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M18 Tank Destroyer, WWII Magazine, August 2010

 

August's graphic is about the US tank destroyers. These armoured vehicles were initially out-gunned by the german tanks they were sent to destroy. They were integrated with the infantry and found a better use as a support weapon.

The armored wedge My principal concern here was 'is this shape too dominant on the page?'. 

The technology in focus (in this case the m18 ) is meant to be the image that readers see first - it is often on the left (where oddly in magazine design the eye should read first but may see second due to the turn of the page - or maybe people are obedient readers and don't sneak a look at the right page - but i doubt it.) 

Anyway, I was worried that the 'armour wedge' not only attracted too much attention but created a compositional discord on the spread - effectively dividing a double page spread into two. Many print editorial designers say you need to fill the whole spread - I am in two minds on this.

In one way the story I tell every time is of a technology, with key features highlighted and how it fits into a bigger picture - the context of it's use, manufacture or invention. 

It is my singular editorial purpose with the articles to highlight the bigger picture of WWII using the technologies as an accessible starting point. But there have also been times where at the rough stage that the weapon in question and the rest of the story haven't been so well united. This results in everything from reading difficulty (where do I start? What is this about) to general confusion (what is this about ?). It is a frequent discussion point between the excellent editorial teams and I - and I find their second pair of eyes invaluable there. (Contributors/ Creatives, what ever you do - You need a good 'editor') Or maybe I need to get better at uniting the different elements. I hope I am not jamming reluctant actors together in each if these scenes.

Other ideas

I like the idea of real life sizes on the graphic - I wouldn't want to do it every time - but there is something rewarding it the immediacy of this.

A few graphics appear on a 'landscape' vista. Have I been affected by Apple's shiny floored warehouse? Hmm - not sure - seems a nice way to set our certain ideas though.

And on the render - things are looking a little vector-arty - fades, line-art isometry, more fades - i may need to cut down on this. They are entirely appropriate to the needs of the story and data within, but there may be a Tuftian unintended consequence of this render - that of dating the work back a decade and so readers pause briefly to question it's provenance, distracting them from their primary task of understanding. (this may be a small price to pay for work that I believe seeks a timeless quality of integrity to the information and not modern fashion). 

But - these are read on many levels - and the render will give signals - it's up to me to orchestrate those impressions - and one of them is an anonimity - a quality that immediately imparts the information without drawing attention to itself.

Some would say that the render needs to bring the reader in, that impartiality is sterile. I agree that if I am putting off new readers with coldness then that is an issue. I would like to think that the ideas contained within - the data, the story angle will shine through the glass of a sympathetic vessel to communicate and entice, rather than falling back on fashion, which always attracts but seldom informs and never lasts.

The Tiger Tank, WWII Magazine, August 2008

 

This graphic seeks to highlight the weaknesses of the Tiger Tank, to demystify one of the much heralded technologies of WWII.

There was no doubt that the Tiger tank, with ample fuel and on solid ground, was one of the most lethal vehicles of the war. Tiger tanks have symbolised  the Ruthless Nazi Juggernaut in movies and popular culture. 

Editorial Issues

 

The books of Thomas Jentz contain a lot of original and deep research, including some fascinating data from ballistics tests involving captured Tiger armour - it was these data that the left hand side graphic was based on.

It is fair to argue that these data are obtained in non-battlefield conditions, but the important thing for me, editorially is that the shed light on the idea that although the Tiger was the superior against all tanks of its day, those that came after had learned lessons, and by improving calibre and barrel length, guns could penetrate it's armour (leading to the further up-armouring to the Tiger 2).

One could also argue that I haven't included enough of the different types of projectile that would have different effects on the armour. This data has been excluded for expediency - the role of this graphic is to afford a basic understanding of the issue. This is something I am thinking a lot more about - is the initial impact of a graphic enough? and then we depend on text for the depth? - or how far can purely visual means go towards telling a compelling story, with many angles and complexity? (Answers to come in future posts) 

Design Issues

 

The main issue here was the translating the tabular data into a graphic that showed two variables at once - the distance that A could lethally hit B and vice versa. 

Maybe this should have happened in the sketch book but is was so sure that I had the right elements that I allowed myself to buck that principle

I started of with the tanks facing each other - this way I could have also kept a vertical or horizontal scale to show the progression of time /dates - a construct that is becoming increasing popular in this work as so much of it is about one side's ability to improve before the other.

Illustrations shown at early stages - dummy text etc 

As the above pictures show a few experiments that were done with this element but the final version is better at conveying the Tiger's role as target/ the focus of this composition. 

The page was more colour coded to begin with (using the colour scheme for the beligerent countries - 

 

Basic colour codes for belligerent nations (anyone got suggestions for France, Italy or Japan?)

I considered using red text for the whole of the 'weaknesses' section, but further work showed it to be too much - such a surfeit of colour would be meaningless and would break a fundamental graphic rule - that bright colours are for highlighting important elements and are to be used sparingly.

Sample layout showing over-exuberant use of red text

The rendering of the tanks was interesting too - the representation of hardware is an ongoing concern. I am aware that there will be some readers who would like to see these machines portrayed in all their technical actuality, but my initial view was that they only need to be portrayed to support the needs of the editorial thrust of the graphic. 

I have come round a little to the needs of the graphic to have a degree of visual richness - one of the graphic's purposes must be to attract and retain interest of the viewer's eye.

Different treatments of the tanks - which aid recognition and also keep the eye interested?

This is often frowned upon is some circles of information design - but short of full blown realism, there are positive qualities in the competent line rendering of these objects - just as in this pterosaur illustration in the NYC Natural History Museum. 

 

Pterosaur display illustration, NY Museum of Natural History

The Lines are efficient in their communication of 'pterosaur-ness' but it doesn't seek to become fully rendered or realised and it is this level of render that i am keen on at the moment - unless of course the editorial thrust demanded a critique of an aspect of the engineering/ construction.

 

More on this approach to line drawing in future posts.

Battling Through the Bocage - WWII Magazine, March 2008

This months graphic explains how US forces overcame the bocage - Hedgerow country - of Normandy.

Editorial Issues
Independent Innovation
Although my article features the Culin hedgerow cutter, it is fair to say that faced with similar problems and with similar means of solving them, similar solutions appeared independently. The Culin cutter is one of the better recorded examples but there were a few types. Technology is often a result of human needs being met (when it is not blind invention) and there have been many examples of this throughout history - Guns. Germs and Steel is the best book on such ideas. (I'm always going on about that book.)

Rommel's 'Asparagus'
Some accounts state that the materials used for the cutters were 'Rommel's Asparagus'. When Rommel was assigned to the Atlantic Wall, he installed hundreds of metal poles in fields. These were to disrupt and crash the fabric-covered gliders that were to land there. There were in fact many types of (beach/ field/ anti tank/roadlock) obstacle for the engineers of the hedge-cutters to recycle and so I have tried not to be too specific.

Orientation
Starting the story at the map begged a few issues (covered later on in 'Cartography' too). I would start with the general map of the area. I felt I could exclude a global 'locator' as we called them in my old design team as I reckoned that knowing where France is should be like knowing that WWII was in the last century. (Is this presupposed knowledge - i suppose it is - but many of the readers really know their stuff/(were there!) so lets just go with it) How to then zoom in was trickier. I wanted to first use the long tiled-field element that explains how many fields the troops would need to cross. I then thought that that is not useful information until you knew how dangerous they could be and that info had to come first - at the bottom of the left page. So I continued a slow zoom - into an 'anyvillage' and then to the hedgerow itself.

Fairness
I was aware (being British) that it was not just the Americans who faced difficulty here. The British and Canadian troops also faced difficulties - but especially through street fighting. It is important to try to concentrate on one story at a time and so I stuck with the US tale of the hedge cutters.

Design Issues
Arrows
I have been trying to make the arrows blend into that which they indicate as much as possible. This is more possible by using the 'darken opacity' transparency on them. In this way they are less singular arrow-shaped agents and more part of the graphic. Anyone interested in Arrows in Information Graphics could do worse than read Edward Tufte's new book - Beautiful Evidence - its got a really good chapter on them. (Anyone thinking that this is abit too detailed about Information Graphics - that was your hint - this is not the site for you.)

Cartography
I am getting closer to deciding a house style for these maps. I am pretty happy with the colours - but I need to decide whether they will always be the same style. The commando knife graphic (incidentally the most searched-for on Google) features a map that doesn't need a lot of cartographic detail and begs the question of how much detail does one need for basic story telling as opposed to actual wayfinding.

The cutters
On the Sherman tank with the orange cutter, I don't suppose that any units painted their cutters bright orange - nor would it have been the thing to alert the dug-in Germans that a Sherman tank was coming into their field, but I think that colouring them so in this graphic succeeds in alerting us to what we need to know (Colour Leads The Way). (I chose the colours as they have a 'construction' look - an artistic license that I hope is OK.)

Not Using The Spread
Some designers feel, if given a double page spread, you should use the increased area to maximise your message through a device that occupies or exploits that area as a whole - rather than just in pieces. I looked at this issue of the graphic-vista in the Assault Rifle write up but here is a counter argument (to myself) - If the most important role for design is to support the information, and the information will have an optimal format (narrative, argument, breaking news etc) then the design needs to compliment that format. The design format chosen here aids narrative (the story of problem - then solution) through traditional reading from top left to bottom right - with words and pictures along the way. By getting people in at a natural entry point (top left) and hopefully keeping their interest throughout, you will impart the information in an appropriate way. Of course not all graphics are a narrative - the 'Which Tank was tops graphic was what we could call Guided Data.

Guided Data
Hmm - I think this is a separate post but it is something to do with the fact that augmenting a chart, should not be jazzy pictures (count the roller coasters next to the stock market charts over the next few months) but stories that highlight trends and facts behind the data. True, advanced graphics with many layers can develop from just making this clear to showing correlation, but a story helps too (that's why people like presenters talking next to charts on TV News.)

Which Tank Was Tops? - World War II Magazine, January 2008

This month's graphic gives ammunition to those engaged in any 'best of' conversations around Tanks in WWII.

(I'll try to post some of the previous versions in a week or so - but am v busy with new mac and xmas parties - for US readers, we in the UK go out alot at Christmas Time.The main aim of the graphic is to be able to give people a framework to discuss the virtues of tanks in WWII. It doesn't necessarily seek to be conclusive although I do believe it shows some interesting patterns.

Editorial Issues
An influential factor was the volume of production undertaken by the US and Russia. This is hinted at but I was wondering if there was any way to show this on the graphic. I decided not as it would have been a distracting variable in this discussion.(rising bars along the years etc)

Life size calibre
I am working on another graphic, to be featured this year hopefully, showing how in the European Air War the Germans (especially) up-gunned to cannon where the US stayed with machine gun calibre bullets. An interesting point in the design is that the calibres of the projectiles are shown real size on the page.

I wondered if this was also possible with the tank calibres and I tried a bunch of different permutations but again, despite looking interesting, they didn't really allow comparison - and they all bled into each other. This would be interesting to put on a  wall chart or a larger format display but not here.

Barrel lengths and type of projectile
Some might argue that I have gone for the wrong or over-simplistic variables involved in assessing the effectiveness of tanks. Instead, I want to do some other graphics that explain factors as barrel length and velocity as well as comparing different types of shells and tank gunnery in general.

It does ask wider questions of how much data can be contained in a magazine-spread display as opposed to other media. (there aren't too many that compare with the high resolution of magazine printing - newsprint is poorer for instance.

One could argue that the web is a place for some of these issues - I will address that in a later article but these graphics are staying in print for the foreseeable future.

Taking out the KV2
I had included the KV2 heavy tank - partly because it is such a magnificent looking thing - and it also underlines (and over-illustrates) the Russian commitment to heavy tanks.

Variation in Tank Models within designations
One interesting fact which there was no room to show was the amount of development within Tank Models. There were many makes of the Panzer IV, with new armour and minor tweaks to the gun, iterating the machine towards the next model. There was also a lot of battle field modification at unitlevel, which would not have been noted and so the number of different tanks within seemingly set patterns is much more plentiful than at first seems.

Tank Silhouettes
I was thinking of adding a silhouette at the bottom of each 'bar' but at this size, they would not have been useful - and their minimal decorative quality at that size would have served only to distract.

Weight
I thought to indicate the weight of the tanks by showing the tracks as darker on the heavier tank - the reasoning being they would leave more of a mark on the page as they went across it - this was a bit too clever/ obtuse and again there was a danger that the graphic could be cluttered by this.

The Birth of the Bazooka (feat. Panzerfaust and Shaped Charges) - WWII mag.July'07

 

'Why Things Work'
The first graphic is all about shaped charge technology. It follows principles that I am trying to make regular in these technology/weapons graphics. That is to say I think it important to introduce the historical context of their use, to mention the scientific breakthrough, to show it in use and to show implications or how to defend against it. I find that explaining the above is alot more important than seeing how big something is or what is inside it. I'm more into 'Why Things Work' than 'How Things Work'.

'Show And Tell'
Some of the issues above are not necessarily things that lend themselves to a graphical approach but they are part of the story and need to be included.

Many information graphic designers shy away from using text in their work - seeing their mission to almost avoid text at all costs. I believe that graphics can only explain so much - as can text - and so we should use both, not allowing either to assume primacy unless the data or narrative demands so.

This contradicts the 'Show, don't Tell' approach. My approach is more 'Show And Tell'. I believe the combined use of graphics and text in close harmony communicates a high resolution of data with highly memorable results. I'll return to this point in a later post as I think there is alot in it.

Editorial Issues
There were a few things I had to leave out of this spread due to space constraints. I would have liked to have mentioned the use of shaped charge explosives against fortifications in the Nazi invasion of Belgium. I would also like to compared the different Allied Bazooka and PIAT.

US and them
It is an ongoing issue to provide a balanced view of the war while fulfilling expectations of a predominantly US readership. If we have not covered any US innovations after a year, we have done something wrong but I think the balance will be OK. The balance in the magazine may slant more US than the final book proposal but I'll decide that when I get to it. I am also aware that some of the magazine readers may already be familiar with the information I am giving them. I hope I can provide some new insights for them or at least give them a new way to explain to others what they already know.

Comments or email welcome
maxgadney@googlemail.com

(I haven't made this email linkable as most people do not use their default-set email programme that pops up when they click a mail address - copy the address into your normal mail programme.