INDUSTRY NEWS: She Blinded Me With Science

INDUSTRY NEWS: She Blinded Me With Science
24 October 2011 by jenn 1 Comments

Communicating complex scientific theory or information is difficult at best. It just makes sense to use infographics to communicate these complexities. Unfortunately, though infographics is the most understandable format, not all scientists have the visual skill to present their information visually.

That is why the Yale University Press is publishing Visual Strategies: A Practical Guide to Graphics for Scientists and Engineers by Felice Franke land Angela DePace. The book, designed by Stefan Sagmeister who also acted as the consultant, is a how-to for scientists and engineers to learn how to illustrate their data visually using infographics. Well, they could just hire Infoglyphs … but I digress.

Frankel, a research scientist at MIT, says scientists and engineers have trouble using infographics “[b]ecause of their lack of training in design principles, innovation can be extremely difficult. As a result, bad representation often make it into the published literature where they take hold and perpetuate because people become familiar with them during their specialized training.

But – and we think this is a critical issue – because they are ill-designed, they are inaccessible to anyone other than experts. This isolates scientific findings from the public, and makes science education seem more remote and specialized than it could be.” Entire interview on Imprint, Scientist as Visual Communicator, by Steven Heller.

Graphics and animation are ideal tools to depict abstract ideas because abstraction means it does not take place in our physical world. Creating a graphic representation, like special effects in film, can give visual respresentation to the abstract. The book is intended to introduce the science community to good design elements through examples and conversations with Graphic Designers and Communicators. The book will be available in Spring 2012.

Below is a “before” and “after” example from Visual Strategies of how a scientific theory can be changed to better illustrate data through good design.

Stefan Sagmeister and Felice Frankel are well-schooled artists in their own right. Sagmeister, Sagemeister Inc., has won two Grammy awards for design and has collaborated with Lou Reed and David Byrne. Below are samples of his work.

Frankel is a scientific photographer who has captured some stunning images in her new book No Small Matter.

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