Sea Mines - An Undersea Killer Evolves. WWII Magazine, Feb 2009.

This month's graphic for WWII Magazine is on German sea mines and how the Allies countered them.

This graphic was originally created last year. I reworked it in accordance with my more recent thinking.

The old version shows that I was still in my 'sequential' layout phase - (also see the bocage graphic for an example of this)

Staring top left, one would read this in a traditional manner

Sequential graphics can be read like comics/ books and I like that they are deliberate in their guiding of the information absorption. But - they do presume interest on the reader's part and don't "sell their wares" as best they could. They don't make an offer to a reader, inviting them into the subject.

My current thinking is veering to more traditional graphics - the 'Radial' sort. These are where there is a central object that grabs the attention first and signposts the subject of the piece. Subsequent information is then available, but there is no question of what one should look at first.

I do worry that graphics like this imply that the first thing/ the largest/ most colorful/ prominent thing you see is the most important.

I like the interesting details around the objects - their development, use and history - and the object rendered large for signposting purposes seems to distract from that. I am sure I am being too sensitive there. The magazine folks are always keen to make more of the central object - and I am happy to go with this - it seems there is a lot to investigate in that method.

( I must give credit to Peter Schumacher from the University of Trier who once did a fine talk at the SND-E Malofiej conference about how we read graphics - the Radial and Sequential ideas featured in that talk.)

Below is some of the development work. I know that I should have sketched it out first but sometimes I just want to get stuck in.

I thought it might be fun to move into a more abstract/ diagrammatic style - but it wasn't suitable for this , it is not really authentic for me to be finding a 'style' as such at this moment - their may be a consistency of approach - but that is different.

I thought to unite the page and lead the eye by use of this 'river. It is conceptually sound/ connected to the subject but too dominating of the layout.

Just having a simple single background would lead the eye, but it implied a steady development of one variable - whereas this graphic was about different kinds of mines.

More single-background element here - but too distracting from the foreground elements - and a bit overboard with the 3-d water effect etc.

I eventually went for blocks to show each type of mine - and I used old fashioned perspective guidelines to draw them.

The next few graphics I do for the magazine are going to explore the basics of the 'central object' more. After doing this for a while, I realize that there are some basics I still need to master - drawing, basic composition, labeling, type hierarchy etc. (and even though these graphics are pretty good - they have a way to go before they are faultless). When that happens, then I can get cleverer. (The adage that the more you know, the more you know you don't know is true here.)

It feels like walking before running which must be a good thing.

Comments

[Ryan]

I'm really enjoying the last few posts in which you describe your process - very informative!