New Family Project

I explain what I know so far about my newest class project.

Newspaper Circulation

Infographics

Showing posts with label Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Review. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Post Winning Entries

I am going to post some of the sample winning entries from the competition website. There are some really good ones in here. I don't know what to expect when I get there but If its anything like this I will definitely need to step up my skills a bit before the competition. My main goal is not to win it is to gain new experiences and try to create something I actually enjoy.

Year 2011-2012

This one is my favorite I really enjoy the little characters and how professional it looks. 

Year 2010-2011
I like the simple and straight forward approach in this infographic. I feel like I might be able to make something similar to this one. 

Year 2009-2010
This one is rather busy but I really like the theme and layout of the information.



Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Infographics



I don’t know about this class but in english we are supposed to treat wikipedia like the gritty underbelly of the internet. However, I feel that you can find a lot of important information on wikipedia so this post is going to be all of the really important/interesting things I find on the infographics wikipedia page.



“In 1626, Christoph Scheiner published the Rosa Ursina sive Sol, a book that revealed his research about the rotation of the sun; Infographics appeared in the form of illustrations demonstrating the Sun’s rotation patterns.”

It is commonly believed that cave dwellers were the first infographic creators, I think that is really cool but Christoph’s creations were the first infographics like the ones created today. Other early infographic creators include Florence Nightingale and Carl Ritter.

Nightingales infographic which was presented to Queen Victoria.


Infographics were even created to communicate with aliens! Visual data representation is truly universal. It is so cool to consider that as humans we can create something that can, hopefully,  be understood by an extraterrestrial.

Infographics became more popular in the 20th century. “In 1972 and 1973, respectively, the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecraft included on their vessels the Pioneer Plaques, a pair of gold-anodized aluminum plaques, each featuring a pictorial message. The pictorial messages included nude male and female figures as well as symbols that were intended to provide information about the origin of the spacecraft. The images were designed by Carl Sagan and Frank Drake and were unique in that their graphical meanings were to be understandable to extraterrestrial beings, who would have no conception of human language.”


Washington DC Metro Map
This picture made me realize I have an infographic hanging in my house.

The Tate Gallery By Tube
This is a picture of the image that is hanging in my house I honestly never even realized that this could be considered an infographic but it is pretty cool.

“Closely related to the field of information graphics is information design, which is the creation of
infographics. Author and founder of the TED, Richard Saul Wurman, is considered the originator of the phrase "information architect" and many of his books, such as Information Anxiety, helped propel the phrase "information design" from a concept to a job category.”

This was actually really cool to find out. It connects two of my favorite parts of my studies this year, and reminds me that I never have time to watch Ted videos lately which sucks.

*I tried to get all of the images on here instead of the links but my laptop froze whenever I tried to insert them*

Friday, March 22, 2013

Technology Free Day

So on Wednesday we had a technology free period. I didn't really want/like it at the time because I actually had a plan for a post, they will come next week. Anyways I decided to draw a infographic about basically nothing because I was planning on making one already. But I like the idea of having a tech free day. It promotes communication on a deeper level than normal. If this happens again I think we should have some sort or warning so that we can have a good plan for the day.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Beware Online Filter Bubbles

So I wasn't going to post a full-on analysis of this Ted talk but It did what it intended to, it made me think. The ides of having computers decide, with great accuracy, what I like and what I may like in the future is weird yet very cool. News websites aren't the only services that do this. From Pandora to Target modern life has become so wrapped up in what you want now. This helps you with getting people what you, think you, need at a better cost to you. However this technique removes much of the opportunity for creativity and finding new exciting things.I feel like these techniques should be regulated but this could easily be a sticky situation. I just hope that the internet remains a, somewhat, open place where people can express their beliefs, concerns, and qualms with the world.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Oberhaeuser Info Graphics

Oberhaeuser a company that seems to be based out of Germany has produced some of the best info graphics I have ever seen. Their slogan "Information is beautiful" doesn't even begin to describe the quality of some of their work. The mix of unique design, simplicity, and bright eye catching colors make their designs really stand out among others that I have seen.
This image which displays a calender is really intriguing. Each ring represents a month and important holidays are marked in a different color. I have seen a lot of really unique calender designs and I think this one stands out as one of my favorites because it looks like a piece of art while still maintaining the functionality of a calender.

My favorite design is this encyclopedia. It combines the structure of a book with the key features of a book. As a child I loved to read books like these because they taught me things using images and words. I feel like as you get older books with these features become looked down upon. With the popularity of new news medias and the unwillingness to read large blocks of text I think, or at least hope, books like this will become more popular. They engage the reader so that they are interested to learn and make reading an encyclopedia seem less like a chore and more like a hobby (activity?). 
As I write this it seems like I could be explaining a children's book. They tend to use the same techniques as I am describing here. Learning is a very important part in childhood, maybe if more books were structured this way people would be able to learn complicated concepts easier. 


Saturday, December 22, 2012

Snow Fall


This  article  by the New York Times is a great display of what digital media can, and should do. It mixes characteristics of print and digital media really well.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Create: Part One


I have had the creating aspect of this blog in my head for a while and as my individual deadline had grown closer I have been striving to achieve it more and more. Honestly my english skills are being suppressed a bit in the class I'm in so I am needing to almost relearn things that I was a pro at last year. I have never really been educated in the art of journalistic writing. This lack of knowlegde lead me to the "all-knowing" google. Here is what I have come across thus far.

From Writing Journalistically to Learn In Any Classroom By Jackie FolkertPortage Northern High School, Portage, MI
Writing Journalistically

"When students write journalistically, they use
higher-order thinking to learn as they demand
accuracy, pinpoint relevancy, consider audience, and
synthesize information. When teachers trade
formulaic writing and worksheets for journalism,
their students have opportunities to personalize
meaning."

I believe this means that a sucessful journalist strives to achieve the truth, write with a specific audience in mind, and summarize the important details while still thouroughly covering the topics necissary. The higher order thinking is a bit offsetting, it may or may not be a fancy way to say an order of thoughts but im not quite sure.

'News writing places the most pertinent
information in the first paragraphs of the
article. In typical inverted pyramid fashion,
the importance of information decreases as
the story continues.
News writing is specific, accurate, and
delivers concrete, factual information.
New writing displays information clearly.
Sentences are short and paragraphs contain
one element of information; paragraphs are
rarely more than three sentences long.
News writing uses direct sentences, most
often subject-verb-object sentences.
News writing does not include the writer's
Opinion.
News writing focuses on one dominant
meaning.  The reader should be able to
answer the question, "What's the single,
most important element in the story?"'

This helps with the understanding of the higherarchy. The way knowledge is to be displayed mirrors the funnel form of a conclusion in the papers that I am writing in my english class. The formatting description makes sence, but I feel as if this is less important in the electronic news that is becoming more popular today. I am aware however that people are more likely to read something if it is not just a wall of text so I will write as the article suggests. This page describes the sentence structure well. I have read this article, and it seems as if the stucture eliminates and condenses sentences well.


Thursday, December 6, 2012

The Future Of Mobile News


The Future Of Modern News


I can really relate to this article because, like the majority of americans, I am basically attached at the hip to my various moble devises. Falling into the 50% that own both a tablet and smartphone, I am hardpressed to find remember times during my day when I'm not on one or the other. The influx of technology in my life has really had almost all positive effects. I am able to take in more information, faster, than ever before. Adressing the problem of users mostly utilizing these features at home, I'm just to scared to go over the mobile data limit to use my phone constantly. But thats only attributed to verizon forcibly taking away my unlimited data.

In summary this study says:

  • The advent of the new lower-priced tablets in late 2011 brought in a new crop of tablet owners. 
  • Rather than replacing old technology, the introduction of new devices and formats is creating a new kind of "multi-platform" news consumer.
  • There is growing evidence that mobile devices are adding to how much news people get. 
  • People who get news on both a smartphone and a tablet may carry added appeal for news organizations. 
  • Similarly, those who get news throughout the day on their mobile devices are more engaged news consumers
  • Two distinct news audiences have emerged on tablets-new-found digital customers and customers who also remain loyal to the print product.
  • People notice ads on mobile devices and may be even more likely to click on them than they are to click on other digital ads. There has been movement over the last year toward using the browser rather than apps for tablet news consumption. 

Pew Project For Excellence in Journalism


The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism

I have recently stumbled upon The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. It seems to be an organization thats main focus is "trying to understand the information revolution." Their goals seem to be very similar to mine. A paragraph from their overview section states

 "Our goal is to help both the journalists who produce the news and the citizens who consume it develop a better understanding of what the press is delivering, how the media are changing, and what forces are shaping those changes. We have emphasized empirical research in the belief that quantifying what is occurring in the press, rather than merely offering criticism, is a better approach to understanding."

Their views are, as close as possible, nonpartisan. PEW also conducts a lot of studies and writes articles discussing the state of modern news.

I will definitely be posting some of the thinks I find there on here because they have done some great work. 




Wednesday, December 5, 2012

News Anchors vs. Journalists

Most news anchors arent journalists but the most prominent ones that I have come across seem to do both. In order to become a news anchor you dont really need to posess the skills of journalist. Local anchors often times dont even know exactly what they are going to be talking about untill they are about to be on the air. One the most popular anchors of modern time, Anderson Cooper, at least makes it seem like he knows what hes's talking about. If he is completly cut off from the production of his show he hides it well. His enthusiasm for the topics he is reporting on resonates with the audience. He does seem to be a lot more connected to his work than many journalists. It seems that even if you arent a journalist being a sucessful news anchor comes with at least a little work into the creation of the what they present on the television.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Writing Journalism

An article I read by The Guardian has helped me quite a bit in my pursuit to begin writing quality journalism. The biggest aspects that I took away from this article are that sucessful journalists need to be cunning, entertaining, and oftentimes able to throw out their inhibitions in order to get the good information on a topic. Articles are written very quickly and need to be very good in order to even make it into publications. If a journalist cannot deliver quality work they wont be published. Now that I know some of the characteristics of a good journalist I need to find something that describes how to write well. The easiest way to do this would probably be through my English class but I dont feel that me teacher would be a lot of help in this outlet.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

RSAnimate

Several days ago I posted a video documenting the advantages and disadvantages of intro/extroversian. The personality test we took resulted in me being labeled an INTJ. When we discussed this in class I realised how much I related to this personality type. RSA shorts produced this video in order to educate people on the first letter, whether it be I, or E, of their personality types. I really enjoyed this video, and because of it I decided to investigate more short films produced by the RSA. Although none of their videos dealt specifically with journalism, common themes that could be used to enhance my writing as well as my individual study. I hope to be able to include some of the lessons learned in Drive, Time, The Internet, and many more to further my education.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Outliers Analysis


In reading Outliers, the most interesting thing to me was the passage about being born in the correct time or place to be good at a specific thing. I wonder whether or not I was born somewhere or sometime that will allow me to be successful. The other main problem with this is whether or not the field I was “born to do” is around today, or if it is a career of the future. I don’t feel as if my circumstances will allow me to be brilliant at any one thing. There are so many factors that come into play with relation to my future. My personality type, age, location, and my relationship with parents and peers all come into play when deciding my fate. It is scary to think my ancestors could hold the key to my fate. In order to become successful, I either have to have been dealt the best hand in life, be born with an innate talent, or practice for many hours in my topic of choice. The KIPP chapter shows that hard work really does pay off. Even though these kids are very successful, they might not be fulfilled in these studies. Giving the kids more free time would be helpful to them. There needs to be a balance in between school, creativity, and socialization. I think that our school day could be slightly lengthened if it allowed for no homework after school. Outliers was a very enjoyable book. I didn’t agree with all of the authors ideas, but the majority of them resonated with me. The knowledge in this book transcends Korean pilots and Jewish lawyers. It connects things that would otherwise seem completely different and allows for a new perspective to look upon life.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Group Project, Progress and Problems

This I going to be basically a live post so I'm just going to be writing as I get ideas.

People havent seemed to think to much about the project since last meeting.

We need the software to produce (Ryans) posts.

Im not very famillar with the google sites format.

We need a timeline, when each character does the actions in a specific story, Old age-remembering past experiances,

Topics:
Introduction
Job
War (Conflict)
First/Last Day


This post may be updated later with more info.

Monday, September 24, 2012

Suggestions.

Ok so I have a lot of planned post topics and things I'm going to unveil in the coming months. I was just wondering if anybody else had topic ideas/suggestions/critisism for me. Feel free to leave it in the comments.

-Victoria

Thursday, September 20, 2012

If It Bleeds It Leads: Rundown, Disclaimer

I've began reading my first journalism book for the year. It is entitled If It Bleeds It Leads: An anatomy television news. The book seems to compare the different kinds of journalists. It's mission thus far is to show how much talk show hosts and the hard hitting journalists you watch everyday actually have in common. Because this book is a little old, some of the specific people they mention arent actually on the air anymore. I dont think this makes any of the information given any less valid, and I am still very interested in it and cannot wait to continue reading.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Looking To The Future By Learning From The Past

I hope to start making more "regular" posts here and the majority of them will be relating to the books I (plan on) reading. The majority of these books do involve techniques and information relating to radio, television, and print. This information will hopefully guide me along to knowledge relating to more modern forms of news, the internet in particular. I feel like these medias are more alike than they are different. Each of them deliver the news in a quicker time than the one before it. My studies will be focused more towards the internet because I believe it to be the most important form of news that is popular today. The intenet has the possibility to spread more information faster than any media at this day and time, and I feel like speed is as important as any other qualities that news contains.

-Victoria

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Background

I have been watching the news for as long as I can remember. Television has always been a big part of my life, for better or worse, and I have learned so many things that way. As I got older and my interest (obsession) with the internet grew it became another new way for me to learn what is going on in the world. I spend a lot of my time on websites that mix journalism and entertainment. Because of this I have learned a lot about things that television news shows don't talk about.

I'm not quite sure if this post made sense but I know a lot more facts from journalism than facts about it.

-Victoria

Monday, September 10, 2012

Introduction To The Internet

At this moment I am sitting at my computer with eight of the most popular and well-known news websites displayed, eight pages that serve millions of people knowledge about the world around them daily . Each page is displaying similar news articles but each seems to have its own opinion and a different way it delivers news to the people that visit it.

cnn.com
cnn displays the most multi-media on its front page. A variety of pictures, articles, and videos covering topics from the Chicago teachers strike, to where you can find mermaids. The most sad news is displayed in small text with no images, but the lighthearted entertaining news has larger text and is illustrated with bright images. Even if it is harder to find the more "important" news is still rather easy to find, but this website seems to focus on covering up the sad with the happy.

bbc.co.uk
bbc displays a lot of news from countries around the world. This page has a news that might be difficult to find on other pages displays front and center as important headlines. The colors are a lot more subdued than the majority of the pages I have viewed. This color palette, combined with how the news is displayed provides a simple, straightforward way to view the news. bbc seems to be a way to learn current affairs that are a little less mainstream easier than other web pages.

cbsnews.com
The most prominent color on this page is black which seems to go well with the darker nature of the news cbs provides. I find much more mentions of terrorists, arrests, and killing here than on the other websites. At first glance this page seems a lot more serious than the other news sources I have seen. 

reuters.com
reuters is primarily a business news source and the headlines definitely display this.Affairs involving the stock markets, both global and national, are shown much larger and more often than any of the other pages. Reuters seems to be the page to go to if you want to find out whats going on in business, and finance. 

buzzfeed.com
buzzeed may seem like an odd choice in news source, but I think there's great value in entertaining news. Buzzfeed has the widest variety in news topics. Most of the news stories, which are adorned with many different pictures, and graphics, are written to entertain while still usually teaching something. This website is mostly for fun news, and interesting things you might not learn anywhere else. 

foxnews.com
The first and most prominent thing you see when you go on fox news is politics, and lots of it. The affairs of the president and legislation are all over the top of the page. Red, white, and blue are also basically the only colors you see on this website. I imagine this is to show patriotism. If you're not looking for the top articles you may have a hard time. Everything under the first four or five breaking news articles are rather small and hard to read. Fox seems to be a good place if you want to read the most important news at the moment.  

news.google.com
Google news has the simplest interface but the most text. At first glance all of the information can be a bit annoying to read through. Lack of pictures does give the page a much more straightforward feel. In my opinion the best part of google news is that the articles are actually links to many of the other pages on this list. 

ABCNews.com
ABC seems to be a little bit obsessed with Obama, the majority of the top news articles are about him. There are plenty of other news stories displayed through ought the site but the bigger more prominent stories all relate to either the election, or Obama. ABC news definitely seems like the place to go for lots of news related to politics.  

-Victoria