Information Graphics

The World is Going to End. Let’s Have a Drink.

The world is a wonderful and scary place at times, and the folks over at Information is Beautiful want to show you that. This morning while doing a bit of research on data visualization, I came across 2 infographic pieces that have nothing to do with each other directly, but made me want to post both of them.

The first deals with the distant future and the fact that everything is going to die. Yes it looks way into the future of planet earth, all the way up to the point where it is consumed by the sun and dies. The second makes you feel all better by providing you with drink recipes broken down by proportion, so you can drown your sorrows as you reflect on the inevitability of earths ultimate demise. Now I’m not going to lie, some of the drinks recipes seem a bit off to me, and there are some classics that are missing. None the less, I’ll be printing this out for future reference. click on the image to view larger.

Lets Go To Lithuania.

I’ve never been to Lithuania but now that I’ve seen the worlds longest infographic from design studio Zazu I kind of want to go. The infographic is illustrated with line art that tells you how to get there. some general facts and info on things like population, currency exchange traditional food, and some of their iconic sights to visit. I love the look of this image. There is a certain late 1960’s early 1970’s feel to it with an updated appeal. It has a nice blend between hand drawn, and obviously computer generated, and I’m OK with that. I’m kind of over the sketchy chalkboard art look that has been burning up the design world for the last few years.

The State of Graphic Design.

Making a living as a graphic designer is a tricky business. The ground keeps shifting, people want more for less, the competition is greater now than ever, and you need to be able to do more things. Graphic Design is becoming a hybrid industry where you need to be able to do multiple things, and do them well. The info graphic below was produced at the end of 2013 with data from 2012. Even though the data is a year old, the facts shown hit home. The information presented was gathered by smartpress.com from a group of industry professionals and shows everything from, how to learn the field to salaries, tools, and self promotion. The saddest thing shown here; in 2011 the average salary for a graphic designer in the USA was just $44,000 a year. Pretty pathetic when you think about the skills required to do the job well.

Design Trends for 2014.

With more than 30 million images and 350 million image downloads, I think Shutterstock has a pretty solid handle on emerging trends in the design world. With that kind of data it’s pretty easy to see where things are going, and thankfully Shutterstock has created the handy infographic below. If you are wondering what the hot design trends are for 2014, this might give you some insight.