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?

Something to make you laugh

One of my favorite blogs to follow is You look like the right type. Mark Addison Smith rights down dialogue he hears around him, sketches out something incorporating the dialogue, then posts a sketch every 24 hours. It's a great way to realize how what's going on around us can provide inspiration for what we do as journalists and designers.

Here's yesterday's sketch:

Critique: Tigers and Cupcakes

In this week's Tiger Kick-off, we're running a story about how MU football coach likes to play teams that are considered pretty easy to beat, aka cupcake teams. The original idea for lead art was a lot of stats over a cupcake (the reporter came up with this idea). What this morphed into was the idea of illustrating a Tiger eating a cupcake. That's where I came in.

Here's the second version of what I came up with:

The manager of Tiger Kick-off and I had some concerns about the illustration being too adorable for what we were going for. As a result, I replaced the cupcake with stock art of a real cupcake, and stacked the cupcakes behind the tiger.

Personally, I'm in love with it. But I adore cupcakes and got to play with a stuffed tiger hand puppet that roared for a day, so I'm kind of biased.

Critique: How antibiotics work

We're working on a pediatric health section at work, and one of the topics is acne. Many times, a dermatologist will prescribe an antibiotic to treat acne, so I was curious as to how antibiotics work. As a result, I made these two graphics for fun. I'll also be creating a visual.ly account and posting them there, just to see how the service works.