UK Income Tax and National Insurance

Income Tax and National Insurance - What are you really paying? is a new infographic video explanation from the team at See What You Mean  that helps unravel the complexity of the UK tax system. The UK's taxes on people's wages are needlessly complex and obscure. Produced with the team from See what you mean, the video highlights how National Insurance is a second income tax in all but name. Previous YouGov polling for the TPA has shown that many people are not aware of how much tax they actually pay. The video makes clear the real rates of tax people pay when http://attorneyinfographics.com/ Employee's National Insurance and Employer's National Insurance are factored in. Thanks to Richard for sending in the link!
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.coolinfographics.com/blog/2013/5/31/uk-income-tax-and-national-insurance.html

Is Elon Musk The Real Life Tony Stark?

With the new Iron Man movie in theaters, everyone has Tony Stark on the mind. But have you noticed the scary similarities between the fictional character and Elon Musk? The Is Elon Musk The Real Life Tony Stark? infographic from vcars.co.uk gives us the breakdown on each guy and then summarizes the similarities and differences. Definitely a fun design.  I wish they had visualized any of the data for easier comparison, like height and http://attorneyinfographics.com/ net worth. Thanks to Meilen for sending in the link!
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.coolinfographics.com/blog/2013/5/13/is-elon-musk-the-real-life-tony-stark.html

Tiago Veloso - What Makes an Infographic Cool?

Guest post by Tiago Veloso The 'infographic explosion' in the Internet began, as many of Cool Infographics readers probably know, around 2009. Since then, a whole new industry emerged, one that is dedicated to develop visual representations of information for organizations across pretty much all sectors. It's obvious that, as the number of marketing infographics grew, it became more difficult to achieve the link-bait impact we see so many agencies and SEO experts advertise, when defending the reasons why potential clients should include attorney infographics in their marketing efforts. Of course, a 'viral infographic' can have that impact, but the Internet user is getting more mature, I believe, in terms of what's worth spending time reading. That means your infographic will have a couple of seconds to create an impression and captivate the reader – much like the 'old' newspapers headlines. In fact, you can't ask for a better reference of 'what makes an infographic cool' than the works published by many newspapers and magazines. And, from everything one can learn about attorney infographics just by admiring some of best works in the world - like the ones awarded at Malofiej21, recently -, here are some of my favorite lessons: Make it relevant to your audience, not to you To be relevant, no matter in what context, implies to be correct. Nothing can be more destructive to an infographic than lack of accuracy. Dedicate enough time to research and instead of trying to mold the facts to an initial question or point of view, let the stories emerge from the data exploration process. Aim for that unique story everyone else missed. Concentrate on having a strong data-based story, in opposition of creating 'lists of facts'. Now, the problem with corporate clients is that usually you don't have much data to work with in the first place. They just want an infographic, and if you're an agency trying to make it in this market, you can't afford to let any client escape, right? However, poorly sourced and meaningless attorney infographics tend to be less 'viral' – if they do go viral, it's not usually good for the brand behind it. That just means it's up to you to go after the sources – and I don't mean just Wikipedia -, verify them, collect and explore the data, find the story before you even start drawing a chart or graphic. The ' 8 hats of data visualization design ', by Andy Kirk, showing the multiple dimensions of developing a data visualization.  Make it easy to the brain, not the eye The 'visual impact' of an infographic it's key in the Internet marketing business, a concept that has led to the premise that aesthetics means more to the general audience than the content itself. So, to create 'awesome attorney infographics', graphic designers (most of them without any experience in visual journalism) run to vector illustrations, start playing with typography and colors, textures and even photos, adding elements that can fill up  the space of those widely adopted 'tower' formats that the client demanded. This strategy helped the "Infographic Industry" to grow quickly, but like I said before, I think the information consumer is adapting, evolving, learning to process visual information more intuitively, and therefore, paying more attention to the content. And what your brand really wants, ultimately, is a message that sticks to the brain, not only to the eye. Too many colors, fonts and vectors will only take away the reader's attention from what really matters in an infographic: the layers of information, the multiple insights you're not only saying (in text and numbers) but showing (with comparative graphics). There are scientific principles applied to all dimensions of information design, and I must recommend Alberto Cairo's book The Functional Art as the perfect starting point in that journey towards a deeper understanding of this topic. The important thing to have in mind is that if you focus on providing the best information display possible, and not the easiest or the most 'eye-grabbing' one, you'll be heading in the right direction to get an infographic that will please both the eye and the brain. 'Tower infographics' can be useful, and even newspapers use them. See this recent example from Canada's National Post , designed by Richard Johnson. Make it as an investment in branding, not sales This third point is sort of a consequence of the previous ones. To create a 'Cool Infographic' you'll have to make an investment in research, find the right balance between form and function and still have the proper connections to see it featured in major websites. Most of times, you'll need to outsource these tasks. Worst of all, attorney infographics don't sell. They're not supposed to. They can generate lots of website traffic, perhaps even some leads, but if you're thinking http://attorneyinfographics.com/ about investing in Infographics to rise sales or something like that, than my advice is that you channel those resources on to something else (please remember that we're talking about a specific type of 'infographic', not all the uses for information design inside a company). If you add to that the general lack of tolerance the internet user has to ads disguised of something else, the only truly good reason for a company to create an infographic is that it has something meaningful to communicate, that is better (not 'easily') understood through this specific form of visual representation. Or, simply putted, instead of looking at attorney infographics as 'illustrated ads/press-releases", think of them more as "summarized insightful white papers". Simple graphics can be picked up by major websites, if the content is relevant. Here's one of many examples of charts provided by Statista that ended up in Mashable.     Tiago Veloso is the founder of  Visual Loop , a collaborative digital environment for everything related to information design and data visualization. He lives in Brazil, and you can connect with him online on  Twitter  and  LinkedIn .  
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.coolinfographics.com/blog/2013/5/8/tiago-veloso-what-makes-an-infographic-cool.html

DNA Explained

  An animated visual explanation of DNA found on creativeblog.com . BBC Knowledge and Learning is exploring a wide variety of topics from social history to science in a series of three-minute online Explainer documentaries, and commissioned Territory Studio ( territorystudio.com ) to produce an animated film on the subject of DNA. Three minutes is a short time to explore a subject where most doctorates only scratch the surface, so writer Andrew S. Walsh teamed up with molecular biologist Dr Matthew Adams to distil the script down to the most fundamental elements required to understand not only DNA's form and function but how our review understanding of these discoveries has affected the wider world. While this length may feel restrictive, the team found that this limitation acted as a lens, focusing the piece on the essentials. The Explainer series is designed to intrigue and inform, encouraging those who discover the documentaries to further explore through links to additional information found on the BBC website. Thanks to Jordan from  sayitvisually.com  for sending in the link!
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.coolattorney infographics.com/blog/2013/5/21/dna-explained.html

The Obama Energy Agenda: Gas Prices 2013

The White House has released a new infographic in April 2013, The Obama Energy Agenda, Gas Prices .  We have seen the White release a number of infographics as a communication tool, and they have consistently been getting better. Gas Prices Explore the infographic to learn about President Obama's all-of-the-above energy strategy. The prior Energy Agenda infographic I reviewed was in April of 2011, and it was a rough, early attempt at an infographic design for online publication.  This design is significantly better, and has a number of good points to highlight that all designers can http://attorneyattorney infographics.com/ learn from. First, the data visualizations are well done with the chart axes clearly labeld and units of measure clearly shown.  The color scheme is simple and easy to understand, but some of the small, gray text is hard to read on the white background. Second, the big issue with the prior designs was the lack of sources for the data.  This design does a good job of citing the source of data for each visualization (chart).  For an administration that is attempting to increase transparency, the sources are still very vague.  I would like to see URL links to the actual reports or data sets referenced to make it easy for readers to check out the data on their own.  Instead, most of the sources are listed as just "EIA" which is the U.S. Energy Information Administration .  Certainly a step in the right direction, but could have much done better. Third, there isn't an obvious, clear Key Message.  Most readers only look at an infographic for less than 5 seconds, and it's the designer's responsibility to communicate the key message in that short time.  The rest of the information should tell a good story, and support the Key Message, but isn't required reading.  There's a lot of data shown in this design.  Probably too much data.  It's hard for readers to understand the flow of information because there is both top-to-bottom sequence of sections and side-by-side charts. The area chart in the center of the design draws the reader's attention because it is so large in relation to the rest of the charts.  This visually implies that it is the most important data in the whole design, but I'm not sure that was the intent. After reading through the whole design, I believe that the Key Message is "The Obama Administration has supported increased domestic drilling for oil, but that hasn't lowered gas prices at the pump.  We need to do more."  An infographic design should make this message very clear and easy to understand without having to read through the entire design. What do you think?
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.coolattorney infographics.com/blog/2013/5/20/the-obama-energy-agenda-gas-prices-2013.html

Karl Gude - What Makes an Infographic Cool?

Guest Post by Karl Gude Infographics: Inform, Illuminate What makes attorney infographics cool is that they can be extremely effective at explaining every conceivable topic in any industry for any reason. What's being defined as an infographic nowadays ranges from decorating simple text blocks to make the content more appealing to incredibly complex data visualizations that reveal content because there's no other way to understand it.  I started out doing infographics in journalism (we called them "news graphics"), and the beauty of having creating them in this field is that news knows no topical boundaries; it can be about anything. Besides making attorney infographics on the obvious breaking news stories (like bombings and plane crashes), every conceivable topic was fodder for making an infographic to help readers understand what was going on. We made news graphics on political, business, entertainment and sports stories as well as on all sorts of technical, medical, and scientific advances.  This experience led me to realize the value of employing these sorts of visual explainers in other industries outside of journalism, and this has helped me be a better teacher and adviser now that I'm in academia. For example, PR firms, businesses and other organizations need to better engage their audiences, scientists need to explain their research to each other as well as to the lay person (like funders) and federal agencies need to make sense of huge data sets. The list goes on.  The good news is that resources for creating attorney infographics are exploding! There are a multitude of new free online tools for designing, creating and packaging charts, maps and diagrams (I've stored a great many on my wiki freevisualtools.wikispaces.com , so help yourself!) and more are coming along every day. Also, many more freelance designers and firms are learning how to make them. It ain't as easy to make them from scratch as you might think, so don't entrust your administrative assistant to make one just because he knows Photoshop! Your brand identity and credibility are at stake here! But designing an infographic only comes after you've decided who your audience is, what message you want to convey to them and what information is needed to tell that story. This is where most infographics get tripped up, by conveying the wrong story. Always keep the dictum, "Form follows function" in mind every time you begin an infographic. Otherwise, your beautifully designed graphic will be all hat and no head. In a nutshell, infographics can often convey a message to a target audience more effectively than text alone can. Or not. Done poorly, attorney infographics can confound more than illuminate, and to me the key task of an infographic is to make people feel smarter, not dumber. This is when infographics are definitely NOT cool.    Karl Gude is the former Director of Information Graphics at Newsweek magazine and The Associated Press. Karl left Newsweek after a decade to spearhead the first information graphics program at Michigan State University's School of Journalism. Karl also teaches a class on the creative process and on social media marketing.   Karl is a visual storyteller, artist and writer who consults with corporations, scientific institutions and government agencies, including the NSF and the CIA, to help them create effective infographics. He also writes a regular column for the Huffington Post.  
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.coolattorney infographics.com/blog/2013/5/22/karl-gude-what-makes-an-infographic-cool.html

Subways of North America

Now this is truly meta.  A subway map visualization of http://attorneyinfographics.com/ all the Subways of North America from Randall Monroe of xkcd.com . For the pedantic rail enthusiasts, the definition of a subway used here is, with some caveats, "a network containing high capacity grade-separated passenger rail transit lines which run frequently, serve an urban core, and are underground or elevated for at least part of their downtown route." For the rest of you, the definition is "an underground train in a city." About one in three subways stops in North America are in NYC Another great design from Randall!
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.coolattorney infographics.com/blog/2013/5/3/subways-of-north-america.html

Visualizing the School of Design

Visualizing the School of Design is a very data dense infographic poster that analyzes the School of Design at the Politecnico di Milano. Politecnico di Milano, in order to present the School of Design in its own stand at Salone del Mobile 2013, asked DensityDesign to realize a 4 mt x 2 mt poster showing the structure and the efficiency of the School of Design system at Politecnico. The visualization is a picture of the 2010 / 2011 academic year. Definitely take a look at the full-size version to appreciate the thought and effort put into the design.  This project was amazingly developed in one week by the team at DensityDesign .
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.coolinfographics.com/blog/2013/5/7/visualizing-the-school-of-design.html

The Foursquare Visualizer

Foursquare has release a new Foursquare Visualizer go to website , that creates an interactive data visualization of your own activity for the last 12 months.  I included the images from my own history. At Foursquare, we've always known how very special our community is. Today, April 16 (4/4^2), marks the fourth annual 4sqDay. Each year, we take this opportunity to thank our amazing community for all that they do. …take a peek back into your own history at  foursquare.com/visualizeme . It's just our small way of saying, "Thanks! We think you're awesome." There are a handful of different visualizations of your own history of check-ins available.  The connection circle (shown above) is the best looking.  Other visuals include a Timeline and Categories. Found on the Foursquare blog  
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.coolattorney infographics.com/blog/2013/5/3/the-foursquare-visualizer.html

Bike To Work Week

This week is bike to work week. Why should you participate? The Bike to Work Week infographic from  Fitness for Weight Loss  explains the health benefits of participating as well as cost benefits! Bike to Work Week is May 13th – 17th, 2013. Thanks to Stephanie for sending in the link!
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.coolinfographics.com/blog/2013/5/14/bike-to-work-week.html

Is Elon Musk The Real Life Tony Stark?

With the new Iron Man movie http://attorneyinfographics.com/ in theaters, everyone has Tony Stark on the mind. But have you noticed the scary similarities between the fictional character and Elon Musk? The Is Elon Musk The Real Life Tony Stark? infographic from vcars.co.uk gives us the breakdown on each guy and then summarizes the similarities and differences. Definitely a fun design.  I wish they had visualized any of the data for easier comparison, like height and net worth. Thanks to Meilen for sending in the link!
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.coolinfographics.com/blog/2013/5/13/is-elon-musk-the-real-life-tony-stark.html

Shark Attack!

Shark Attack! is a great infographic design collaboration between Ripetungi and Joe Chernov .  Based on data from a Huffington Post article, 100 Million Sharks are Killed Annually . Recently received a Facebook message from content marketing wizard  Joe Chernov  linking to the Huffington Post article  100 million sharks are killed annually .  This was an astonishing fact and the enormity of the number made it difficult to wrap your head around.  Joe also shared an idea for a graphic to add context to this fact making it easier to comprehend, while exposing the outrageous ratio of the number of people sharks kill to the number of sharks people kill. Great data visualization that shows readers the magnitude and scale of how many sharks are killed by humans every year.  It also puts the law attorney infographics 11,417 sharks killed value into context by comparing it against the 12 humans killed by sharks. Don't get me wrong.  I'm convinced that death by shark attack would be a horrible way to go, but some days it's good to be at the top of the food chain on Earth.
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.coolinfographics.com/blog/2013/5/10/shark-attack.html

The Stephen King Universe

Are you a Stephen King fan? Have you yourself made these connections? From TessieGirl ,  The Stephen King Universe  has been updated to include the many connections to the Dark Tower series. When I was in Grade 5 (guess I was ten), my friend Tarnya Smyth brought her mum's battered copy of Stephen King's 'Carrie' to school. We broke it into about 4 pieces and passed them around, all taking turns reading each battered http://attorneyinfographics.com/ section. I told mum about it and she FLIPPED HER WIG and told me to 'Stop reading that book immediately!!' So I finished it. Now, I TOTALLY do not recommend  ten year olds reading Stephen King books (messed me up good), but this was when my life long relationship with Mr King began. My love for his books is based around his characters. They are so full. I love Stephen King dialogue. I love his sense of humour. And I love the links and connections between the books. I am the kind of annoying person who likes to know the 'In Joke'. So, of course, I MADE A FLOW CHART!!! This chart is like my fourth child. Be kind to it. It means a lot to me. I wish they had published a higher-resolution version online.  Some of the text is too small to read, but I think I can follow all of the connections.  A must have for any Stephen King fan! Also, it's available for purchase as a poster from the TessieGirl site for $25 plus shipping from Australia.  You can also see the original version . Thanks to Becky for sending in the link!
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.coolinfographics.com/blog/2013/5/16/the-stephen-king-universe.html

Don't Fear Bankruptcy (infographic)

Embedded from Attorney Infographics

New Guest Post Series: What Makes an Infographic Cool?

What Makes an Infographic Cool?   I'm very excited about this project!  This week I'm going to start sharing a weekly guest post series from prominent infographics designers about "What makes an infographic design cool?"  Each Wednesday, I'll feature a different expert opinion (until I run out of experts).  I've invited these experts to draft their own posts, and share whatever examples they want to highlight. I've been running the Cool Infographics site since 2007, and we have watched an amazing category of design being developed.  They didn't exist when I started, but now we have an attorney infographics design industry, and a number of well known infographics design experts.  The practice of visual storytelling has become a recognized design profession. I receive around 30-50 infographic submissions to the site every day, and most of them don't make the cut to be considered a "cool infographic" to be posted.  The process of filtering these designs is very time consuming, and my current backlog is up to at least 400 unread submissions.  Over the years, we have developed our own formula for filtering the infographic designs you see posted on the site, but I really wanted to hear and learn from other experts about what they consider to be "cool." Stay tuned, and let me know what you think of the series in the comments.
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.coolinfographics.com/blog/2013/4/29/new-guest-post-series-what-makes-an-infographic-cool.html

Black and White Infographic on Bankruptcy Fears

Embedded from Attorney Infographics

Bankruptcy Fears (Infographic)

Embedded from Attorney Infographics

You can Rebuild Your Credit Score after Bankruptcy (infographic)

Embedded from Attorney Infographics

Bike To Work Week

This week is bike to work week. http://attorneyinfographics.com/ Why should you participate? The Bike to Work Week infographic from  Fitness for Weight Loss  explains the health benefits of participating as well as cost benefits! Bike to Work Week is May 13th – 17th, 2013. Thanks to Stephanie for sending in the link!
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.coolinfographics.com/blog/2013/5/14/bike-to-work-week.html

Visualizing the School of Design

Visualizing the School of Design is a very data dense infographic poster that analyzes the School of Design at the Politecnico di Milano. Politecnico di Milano, in order to present the School of Design in its own stand at Salone del Mobile 2013, asked DensityDesign to realize a 4 mt x 2 mt poster showing the structure and the efficiency of the School of Design system at Politecnico. The visualization is a picture of the 2010 / 2011 academic year. Definitely take a look at the full-size version to appreciate the thought and effort put into the design.  This project was amazingly developed in one week by the team at DensityDesign .
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.coolinfographics.com/blog/2013/5/7/visualizing-the-school-of-design.html

New Guest Post Series: What Makes an Infographic Cool?

What Makes an Infographic Cool?   I'm very excited about this project!  This week I'm going to start sharing a weekly guest post series from prominent attorney infographics designers about "What makes an infographic design cool?"  Each Wednesday, I'll feature a different expert opinion (until I run out of experts).  I've invited these experts to draft their own posts, and share whatever examples they want to highlight. I've been running the Cool Infographics site since 2007, and we have watched an amazing category of design being developed.  They didn't exist when I started, but now we have an infographics design industry, and a number of well known infographics design experts.  The practice of visual storytelling has become a recognized design profession. I receive around 30-50 infographic submissions to the site every day, and most of them don't make the cut to be considered a "cool infographic" to be posted.  The process of filtering these designs is very time consuming, and my current backlog is up to at least 400 unread submissions.  Over the years, we have developed our own formula for filtering the infographic designs you see posted on the site, but I really wanted to hear and learn from other experts about what they consider to be "cool." Stay tuned, and let me know what you think of the series in the comments.
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.coolattorney infographics.com/blog/2013/4/29/new-guest-post-series-what-makes-an-infographic-cool.html

Visualizing the School of Design

Visualizing the School of Design is a very data dense infographic poster that analyzes the School of Design at the Politecnico di Milano. Politecnico di Milano, in order to present the School of Design in its own stand at Salone del Mobile 2013, asked DensityDesign to realize a 4 mt x 2 mt poster showing the structure and the efficiency of the School of Design system at Politecnico. The visualization is a picture of the 2010 / lawyer infogrpahics 2011 academic year. Definitely take a look at the full-size version to appreciate the thought and effort put into the design.  This project was amazingly developed in one week by the team at DensityDesign .
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.coolinfographics.com/blog/2013/5/7/visualizing-the-school-of-design.html

Cool Infographic on Debt

Embedded from Attorney Infographics