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The makeshift MP3008, SMGs, WWII Magazine, Nov 2009

This month's graphic for WWII Magazine looks at the lesser known MP3008. It was a German submachine-gun, drafted into minimal use at the end of the war. It was an insalubrious end for the fine craft heritage of German WWII weaponry - although this attention to technical detail was not tenable.

The graphic started life as a general family tree of many other submachine guns. This type of weapon was invented in WWI, but many variants were used in WWII. I wanted to show the main developments, color coded by country.

As soon as i decided that the MP3008 was th focus I deleted all guns not related. This meant getting rid of the US Finnish and Russian guns - which i am sure i will come back to.

I then thought to add data on the global resources available to build weapons, but it split the page too much.

The magazine editor Bill and his staff felt that the page needed a focus. They felt that a system diagram such as a family tree did not give the reader enough of a starting point.

There was far too much working this out on the page - something I am trying to get away from - that is what sketchbooks are for!

Al these are trying to resolve the need to point at the Main Object - the MP3008 - which is on the left - not the normal place people start to read.

Then, I decided to add detail on the operation of the gun - this added a new variable to the graphic - already tense with competing focal demand - especially the UK and German Timelines, which were not quite working out - until below:

Below is the art file I send to the magazine - it looks a little naked.

This piece had people in it like many of the newer ones. I wanted to show the progression from static warfare to mobile SMG warfare - to the fellow crouched down, waiting for it to stop. I quite like the place-holding sketch - maybe i should have kept it?

 

Drawing the weapons

I started off doing line drawings with a plain white fill.

I then wanted to fill them, bringing them a more informal style, with some fairly broad brush strokes - away from the technical illustration gradients and 3d renders that permeate elsewhere.

Colour coding

I kept some of the principles of the assigned colour following the relevant parts throughout. I also started to use 'bitten' lines - with white either side to direct the label better.

The Browning Battlefield - WWII Magazine, April 2009, Browning M1919A4 Machinegun

The graphic for the April issue of WWII magazine looks at the progress of US machine gun technology. It shows how these weapons started heavy and became lighter to suit more mobile tactics.

Technical Illustration

The render of the main MG1919A4 is the most detailed I have done so far. 

The main thing is have been concentrating on is the use of line widths to aid perceptual understanding. People see and object first by outline. The outline needs to be prominent and obvious. Many graphics go overboard with this to make themselves look more 'diagrammatic' - to fit their needs for authority  - not unlike 'science bit' in shampoo ads. 

The inner lines need to be lighter but in a hierarchy that lets you read the parts and contours of the object to learn about it. Some contours are left out, but none that would confuse recognition or mislead understanding. It is important to remember that this is not a lifelike representation of the object. It is a representation of the object for the purposes of explanation.

Cartoon people

I wanted to show the MG squad. I wanted to do so with a degree of veracity (they would need accurate uniforms) and also a degree of sympathy (the render would need to show them as humane). One way to show them would have been very tight diagrammatic form - but i didn't want them rendered in the same cool style as the equipment. 

I looked at a more detailed sketching form, but this demanded too much attention from the viewer - I needed people to be able to 'read' these figures as human soldiers and then move on. I need people to think of the general idea of soldiers and their role with machine guns on the battlefield, not these as specific people, who's portrayal wove in their live's experiences in the lines on their faces.

Another issue with the (satisfyingly) detailed sketches below was that they attracted too much attention to themselves. The composition of the graphic is a finely balanced whole, with the elements engaged in a perpetual tension with each other. If one of these elements sang too loud, the overall ensemble would be unbalanced and the eye would be distracted, always drawn to this element and unable to read the whole.

From the basic sketch I went to a detailed drawing maybe a bit too quickly

Alot of the hatching lines were then taken out

There was a satisfying level of detail

I wanted the faces to have a stern quality - matching the subject

And I wanted the actual gunner to echo the grimness of his work

More sketches sought to simplify the scene - hard to leave a nicer drawing but the Whole had to be served!

Lines were thinned and erased until the sketch was just enough to support the reading of the picture and to support it's place in the whole

Te sketch by itself seemed a bit light but echoing the background colouring of the Running Soldier gave consistency and knitted a few more threads of coherence to the whole spread (Good call Wendy - WWII Art Director!)

The danger is with too much detail is that An object becomes The object. An exact render gives an object a specificity that then removes it from the generic idea of 'the object' into the specific instance that you have created. And if you are talking about a specific instance of something you are best off showing it's actual portrayal photographically (and photo realistic sketching or 3-d software can only go so far).

The same goes for the running soldier - I wanted just enough detail for him to recognisable as a German Soldier, in a render that made him humane. He also needed an outline that could be shrunk and recognisable for the rate of fire section.

This version seemed economic with the amount of lines used

This one overdid the volume of the clothes - interesting but distracting and not true to the purpose of communicating the shape first by outline and second by internal linear cues

Consistent Format

I feel we are moving towards a consistent format with these now. An object, portrayed for purposes of understanding it's purpose on the left. The right page dealing with it's impact, mode of use and other issues. The left hand side objects sets up the proposition for the piece - and hopefully the right hand side goes some way to answering it. 

In the two above spreads,  we see one of the spread options that was changed in consultation with the WWII team. There were many disparate elements in the 'Attack' part - and they suggested blending them together rather than treating them separately - kind of a flute only needing one pipe instead of one for each note. It is that kind of economy that is especially satisfying in design - when one element can play the part of many, avoiding waste and elements that end up in conflict rather than harmony.

The MP43 / MP44 / StG44 Assault Rifle: Theory to Practice - WWII Magazine, November 2007

November's graphic in WWII Magazine is concerned with the creation of the first assault rifle by the Nazis. On a personal note, this is one of my favourites so far and the first one I did when I started this project last year.

Editorial Issues
Useful Range
In the hands of an expert, some of these weapons would have a much greater effective range but I looked at a lot of different figures and these seem to be the best averages.

I hadn't realised what an effective and efficient weapon the Ppsh41 was until I started this graphic. Reading about whole divisions of Soviet troops equipped with these, you begin to get a picture of the attritional nature of the war and the force of the wave that crashed back on the Germans.

(Read Ivan's War for a superb account of the lot of the average Soviet infantryman in WWII. Very readable - more interested in the effect of these events on normal people as opposed to 'Order of Battle' detail.)

anyway - back to ...

Which weapons to include?
I missed out pistols - not influential enough on large actions. I decided to include heavy machine guns because they were often part of the battlefield, creating imbalances of firepower alongside these other weapons. At one point I was going to note the weight of each weapon, to show the trade-offs between weight and firepower. This would have been one variable too many in what was already quite a dense data visualisation.

The first?
One could argue that the FG42 was an earlier assault weapon. It does indeed merit a mention although it's use was not widespread.

Kalashnikov?
I am loathe to mention too much of the modern implications of these technologies. There is alot to be said about the influence of the  Germans on US weaponry since WWII - the M60 even looks like an FG42! I feel that discussing the present too much will take the WWII reader away from reflecting on the WWII era - important for appreciating the difficulties of manufacturing and technology at this time.

Design elements
Graphic Vistas
This graphic got me thinking about the landscape or 'vista' as a metaphor in information graphics. I hope I will explore some different techniques in the work for WWII Magazine but this one follows a common idea. It is the idea of an overview in the general theme and issues of a topic (the rifle range here) with data available one layer down - just as a graph shows you the general trend and then allows detail to be investigated. I have also added a formal 'tour' of the issues and an explanation in the story of the Stg44.

Everyday Activity
I reflected that showing all the data on a 'vista' with the viewer compositionally above the 'scene', able to survey and take in all was a good fit with our natural perception systems. Every day, we are confronted with views and scenes that we need to  make sense of - and I felt that for this reason, the data presented on such a 'vista' would be easier to digest.

Field of Vision
I further stretched my theory of the 'vista' being an easily digestible information format, by considering the human factors/ ergonomics of reading a magazine. When most people read the magazine, there will not be much room either side of the magazine for their remaining field of vision. The magazine, with 'vista' presentation, has replaced their normal view. It follows that replacing the brain's normal expectation of a view - with depth of field and significant objects - with another sort of view will be a more cognitively digestible way to convey information than a graphic that only works on the flat plane of the page.

Colour leads the Way
Thanks also to John (Grimwade) and Nigel (Holmes) who were really helpful with this one.
They both made the point that the central narrative  the 400m-Stg44 axis, should be raised above the rest of the data. On the version they saw, there was red elsewhere on the page, distracting the eye from a 1-2-3-4 narrative, attracting the eye to non-crucial visual elements (the explosions in the gun barrels on page 2 bottom left).

Delivering Flames and Fear - The Flamethrower - WWII Magazine, October 2007

Here is the graphic for WWII Magazine for October.

It is concerned with the development of the flamethrower - a weapon as effective as a psychological terror device as it was deadly against concealed troops. (Steve and his editorial folks have a done a good job of the headline in that respect).

The rest of the magazine looks really strong this month too - there are some very good articles and it is settling into a compelling product. (I've just been on holiday in the US and when I went in to a newstand to find a copy, they had sold out - always a sign of a popular product!)

I'll proceed as normal with some thoughts on the editorial content and design.

Editorial
Tanks, but no tanks
I missed out details of tanks that were equipped with flamethrowers. I wanted to concentrate on flamethrowers' use in small unit tactics - utilised effectively by the US in it's increasingly violent path towards the Japanese mainland. One could argue that this special context needs explaining more with maps etc, but I wanted a degree of generalism in the information. I will also be doing some work on the variations of tank design that will include these weapons.

Operator
I also wanted people to reflect on the hazardous nature of the operator. I had conflicting reports on the results of a direct hit on the fuel tanks and so didn't include that information - but there was no doubt that they were despised by their enemies and that would have placed an extra burden on men already undergoing an incredible amount of pressure.

The Survivor
In the use of the silhouette on the bottom right illustrates the point I make about the risks to the operator - it is another example of trying to use that area to lead people out of the military technology issues in this series and to get people to reflect on the human angle if possible. It is a picture of a man that doesn't in itself convey any information - this angle is discussed a little later on.

Napalm
One piece of information that didn't appear was information on the molecular structure of napalm. The text deals with it's chemical make up but I felt that a memorable way to convey this would be to show the complex carbon chains created by the addition of the napalm soap (compared to relatively simple kerosene without napalm). After asking some chemist friends, it turns out that the structure created by such a combination is not consistent and therefore hard to show with any integrity. It was a shame as I thought it would communicate the whole point of the need for napalm - one being it's long-burning nature - that matches the time it takes to read it's chemical structure.

Other Countries
All sides in WWII used these weapons but I concentrated on the US angle (a) because of the readership of the magazine (b) data on US small unit tactics was more readily available -(I have generally found that much data - casualties , research etc is very well documented by the US) (c) comparisons of flamethrowers would be moot - none were too different - it was tanks that really brought them to the next level. (Although tanks couldn't often get to the places, with the element of surprise, where they were most useful.)

Design
Visual Impact
It would have been quite possible to do this graphic in a more visually impartial way. With the dark background and more expressive flame jet, there is a element of subjectivity. The issues of decorative/ purely illustrative elements in information graphics is an important one. One could argue that a chart detailing most hated weapons would land the drama as much as the chiaroscuro of the flame against the dark background, but I thought I'd try it out. The jet across the page also binds the page - another one of my ongoing trials - I believe that visual information can be presented in paragraphs - not just big massive pictures.

Dots and Dashes
I have then swung the other way in explaining the covering fire by dots point (1) on the bottom left. Perhaps there is an uneasy mix of the expressive and the abstract. In my other work I find that different formats can co-exist but need to be labelled and consistent - maybe there is too much of a mix of styles here - but maybe not.

Anyway, that's it for thoughts on this one. I've got some interesting graphics from wartime magazines that I am going to put on the site for those of you wanting something else on these subjects apart from the monthly fare. I won't claim credit for them, and it maybe a little like reprinting old material but I am not sure many of you all will have seen it.