografik miao höhle miao cave maxon cinema 4d training Maxon Cinema 4D Schulung cinema 4d workshops cinema 4d training cinema 4d schulung cinema 4d kurs Berlin cinema 4d handbuch cinema 4d berlin 3d agentur Infografik Design interaktive infografik infografiken erstellen business infographic interaktive infografikBesonders in der emotionalen und anwenderbezogenen Vermittlung konkreter Inhalte im Marketing-, Unterhaltungs- und Schulungsbereich gibt es bereits einen sehr hohen und sich weiter vergrößernden Bedarf für eine grafische übersetzung umfassenderer Botschaften. Bisher wurden viele Lösungen aber entweder von gestaltungsfernen Branchen aus dem Beratungssektor umgesetzt oder von Agenturen, die eher auf imagegetriebene Realisierung spezialisiert sind. Bei den einen mangelt es oft am ansprechenden Design und einer sinnvollen Konzentration auf Kerninhalte. Bei den anderen fehlt dagegen meist die inhaltliche Durchdringung und das Verständnis für die nicht-grafischen Faktoren die ein informationsgetriebenes Projekt immer mit sich bringt. Bei den meisten Lösungen kommt der zu vermittelnde Inhalt daher zu kurz und erreicht weder den Rezipienten wie gewünscht, noch hat der Absender das Gefühl, dass sein Anliegen punktgenau kommuniziert wurde. Dieser Missstand vergrößert sich mit der Komplexität der zu vermittelnden Botschaft setzt jedoch auch schon bei einfachsten Erklärschnipseln an, die häufig am Anwender vorbei erklären... Mein Ansatz resultiert nun aus meiner langjährigen Tätigkeit in der traditionell anmutenden Infografik und gründet sich daneben auf meine inhaltlich, konzeptionelle Erfahrung und grafischen übersetzung crossmedialer Kommunikationsstrategien. Kernkompetenz bildet die visuelle übersetzung jeglicher Erklärdimension und die Erstellung dafür kommunikativ konvergierender Helfer in Form von Postern, Brochüren, Interaktiven Anwendungen oder Animationsfilmen. Das Publikum durch das Sehen zum Verstehen verleiten ist mein Ansatz für meine zukünftige Tätigkeit. Diese umfasst daher das gekonnte reduzieren didaktischer Botschaften und das stringente Zusammenführen der verbleibenden Aussagen in verschiedenen Medienkanälen (Print, Web und Film / Animation). Dabei kann ich unterschiedliche Teams - aus den Bereichen Redaktion, Grafik, Layout, Infografik, 3D, Animation, Schnitt, Webprogrammierung, Regie und PostProduktion - für die Umsetzung in Print, Web und Film zusammenstellen, grafisch koordinieren und in der technischen Umsetzung zusammenhalten. Huge ammounts of data Art work - reading help > story Different staffs > visual journalists Sell infographic skills > pr > improve adds Product differences declining / services more transparent / how stuff works / flow charts - production lines > Films > Online tools like special dossiers Like coverage of bp desaster. But with all backgrounds > Data driven > how much oil do we spend each day, how much are 150000 barrel? Anspruch an Unterhaltung wächst, Entwicklung geht Richtung E-Learning > Design kommt eine tragendere Rolle bei machen zu vermittelnden Inhalten zuDatenvisualisierung verlangt nach Leserführung > Redakteur Visuelle Informationstiefe, Emotionalisierter Zugang zu Informationen, Informationsarchitektur, interaktivere und dennoch geführte Erzählung.Neue Erzähltechniken machen neue Inhalte zugänglich!as society become more transparent, product differences become more difficult to communicate, and the attention span of busy readers continues to decline.highy-creative panorama infographics for Germany's top business daily, the Handelsblatt for example, where we were specialized in poster spreads, trying to convert dry data directly into real stories. Utilizing illustrations as well as all 3-D and 2-D graphical technics we added depth and strong visual hierarchies so readers still found direction in a huge amount of economic data being displayed. So we literally transformed abstract data into mountains, Comics or information-cities, making sense out of information which is usually almost impossible to comprehend. (SEE ILLUSTRATIONS Picture_01.tiff, Picture_02.tiff, Picture_03.tiff)how corporate communicators the possibilities of infographics for explaining products and processes within the company. The infographic sucked people into the story, explained the system in less than a minute. So in a worldwide community working together with explaining pictures makes your news and articles multilingual or to demonstrate real data. But it is virtually unknown here that infographics can also be used to create an overview of complex processes and to show hierarchies and demonstrate nontechnical relationships. To give an overview / big picture for processes and e.g. A company wide programm or some arrangements of the government. Increasing pressure for transparency, but how to deliver this transparency e.g. For the public sector. How to communicate the 500 pages dossier (staatliche Erdöl Kontrollstelle) What ist huge Data amount? Really much (opereating) figures or figures that can't be expressed by numerary, but are also data to make vital work more accessible to larger audiences. A complex world demands that necessary informations for individuals get more easily accessible. Some information have to be eliminated, but the rest should be communicated mor directly and sometimes in other ways than just pure words. To help people to get a picture and sometimes better images of some ideas. To show differences fast and in a direct way. Just one gaze…Even if you are a journalist, how would you explain your working process? An how would you explain it, so people could understand? How would you explain the financial crisis? But as we can well see at Malofiej18, infographics can explain many things faster, better and reach many more people than words. And on the other hand, there are so many different fields where people demand infographics today. That's because much complex information, particularly where it relates to processes and relationships, does not lend itself well to explanation through words and the standard chronology of sentence structure. But if we really want to trace new approches, we have to improve our knowledge about how people deal with information graphics and explore new ways of database storytelling. We have to do much more than we are doing. There is a huge deficit in analysis of how people undestand graphic representations as a kind of visual language or alphabet. I doubt most of visuallisaitons of data could truly be understood by a huge readership. We additional have to improve our narrative skills to produce more readable, engaging infographics. Have to get different thinking newsrooms and working teams for some issues. > Vgl. Kolumbien / New York Times? 1. Was will ich erreichen? Infografiken können sehr unterschiedliche Kommunikationsziele erreichen. Egal, ob es um Fortbildung, Wissens- und Change Management, Werbung oder PR-Aufgaben, um Mitarbeiter, Kunden oder breite öffentlichkeit geht. Und: Infografiken machen ihren Job außergewöhnlich einprägsam! 2. Bloß nicht langweilen! Wenn es keiner liest, brauchen Sie auch keine weiteren Regeln. Wer pure Informationen braucht, sucht im Telefonbuch oder bei Wikipedia. Wir erzählen Geschichten, beziehen den Betrachter ein. Nur so bieten wir dem Leser die Chance, Informationen selbst zu entdecken. 3. "Was wollen die wissen" statt "was haben wir". Es geht viel weniger darum, welche Informationen man anbieten will als darum, was die Zielperson eigentlich wissen will. Und aus dem Thema und den Einzelfragen sowie Bedürfnissen der Zielgruppe ein komplexes attraktives Bild zu schaffen, das leistet eine gute Infografik. 4. Die Zielgruppe führen! Grafik ist nicht Informations-Basisdemokratie. Gute Vermittler von Inhalten sind Verführer, Dramaturgen, Erzähler und schwören auf klare hierarchische Informationsstrukturen in der Grafik. 5. Einswerden von Text und Bild. Infografiken führen textliche und bildliche Information symbiotisch zusammen und zeigen damit etwas Einzigartiges, was weder mit Text noch mit dem Bild allein beschrieben werden kann. Wahrnehmungsphysiologisch erreichen sie dadurch ein Höchstmaß an Informationsaufnahme, und – speicherung. 6. Und zum Schluss: Was können wir weglassen? Die Kernaussagen einer guten Infografik beantworten die wichtigsten Fragen zu einem Thema. Gezielte Reduktion sorgt für den notwendigen schnellen Überblick. Briefing und Zeitplan aufstellen. Erst die Zusammenarbeit verschiedener Spezialisten macht die Produktion einer komplexen Infografik möglich. Beim Kick-Off Meeting kommen der Art Director, mindestens ein Redakteur, ein 2D-Grafiker und Layouter, zwei 3D-Grafiker und das Projekt Management zusammen. Das gesamte verfügbare Material wird gemeinsam gesichtet und eventuell nötige Zusatzrecherchen in Auftrag gegeben. Alle Beteiligten werden vom Projekt Manager über Thema, Format, Zeitplan und die jeweiligen Aufgaben gebrieft. Erste Ideen werden fixiert, technische Anforderungen formuliert und weitere für das Projekt wichtige Infos ausgetauscht. 2. Scribble Anhand der Infos aus dem Briefing entwickeln der Art Director und Redakteur mit dem 2D-Grafiker und Layouter die Scribbles für das Projekt. In Abstimmung mit dem Projektmanager entsteht danach der genaue Zeitplan. 3. Sammeln und Sichten Zu Beginn liegt ein undurchdringliches Chaos an ungewichteten Informationen vor, die es erstmal zu sichten gilt. Im besten Fall stellt der Kunde als Basis Bau- oder Konstruktionspläne für die Grafik zur Verfügung. Während die Pläne von den Grafikern geprüft und vorbereitet werden, recherchiert die Redaktion für die Grafik relevante Infos. Sehr häufig besuchen die Grafiker das zu visualisierende Gelände und fotografieren es ausführlich. Besonders wichtig dabei ist es die Beschaffenheiten der unterschiedlichen Oberflächen und die Stimmung vor Ort einzufangen, damit das spätere Modell auch passend texturiert und beleuchtet werden kann. Außerdem erschließen sich nicht alle Zusammenhänge eines Gebäudes aus den Plänen allein, so dass viele Fragen bezüglich der Funktionalität bei dieser Gelegenheit ebenfalls geklärt werden können. Um einen Überblick über das gesamte Bildmaterial zu bekommen, werden zahlreiche Kataloge angelegt, mit nicht selten zwischen 300 und 400 Fotos. Natürlich gehört zur Datenaufbereitung auch die für jedes Team schlüssige Ordnerstruktur und eindeutige Nomenklatur der Arbeitsdateien. 4. Vorbereitung Im 2D-Vektor Programm werden alle digitalen Pläne auf eine Größe skaliert und bereinigt. Was nicht importiert werden kann, wird von Fotos oder gescannten Dokumenten im Adobe Illustrator nachgezeichnet. So wird der Detailgrad verringert um die Datenmenge an Polygonen und Punkten für den späteren Import in 3D so gering wie möglich zu halten. 5. Bau 3D Nun ist die Zeit der 3D-Grafiker gekommen. Anhand der Pläne und Fotos bauen sie das Olympiastadion im Rechner nach. Statik spielt hier natürlich keine Rolle, weswegen nur die sichtbaren Bereiche nachgebaut werden. Für einige Elemente am Bau gibt es keine eindeutige architektonische Lösung, wie z.B. die organisch geformte Dachoberfläche. In einem 3D Programm werden verschiedene Oberflächen nicht automatisch voneinander abgestoßen so dass eine flexible Haut Stahlträger einfach durchdringen würde. Um diesen natürlichen Effekt herzustellen ist viel Handarbeit und "Punkte" zupfen von Nöten.6. Texturierung Nun kommen die Fotos aus dem Stadion zum Einsatz. Damit das 3D Modell auch die Atmosphäre seines Originals so gut wie möglich darstellt, werden viele der nachgebauten Flächen mit den Originaltexturen versehen. Dafür müssen die Texturen wenn nötig von perspektivischen Verzerrungen befreit werden. Danach entstehen für jede Textur quadratische Elemente, mit denen das Objekt "bekachelt" werden kann. Allerdings ist es notwendig neben den reinen Farbkanälen noch einige weitere anzufertigen wie z.B. einen Glanz-, Relief- oder Spiegelungskanal um das Modell realistischer und wirklicher zu gestalten. Wenn keine Nahaufnahmen von den Originaltexturen vorliegen, werden diese künstlich nach empfunden. 7. Lichter und Beleuchtung Einer der wichtigsten Arbeitsschritte beim Anfertigen von 3D Modellen ist - neben der Texturierung und dem Moddeln - das Beleuchten. Erst der richtige Beleuchtungs- Setup verleiht einer 3D Szene ihr Leben. Fast wie beim Film wird oft mit einer 3 Spot Beleuchtung gearbeitet, was bei komplexeren Modellen wie dem Stadion allerdings nicht ausreicht. Mit der Hand werden sämtliche der nicht selten 50 oder mehr Lichter einzeln in der Szene platziert, farblich abgestimmt und mit einem Schattenwurf versehen. Viele Lichtinformationen werden in einzelnen Kanälen herausgerendert und später ebenfalls in der Kompositionsdatei mit den verschiedenen anderen Einzelrenderings (wie die eben erwähnten Zuschauer) zum eigentlichen 3D Bild zusammengebaut. 8. Gestaltung von Lebendigkeit und Tiefe In Zusammenarbeit setzen 2D- und 3D-Grafiker die Zuschauer und Spieler in das Stadion. Aufgrund der verkleinerten Darstellung wirken die Zuschauerränge später sehr detailliert, obwohl der Basis- Mensch für die Menge nur aus ca. 5 Würfeln besteht. Bei 70000 Zuschauern kommen allerdings so viele Polygone in der Szenen dazu, dass die Zuschauer in einer eigenen Datei gerendert werden müssen und später separat in Photoshop ins Stadion eingefügt werden müssen. 8.2 Bildbearbeitung In der Bildbearbeitung werden die unterschiedlichen Renderings nun zusammengeführt. einzelne Lichtquellen werden noch einmal korrigiert. Schatten ausgeblendet, Gegenstände betont und an einzelnen Stellen Farbkorrekturen durchgeführt. Ebenso wird das Bild in den richtigen Farbraum überführt und leicht erreicht eine solche Kompositionsdateien eine Größe von 800 MB was vor allem auf die hohe Auflösung für den Posterdruck zurückzuführen ist. 9. Erstellung der 2D-Elemente Viele Inhalte lassen sich besser in zweidimensionalen Grafiken erklären, wie im Falle des Olympiastadions beispielsweise der Lageplan, der in der Regel nachgezeichnet wird. Diese 2D Elemente sind zudem auf einer anderen Informationsstufe als die 3D Elemente angesiedelt und verleihen der Grafik dadurch eine visuelle Tiefe. 10. Layout Wenn das Hauptelement und die zusätzlichen Einzelgrafiken fertig gestellt sind, werden sie in das anvisierte Gesamtlayout eingebunden, welches die textliche und typografische Arbeit mit einbezieht. Hier geht es vor allem darum, die Inhalte im Rahmen einer Hierarchie so aufzubauen, das die bestmögliche Leserführung entsteht. Das Gesamtlayout kann in unterschiedlichsten Programmen umgesetzt werden und ist einzig der Frage untergeordnet: Wie erzählen wir die Geschichte? Die einzelnen Elemente für sich betrachtet sind vor allem grafisch getrieben und bieten inhaltlich nur wenig Raum. Erst im Gesamtzusammenhang betrachtet, füllen sie das architektonische Objekt mit Leben und führen den Leser durch seine spezifischen Aspekte und machen es zu einem individuellen Erlebnis. Und zum Schluss: Jeder aus dem Team arbeitet bis zuletzt am bestmöglichen Resultat. Wie nach jedem Schritt bei der Produktion einer komplexen Infografik, gibt der Art Director dem Ganzen den letzten Schliff. In der finalen Korrektur wird noch mal jedes Detail unter die Lupe genommen, um das optimale Ergebnis zu gewährleisten. Jede Einzelgrafik eines solchen Projekts kann im Rahmen eines anderen Layouts oder in anderen Medien wieder zum Einsatz kommen. So mag beispielsweise der gesamte Prozess der Entstehung des 3D-Modells - die Arbeit von Monaten – im Zeitraffer animiert, nur eine Minute das Auge fesseln. An Infographic can explain a lot of things in a very short time. In Germany most of the people don´t know anything about infographics, because it is a very word fixed country, so pictures normally have a minor relevance compared to words. By text this (printing process infographics) would be a quite boring explanation, and with photos you wouldn´t get a clue on how things work together, while in a infographic process, we could explain all that. We try to produce a very uncommon kind of communication tool in Germany. It is not only showing a scenery, an inteligent picture also explains some specific technical aspects, and this information you can get visually out of a inteligent image. Specially in Germany we have only a few universities who offers studies in infographics, because normally if you go to a university you can study graphics. Graphics means to do graphics arts, to bring forms together with text, etc, but always on a aesthetic visual aspect. But in infographics you don´t have only aesthetics, but you have to reach your reader, you have to explain something, you must tell him a story, and after that he has to understand this story and that´s much more complicated, because often some colours get very important in a graphic but they don´t tell anything about the process, which is beeing described, so you have to concentrate on which information will come to the front, which information or picture will go more to the back and become more of an aesthetic background, and which are the primar informations you want to tell people. Most people don´t think that, although it´s called infographics, that the first part of the word is as important as the second part, as I said before, so the more informations we get better and the deeper informations we get the better. Often people come and say: "hey, just do a graphic that shows this and that" , and then we say: "ok, but to show this and that, we have to know how this and that works and how long it takes and what more information is important to tell about this topics", so gathering the information is a huge part of the production. Definitly the designers get stressed with too much information, but me as a project manager, I definitly like more, to have too much information, and to decide on our own what we use and what we don´t, than not having information. The main problem is that the client has no idea how complex production can be. A 3d model or an animation is a whole load of work. A very complicated version of a infographic can include sometimes up to 10 or 12 people who work on it. Despite the usual skills you need to have, maybe the best designers sometimes only know photoshop, or they only know Ilustrator. A infographic designer has to know a huge variety of different programs, he has to know about Indesign, Ilustrator, Photoshop, some 3D programs like Cinema 4D, he needs to know basic skills of cutting. This are very high request to our designers.. But it is also the understanding of infographics. We produce a huge variety of infographics, we do very small charts, bar charts or pie charts, and this, the one I mentioned, the very big ones, but we spend as much energy and sometimes as much time on the small graphics, like on the bigger graphics, because the most important thing for us is how could we show the content in the best way, how can the information be told in the best way and there we spend a lot of energy. A lot of power in developing new comparisons, to show people the difference between numbers. There is no need to do a high resolution 3D style for a simple workflow or for some numbers that can be shown in a pie graphic, rather than a 3D optic. That is not necessary, so the key point for a very nice infographic is the balance between design and information, so there should bet he main information, the focus and the Design should always support that information. At first the main target to solve is the communication need of the client, and then, concerning the informations we get from the client´s briefing we try to condense the information to pictures, so this briefing leads to a scrible, which we give to the client, so that he gets a visual idea, then we talk about it and perhaps there´s another scrible needed until we have the idea fort he graphical transition of the data. After that we work on the infographic and we have a certain point, short before we do the final work to again check with the client if this is what he wants and what we have to change, or not, or how we could advance in the whole project, and then in the end we produce the infographic in the media the client wants, so that it could be printed in certain special papers, or a magazine, or a newspaper, or a brochure, and that could naturally be interactive stuff, like for internet/Flash, or could be an animation, we offer for all the different media, a infographie solution. In the future of infographics. I think that education, everything we see and read is just pending to get to a more visual way of thinking, so if we go to the internet a lot of developments are taking place there and what we realise is that people don´t only refer to text informations, they want to see what they want to know. the future and the present already, but in a very small way until now, is the cross media approach, so you have infographic designed information that can work on screens, that work interactively, that can be printed, etc. The future of infographic will be that more people will use it, and that it´s much more used to solve communication problems. The most exciting moments are always the reactions of our clients, when they see the first scrible, and when they see the graphic in the end, because imagination can bring you somewhere, but th e stuff we produce here, mostly surprises people a lot and makes them very happy. Heutige öffentliche Kommunikation muss sehr komplexe Inhalte so kompakt und gleichzeitig so einfach wie möglich vermitteln. Wie aber kann ich z.B. Stadtplanungsprojekte, städtische Verkehrssysteme oder neue funktionale Bauten kurz und verständlich beschreiben? Die Lösung für mehr Verständnis und Begeisterung heißt: gute Infografik. Durch ihre visuelle Vermittlung von Informationen auf unterhaltsame Art und Weise begeistern Infografiken den Leser. Wer pure Information braucht, schaut ins Telefonbuch oder bei Wikipedia. Gute Infografiken dagegen erzählen Geschichten und beziehen den Betrachter mit ein. Nur so bieten wir dem zu Informierenden die Chance, das neue Wissen selbst zu entdecken. Dabei führen Infografiken textliche und bildliche Informationen symbiotisch zusammen und und erzeugen so ein aufschlussreichere und umfassendere Vorstellung als Wort und Bild diese alleine beschreiben können. Wahrnehmungspsychologisch erreichen sie dadurch ein Höchstmaß an Informationsaufnahme und -speicherung. "Die Sehgewohnheiten haben sich besonders in den letzten Jahren deutlich verändert und die daraus erwachsenden neuen Bedürfnisse nach schnellerem und anschaulicherem Überblick stellen eine hohe Anforderung an die bekannten visuellen Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten dar. Besonders der Einsatz reichhaltiger Infografiken wird diesem Anspruch gerecht."Für Standort- und Stadtmarketing ergeben sich auf diese Weise einzigartige Möglichkeiten. Atemberaubende Visualisierungen sind z.B. bei Redaktionen beliebt und werden sehr häufig abgedruckt. Besonders in der regionalen Presse sind Infografiken über regionale Themen mehr als gefragt. Dabei können die oft doppelseitigen Abdrucke Werbekosten im fünf bis sechsstelligem Bereich einsparen. Institutionen, Investoren oder Betreiber von Stadien, Industrieparks, Fabriken und Versorgungsunternehmen können für sich, ihre Kunden, ihre Mitarbeiter und die Bevölkerung Geschenk-/Merchandising Artikel erstellen, die ihre Unternehmung in den Mittelpunkt stellen. Beispielsweise wurde die komplexe Infografik von der Olympiastadion Berlin GmbH vielfältig eingesetzt: Ob als Pressegrafik, die rund um die Eröffnung des Stadions und die WM 2006 in vielen Zeitungen und Magazinen weltweit gedruckt wurde, als Plakat-Geschenk für VIP-Gäste, als Werbemittel für die Vermietung des Gebäudes und als kostenfreies Faltposter für jeden Besucher.Alle wichtigen Informationen zum spezifischen Thema, z.B. Straßenplanung, das städtische Müllsystem, Energieeinsparungen oder Bauten von öffentlichem interesse werden in Infografiken wahr genommen. Es entsteht der Eindruck von Transparenz, wenn Vorhaben detailgenau kommuniziert werden. Als "netter Nebeneffekt" steigt das Verständnis innerhalb der öffentlichkeit, für die jeweilige Verwendung ihrer Steuergelder und eventuelle Störungen ihres Alltags. Zudem steigt die Identifikation mit Strukturen oder Vorhaben in der eigenen Region, wenn sich die Bewohner informiert und damit involviert wissen. A new gateway to what we could know Journalism today faces many challenges and changes at once. It is very difficult to see in this mess where the really interesting prospects might be? To make a long story short: I don't know either. However, while working as creative and infographic director Berlin, for the last couple of years, I discovered that there is a big deal missing in news business today and i think it would allow journalists in the future to captivate a new, broad readership. This something is stashed away behind the mystical term of data-driven journalism (DDJ). Most people think that this is just the art of creating colorful but confusing diagrams frequently out of open source information available on popular social networks (indeed, it often seems that people play around with this promotional data just because it is available and i think there is not other professional future for this kind of infotainment than student research projects). But that's not what data-driven journalism is or could be about at all. So is this upcoming DDJ a priori just a dead man walking? Where are the compelling stories behind these incomprehensive graphical pictures of hardly interesting figures? Is there something else to open up for a worldwide journalistic community than just new tools for data-mining? What else could be included by the term data-driven journalism?Let's briefly look at the incredible disaster of bp in the Gulf of Mexico at the moment. A key content news serial with enormous importance. So we should handle it notably... And really, since the first records of the catastrophe there have been countless interviews, expert analysises, exposures of corruption within companies and administrations, of ineffective reparation efforts, citations, explanations and helpless excuses. The coverage in Germany, for example, has thus produced an unmanageable chaos of information. And finally after two months of reporting I have lost the overview. What where all the quoted failures, when were they revealed, which are the involved groups and companies, how much are 25 tsd barrels of oil each day and how much fuel is sold at just one gas station at one day in comparison, how many people are effected by this tragedy, and all the rest of it: Where's the big picture of that monumental disaster?If you want to size it up, you do have to do research on your own for at least two or three days. And when you then finally look at your little collection of facts and figures, your small library, the problem remains: Where is the clue, where is the conclusion on it all. And that's just exactly the missing part in journalism these days: What we lack are sites where we can see how a global story evolves from the moment it becomes breaking news. Readers need journalists who offer summeries of all these informations and give decisive hints for interpretations within easy to use interfaces!With modern technology we could deliver such widespread sights and just start in the very moment we realise an incident might become covering news. And even if information were conflicting an fragmentary in the beginning it is quite imaginable to follow first speculations through verification step by step and to feel the story growing. But we don't have attractive formats in the moment to tell this stories in a really appealing way, or do we?We do. While the desaster in the Mexican Gulf still evolves, we find perfectly arranged online-tools for the world soccer championship, for example. You will find all teams compared to each other by there individual statistics, get the whole schedules and track records of each player described in detail. All the news and special reports are there to create an substantive and informative online experience. Why don't we have something like this for other news stories as well? It doesn't matter if you distribute this kind of journalistic work to a PC, over an iphone or whatever device you want. This is not a question of technical platform, but of a different approach. This is a different way to think and presupposes a diverse cognitive model - first of all: a much more visual connected perception. People cannot cope with our written information overflow today, so we need not only word based but visual journalists who are able to bundle, clear up and arrange the mass of available information and to line these informations with graphic ideas and illustrative representations for a better understanding. They have to work together with infographic artists and programmers in other news-interfaces than the existing cms based appearances. Therefore we have to implement new workflows in our common newsrooms and add other specialists to the staff there, to develop new, nonlinear and adequate storytelling technics. At the moment this kind of news coverage is much too expensive because we don't have ready-to-use formats, yet. But as we have developed the ability to gather huge amounts of data nowadays, we will now have to improve – at last – our ability to explain complicated processes, political and social interrelations in much more illustrative ways than before. There is high demand for such "depict" stories today. A great many systems governing our world have become far too complex to be described only by words. The standard structure of the "chronology of sentences" is not able to create on its own a holistic view of such issues. Don't forget that this does not mean to replace traditional journalism. There could evolve, however, a new important news segment with more visual and vivid formats that inspires new audiences in the future. Cross mediale Infografik: Umgang mit komplexen Informationen von Print bis Web Für infografische Informationsvermittlung sind spannende Zeiten angebrochen. Mit der Kommunikationsrevolution der letzten zwei Jahrzehnte hat sich der Raum für informationsgetriebenes Design deutlich erweitert. Wer heute konsequent und erfolgreich kommunizieren will ist auf ein klares und eindeutiges Informationsmanagement angewiesen. Zum einen sind die potentiellen Rezipienten heute wesentlich flexibler und sprunghafter in ihrer Mediennutzung geworden, denn der Anspruch an Organisation, Struktur und Unterhaltung hat sich rapide erhöht. Zum anderen hat das ausufernde Angebot an Unterhaltungs- und Informationsquellen und die explodierende technische Entwicklung im Bereich der Computergrafik den Begriff der Informationsgrafik fundamental verändert. In der chaotischen Welt des Internets bieten gerade diese eine große Chance Inhalte strukturiert und leicht zu erfassend darzustellen und sich so im Designchaos und der angesprochenen Wechselhaftigkeit der Konsumenten bestens zu behaupten. Im Vortrag soll darauf eingegangen werden, welche Vorraussetzungen bei der Gestaltung von anspruchsvollen interaktiven Anwendungen gegeben sind und welche Möglichkeiten und Irrwege es durch die komplett unterschiedliche Erzählweise und Leserführung im Vergleich zu hochqualitativen Printgrafiken gibt. Von Interface zu Interface Premium Print-Infografiken zeichnen sich durch Ihre Opulenz und Informationstiefe aus. Als Eyecatcher rufen sie das interesse des Lesers hervor, die Informationsaufnahme bindet ihn oder sie oft länger, als dies andere Print-Inhalte in der Lage wären. Informationsvermittlung im Internet hat bezüglich der Rezeptionssituationen und -techniken völlig andere Bedingungen: Es gilt im ersten Schritt nicht nur, die Aufmerksamkeit des Users zu gewinnen, sondern auch darum, ihm eine Themen und Informationsgerechte Informationsarchitektur zu bieten, die bei jedem Klick mehr interesse weckt und das entdecken der Information zum Erlebnis werden lässt. Das Thema selbst zur interaktiven Erfahrung zu machen, sollte bei interaktiven Anwendungen die erste Regel sein. darüber hinaus bieten Animationen in besonderem Maß die Möglichkeit, neue Rezeptionserfahrungen bei der Informationsvermittlung zu bewirken. Einblicke in Objekte, Visualisierungen von Visionen oder Kompositionen von Realbild und virtuellen Elementen sind nur einige Aspekte, die Info-Animationen zu außergewöhnlichen Medienerlebnissen machen. Animierte Infografik im Premium Bereich ermöglicht ein Höchstmaß an Wissensvermittlung und Faszination zugleich. Ob im Print, interaktiv oder im Bewegtbild - jedes Medienformat erfordert seine eigene Vermittlungsstrategie und Dramaturgie. Produktionen, die crossmedial angeboten werden, ergänzen sich gegenseitig in der Vermittlung von konzertierten (komplementierenden) Informationen - im besten Fall entsprechend der jeweiligen Rezeptionssituation der Zielgruppe. Helping Infographics Out of the Newsroom There is a wide range of applications waiting for infographics outside the traditional editorial environment, as society become more transparent, product differences become more difficult to communicate, and the attention span of busy readers continues to decline. By Stefan Fichtel Germany came late to the infographic game. I can't offer any empirical evidence, this is simply my observation after years of analyzing magazines and newspapers from different countries. Maybe it is because of the traditional dominance of photographs at the expense of illustrations in German publications. There were probably lots of reasons for this. Whatever the ultimate explanation the quality and quantity of infographics in German editorial outlets often still laged behind many countries. Now the gap is increasing, because coming along with the European media crisis, newspapers and magazines use even less infographics today. But instead of losing their jobs, there is a bigger demand for infographic artists than ever before. We nearly can't find enough of them to handle just our own requests. It is interesting to note how quickly infographics have spread to other applications here, such as corporate communications, public relations, even business-to-business marketing and here they are almost booming and a lot more popular than in traditional editorial design. And this points to some exciting possibilities for the future. Our company began with traditional Infographics for magazines and newspapers. And they used to be a vital part in the redesign work we did for publishers. At that time we produced a regular series of highy-creative panorama infographics for Germany's top business daily, the Handelsblatt for example, where we were specialized in poster spreads, trying to convert dry data directly into real stories. Utilizing illustrations as well as all 3-D and 2-D graphical technics we added depth and strong visual hierarchies so readers still found direction in a huge amount of economic data being displayed. So we literally transformed abstract data into mountains, Comics or information-cities, making sense out of information which is usually almost impossible to comprehend. (SEE ILLUSTRATIONS Picture_01.tiff, Picture_02.tiff, Picture_03.tiff)We once had a half dozen people working almost exclusively for editorial clients, and today we have nearly 20 illustrators, art directors, and graphics people working full time in our Infographics Unit. But meanwhile only a few of them still work with our traditional publishing clients. Most of them, in fact, work closely with other departments and in other sectors. Our experience is that once you get the basics right for applying infographics successfully in an editorial environment, it does not take long before you can apply the same principles to a wide variety of projects outside the newsroom. Adding Spark to Internal Publications Our track record with lots of high-profile work for our editorial clients has been a huge benefit in attracting corporate clients, and I think there are a number of reasons why. Some are related very specifically to the quality of our work. But others have more to do with the corporate environment at large, which I believe offers growing opportunities for infographics. Due to our own substantial "in-house" resources, it was an easy step to introduce infographics into many of our corporate publishing projects. With poster sized, double-page spreads in employee publications we were able to show corporate communicators the possibilities of infographics for explaining products and processes within the company. And being able to add this feature to our products we gained a big advantage over our publishing competitors for corporate communication. One of our custom publishing clients is the Bosch company. We produce their global employee newspaper, Bosch Zünder (Zünder means spark plug, the company's first product). It's a giant project, for a giant company. We produce the paper in nine languages, and in a number of regional and demographic editions. One of the key missions of the paper is to create a common sense of identity for tens of thousands of Bosch workers all over the globe, often working completely different product areas. We use infographics a lot in Bosch Zünder because they help explain the importance of products to employees who may know Bosch makes them, but not how they work. One of the company's divisions produces hydraulic systems for a wide variety of applications. In a recent issue, we showed how Bosch hydraulic pumps were being used at a port in Dubai. (SEE ILLUSTRATION Picture_04.tiff) The infographic sucked people into the story, explained the system in less than a minute. Anyone making Bosch household appliances in South America certainly now understands what the company's Rexroth hydraulic business is all about. Mission accomplished. Showing the "Big Picture"In good old Germany, infographics tend to be used mostly to visualize architectural objects or explain technical products. Sometimes to describe scientific phenomenon, or to demonstrate real data. But it is virtually unknown here that infographics can also be used to create an overview of complex processes and to show hierarchies and demonstrate nontechnical relationships. The following examples illustrate these seldom realized properties of infographics and show their enormous potential. Let us have a look at another of our publishing clients, the Deutsche Bahn. We produce the German national railroad's employee paper, DB Welt. Last year the company took a big hit by the drop off in rail freight. Management decided to use the down time proactively, and created a company wide program called "reAct09" to boost efficiency and productivity when the crisis passed. This was a big operation, but most of the actors were by necessity focused on their own project, in their own sector of the sprawling company. To insure that none of the 240,000 employees lost sight of the big picture, we created a poster insert for the regular DB Welt which not only listed the most important projects in the program, but then showed how they worked in relation to one another. This poster was also distributed to senior management and was designated to be hang up in break rooms where people had the chance now to understand the new strategy within minutes. (SEE ILLUSTRATION Picture_05.tiff) This underscored the value of every individual effort in a way which would have been impossible in text or a photograph. Again, mission accomplished, thanks to another first-rate infographic in the rather unusual context of an internal publication. But the usage in internal communication doesn`t stop with only informing people about new strategies, you can use this tool also as an effective device for training within a company. For a big German car manufacturer we created a unique infographic which shows the complex process of building a virtual model of a passenger car before it would actually be launched. At first sight it looks like an easy challenge, but as you enter the process you realize a lot of problems coming up: the production data used comes from a variety of non-compatible sources, components are constantly changing during development stage and a lot of different units have to interact smoothly and all the rest of it. By transforming abstract process tables into an understandable image we enabled trainees to become familiar with the sophisticated process more quickly so they could get all participants on board to implement this new workflow with the production line. (SEE ILLUSTRATION Picture_16.tiff, Picture_17.tiff)But because these projects consistently win awards in prestigious national competitions, we find that we are raising the bar for excellence for employee publications across the board. In a modest but important way, we have helped move infographics out of its homebase in the German newsroom and into the giant world of corporate publishing. This is exciting because once you find that double page infographics get taken out of the paper and pinned to walls in offices and on the factory floor, lights go on in other parts of the company's communication operations, and opened doors to explore much more channels than the internal communication. Walking this way, our journey had just begun! Only relevant content involves real people. Corporate clients are facing increasing pressure from shareholders, employees, customers, and suppliers for more transparency in the way they do business. Well-crafted infographics can convey instant credibility while being hugely informative at the same time. All companies are also keen to find new markets for their products and services. The more swiftly they can bring potential customers up to speed on product benefits, the quicker they can make a sale. We've discovered a single thoughtful infographic can be a more effective sales tool than a truckload of brochures. In a development project for another major energy client in Germany, we created a proper media advertisement in the form of an infographic to explain the details of its efforts to produce and distribute more and more energy from sustainable sources for new upcoming eco-friendly products. Normally, the company would have created a series of image advertisements in a campaign that underscored its commitment to alternative energy on a purely emotional level, with pretty photographs of pristine landscapes. That's what everybody does. And that's why nobody believes it. Who Needs Homeopathic Doses? But this client really did have a story to tell. And the enlightened advertising folks immediately saw that possibilities for an infographic to tell that story in a credible, highly effective way. Why not an infographic as a paid media advertisement? An advertorial? We did the ad, and it scored abnormally high in subsequent surveys. But we knew it would; one mega-dose of real information can be better than a hundred images with homeopathic traces of sincere emotion. (SEE ILLUSTRATION Picture_06.tiff, Picture_07.tiff)We are convinced that print media will survive, but one of the ways it will do so is by developing new and exciting formats for advertisers to exploit the medium. Infographics as advertorials... be on the look out for more and more of them. Because more and more companies do have real stories to tell, and their skills at telling them are not increasing as fast as the demand. We also notice the rush for transparency in the public sector. Citizens demand the same level of information, and skill in communicating it, from their government as customers do from their suppliers. Actually, more, and handling information is a large part of what makes a politician successful or a failure. But institutions such as the German parliament, the Bundestag, and public sector entities such as the Bertelsmann Foundation, have also asked us to develop infographics to make their vital work more accessible to larger audiences. Displaying a huge depth of Information and offer exciting entertainment at same time. (SEE ILLUSTRATION Picture_08.tiff, Picture_09.tiff, Picture_10.tiff)Produce, Sell, Change, Produce, Sell Or Die Other factors pulling infographics out of the newsroom are phenomenon like shorter product life cycles and even career-hopping. As companies obsessively improve their products and services to stay competitive, the amount of time they have to explain the improvements shortens. Experts also say the average employee will soon switch not only jobs, but whole sectors a number of times within his professional life. This means steep learning curves will replace knowledge once acquired slowly, over the course of an entire career. A client who is a market leader in laser measuring devices came to our marketing department for some ideas on how to promote its four lines of laser scanners. The devices are used for measuring precise volumes and contours for industrial applications. Each of the scanners looks pretty much the same, even the model names are similar, though they have vastly different capabilities. Some can be fixed to machines in an assembly line, and scan small internal spaces. Others are portable, and can scan huge interiors. Some can be used in freezing weather with fog, others are better for temperate climates. In a traditional product catalog with specification sheet, you have to be a very experienced buyer of laser scanners indeed to understand the spec codes and the price differences. But because this company was seeking new markets (and which company is not?), it could no longer rely on the fact that the potential customer would immediately understand the capabilities of each of its four product lines, or whether they were worth the price. See? It Works... So we created a dramatic infographic poster for each of the four scanner product lines. It actually contained lots more information than a traditional product shot and spec sheet, so it was more useful even to the old-school buyers of laser scanners. (SEE ILLUSTRATION Picture_11.tiff) But because it had a central 3-D rendering of the device in action, it also immediately communicated not only how the scanner worked, but in which application it worked best. For people new to buying laser scanners, our four infographic posters for the Faro company transformed getting up-to-speed on the technology from a chore to a surprisingly enlightening experience. We had a similar success when we created an infographic on trends in newspaper automation for the debut issue of MAN Roland company's newly designed customer paper. The client told us the infographic worked so well, his sales people took it to the DRUPA printing trade fair to explain how all 30 products of MAN Roland printing portfolio could enhance existing printing lines. (SEE ILLUSTRATION Picture_12.tiff)Making Comprehensive Change Totally Visible Another very interesting story about corporate applications for traditional infographics surrounds the work we are doing for a major telecommunications company. We were initially brought in to create a concept for communicating a big restructuring process within the company. It was a complex concept, radically different from the way the company had ever operated. So the way of presenting it to senior management, shareholders, employees, and customers also had to be radically different. Radically different, and hugely effective. Surprise, surprise. We chose infographics! One thing the client discovered is that while nobody willingly sits down to read a thick manuscript detailing abstract strategic issues loaded with arcane management-speak, nearly everybody will go up to a colorful chart full of boxes, arrows and little boxes of bite-sized, descriptive text. Our infographic for T-Sytems looks at first glance like a traditional organigram with hierarchies, but it is in fact a sophisticated flow chart showing how products and services are being regrouped in pursuit of the company's "One Portfolio" strategy. (SEE ILLUSTRATION Picture_13.tiff) To outsiders, it looks more like a wiring diagram for the Starship Enterprise. But for senior management—board level people—it conveys a vision in a crisp and comprehensive way. Indispensable for coming to conclusions and implementing them, which is what boards of directors are paid to do. But the One Portfolio infographic contains far too much information for the average employee. They are interested in the broader picture and how it impacts the here and now, and less in strategic issues. For them, we used the same basic information, plus an example of how the process would impact one product area, in an animated film. It was played initially at a kick off meeting for senior managers worldwide, and then put on the company's Intranet site. It finally was adopted even by the marketing division and ended up as a perfect tool to target new customers very efficiently. (SEE ILLUSTRATION Picture_14.tiff) And The Future of Editorial The newsroom provided the crucible for journalism, illustration and graphics to be molded into what we call infographics today. And it is from the newsroom that the technique is moving out into other communication disciplines. Most of us believe magazine and newspaper publishers will only move again into profitability once they have developed subscription models based on digital editions readable on mobile devices Our company is already working on incorporating infographics and other rich media elements into prototypes of an electronic edition of Germany's Bild Zeitung tabloid paper. (SEE ILLUSTRATION Picture_15.tiff) Two years ago we thought we were way ahead of the curve on this. Then Steve Jobs introduced the iPad in January, and now it looks like we are only up to speed. One thing is for sure though; once animated infographics become standard for digital newspapers and magazines, they will swiftly be snapped-up for applications outside the electronic cross-media newsroom. Regarding Our Profession By Stefan Fichtel In European societies, images are often assumed to be less relevant than words. Images are also thought to be less personal than ideas expressed through words. But as we can well see at Malofiej18, infographics can explain many things faster, better and reach many more people than words. Although they are called infographics, it sometimes appears, that the first part of the word is more important than the second part. The key point for an effective graphic, however, is the balance between credible information and appealing, legible design. Often, people even don't care about the most useful information just because they don't care about charts and diagrams and seeminlgy complex data at all. Some of them are actually afraid of reading scientific diagrams. One the one hand, we have to overcome these fears with helpful design. And on the other hand, there are so many different fields where people demand infographics today. That's because much complex information, particularly where it relates to processes and relationships, does not lend itself well to explanation through words and the standard chronology of sentence structure. We should really start to consider the needs of readerships beyond newspapers, which are the traditional domain of infographics. A lot commerical clients would be very grateful if someone only could transform their story in a readable format, and they would pay for it. But if we really want to trace new approches, we have to improve our knowledge about how people deal with information graphics and explore new ways of database storytelling. We have to do much more than we are doing. There is a huge deficit in analysis of how people undestand graphic representations as a kind of visual language or alphabet. I doubt most of visuallisaitons of data could truly be understood by a huge readership. We additional have to improve our narrative skills to produce more readable, engaging infographics. Therefore we have to go beyond many fixed borders and not be frightened, but enthusiastic, that we can find new ways of telling stories which help people better understand the world around them. Langjähriger Infografik-Chef gründet eigenes Unternehmen. Die neue Adressse für professionelle Infografiken heißt ixtract. Mitten im Berliner Kreativ-Bezirk Kreuzberg hat sich das junge Unternehmen niedergelassen, um von dort aus die visuelle Wissensvermittlung auf ein neues Level zu heben. Geschäftsführer Stefan Fichtel kennt sich aus in der Branche. Schuf dort die größte und erfolgreichste Infografikabteilung Deutschlands. Seit Oktober vergangenen Jahres führt der Illustrator und Cinema 4D-Profi Fichtel nun seine eigene Agentur für Informationsvisualisierung. Zusammen mit seinem noch kleinen Team konnte der Creative Director bereits Stärke beweisen. Zu den ersten Kunden von ixtract gehört die renommierte US-Zeitschrift "National Geographic Magazine", für die schon mehrere Grafiken realisiert wurden. Doch ixtract richtet sich mit seinem Portfolio nicht nur an Printmedien. Die Agentur bietet maßgeschneiderte Lösungen für die Kommunikationsaufgaben in vielen modernen Organisationen aus allen Bereichen. Von der Erstellung übersichtlicher Infografiken, über anspruchsvolle 3D Visualisierungen, Animationsfilme, interaktive Anwendungen bis hin zu ganzheitlich konzipierten Kommunikationsmaßnahmen. Stichwort "Visuelle Kommunikation" "Egal ob verflochtene Produktionsabläufe, komplizierte Prozesse wie z.B. die Verabschiedung von Gesetzen, oder umfangreiche Umstrukturierungen in Unternehmen, all das lässt sich wesentlich einfacher und verständlicher als in mühsamen Texten durch übersichtliche Infografiken darstellen. Das menschliche Gehirn kann mit visuellen Informationen oft besser umgehen, sie vor allem schneller aufnehmen und länger speichern." erklärt Stefan Fichtel. Infografiken punkten daher vor allem in Sachen Effizienz und übersichtlichkeit gegenüber rein textbasierten Kommunikationsmitteln. Aus diesem Grund werden Informationsvisualisierungen sowohl für die interne Corporate Communication aber auch für die öffentliche PR-Arbeit immer interessanter. Mehr Personen werden in kürzerer Zeit intensiver erreicht. Stefan Fichtel gibt seine Begeisterung und sein Wissen über Infografiken und 3D-Design gerne weiter. Als Dozent für Infografik lehrte er zwei Jahre lang an der Berliner Technischen Kunsthochschule und schult nun regelmäßig Unternehmen im Bereich Infografik oder 3D-Visualisierung, wie zuletzt die Grafikabteilung der österreichischen Tageszeitung "Kurier" in Wien. Weitere Veranstaltungen dieser Art sind in Planung. Dabei ist das Team von ixtract stets darauf bedacht, die Schulungen individuell an die Bedürfnisse des Kunden anzupassen. ixtract Gmbh - visual knowledge transfer. Mit Infografiken machen wir abstrakte Inhalte greifbar und komplexe Abläufe für jeden verständlich. Als Agentur übersetzen wir abstrakte Informationen in "intelligente Bilder" und lenken den Blick gekonnt auf die Kernaussagen einer Nachricht. Schlussendlich entstehen aus den ursprünglich komplexen Zusammenhängen einprägsame Geschichten auf aufklärenden Postern, in handlichen Broschüren, interaktiven Anwendungen oder interessanten Animationsfilmen.