It's been too long

I realize that it's been a long time since I published here, but I'm back, I promise. In between finishing my master's,  job hunting and the usual insanity, the blog fell by the wayside. But, now, I'm getting settled into an apartment in Louisville, starting an actual, paying job(!), and might hopefully have some free time. As a result, I'm going to expand the blog to things beyond news design and infographics, though those will still be featured occasionally. I'm hoping to get crafty again and put some of the stuff I make here. My first project: a headboard. If anyone has any suggestions on how to make this headboard:

I'd love to hear them. I'm guessing I can glue or staple the fabric to squares, but I need to figure out what to use for the squares and how to attach it all. Thoughts?

Creative: Blu magazine cover

I'm back on track for going through the book Creative Workshop, which is one of my New Year's Resolutions. I'm not caught up (yet), but making progress. Today's challenge was to create a magazine cover for a magazine focused around something to do with the color blue. It could be anything. In fact, one of the examples given was a magazine that focused on literature surrounding depression. The image above is my end result.

In evaluating my process after, I've come to the conclusion that I think I rush my idea generation/sketching stages. I spent barely any time doing so, which is something I find myself doing often. If anyone has any tricks for slowing that down, I'd love to hear them.

Critique: Creating graphics for Facebook

Yesterday, I tried something new. I created a graphic specifically for Facebook. We also created web and print versions, just like we always do. It was an interesting experience, that's for sure.

In Gov. Nixon's State of the State, one of his proposals was cutting from the higher ed budget. Again. I think he's done that every year I've gone to school here. However, this year, the universities and colleges are fighting back. The UM Board of Curators is thinking about raising tuition by 7.5 percent, plus raising course fees and the information technology fee, all of which is charged per credit hour. For the graphic, we wanted to show how much students would be paying with all of these fees. So, we started with these graphics.

Then, I created the print version, which was a smaller version of the web graphics. But the real excitement came from creating the Facebook version. We were trying to build off the success of ProPublica's SOPA graphic. I knew that the graphic needed to be simpler, and be not as tall. With the help of the editor on duty, I came up with this. We took the base per credit hour rate, and the schools with the biggest increases in course fees, then showed them for in-state and out-of-state tuition.

As you can see, it's a lot different.

Some things I learned. First of all, there needs to be a healthy balance of chatter in the image and used as the caption on Facebook. The one posted to our Facebook page had a lot of chatter, and it shrunk the image seen in the news feeds. As people shared, and put in less chatter, the image was much larger. I also want to play more with the sizes, and see how that affects how it's seen in news feeds.

Second, I think this is still more detail than is best for Facebook. However, how much you pay for school here is complicated, and I had a hard time reconciling the need for simplicity and the complexity of the topic. It's something to think about in the future.

Third, I like that we used the logo. I think it helps with branding and making sure the paper always gets credit for the work we did.

Also, know when people are looking at Facebook. I finished the Facebook version at 11 p.m. We suspected more people would see it if we waited to post in the morning. So that's what we did.

I think this was a great idea, and I'm glad we did it. As a friend was telling me this morning, people are more likely to click a photo in Facebook than a link. We included a link to the story in the caption, so if people want more they can get it. I'll be sure and keep you posted about we learn as we continue to go along. What are your thoughts?

For Missourian Reporters: Graphics

To request a graphic, go to this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dE9HU2NWbGRMbEp3NE1oeURWQ3JjLUE6MQ#gid=0 (It's also saved as a link on the desktop computers.)

Tips:

• Input as much detailed information as possible.
• If you don't know when your story will run, guess.
• If you don't have a slug yet, make one up and keep it. Please don't change it; it's how we save things so people can find it later.
• Give us the same documents you're using for your story.
• Talk to us as soon as you have an idea or know you need a graphic. I'd hate to hold up the publication of your story because we didn't know about it soon enough. This is especially important with interactive graphics or science graphics.

Now, for the fun part. Examples!

http://flowingdata.com/2010/10/18/true-size-of-africa/

http://apple.copydesk.org/2011/06/26/a-couple-of-wonderful-page-one-infographics-from-the-midwest/

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/multimedia/graphic/2011/11/18/graphic-fine-gary-pinkel-loss-vs-income/

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/multimedia/graphic/2010/12/17/capital-punishment-how-missouri-administers-lethal-injections/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/local/seat-pleasant-following-the-dreamers/

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/multimedia/graphic/2012/01/03/interactive-graphic-sustainahouse-features/

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/multimedia/graphic/2011/12/07/interactive-map-get-know-your-ward/

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/multimedia/graphic/2011/11/11/sports-graphic-realignment-calendar/

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/multimedia/graphic/2010/09/10/where-heck-mcneese-state/

http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/candidates

http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance

http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/

Updated 1/19 at 12:24 p.m.

Also for your viewing pleasure:

Creative: Necklace Alphabet

I have a couple of New Year's Resolutions that I'm working on. One of them is to work my way through the book Creative Workshop, which has 80 design challenges. The other is to participate in Codeyear. I'll keep you posted on each of these as I work through them.

Here's the results of one of the projects in Creative Workshop. The project was to create an entire alphabet from things you find around you. I have an extraordinarily long necklace, so I took it and created an alphabet.

I've been at CAR bootcamp all week, so it was a lot of fun to come home and use a different part of my brain. It felt good to not process data and be creative and fun!

A graphic column

I love the idea of a graphic column. The Reading Eagle has created one for their new business weekly, aptly named Business Weekly. It's called Snapshot.

Here's Charles Apple's look at it.

It's actually something we'll be doing at the Missourian next semester. I just haven't settled on a topic yet.

Final projects

It's that time of the semester: students are working on their final projects. We've got approximately 15 students working on full-page graphics and interactive graphics. It's been an interesting experience as we work on finding the best way to communicate expectations with students without taking away time from our guest lecturers.

I'm really excited to see what I learn from each of the projects, which range from things about cameras and video cameras to hot air balloons. We're going to see graphics on hunter safety and coffee shops.

It's inspiring me to think about making one of these over intersession. Thoughts on possible topics?