The Functional Art:Introduction & Chapter 1 Response

This week's reading for my 'Introduction to Infographics and Data Visualization' class were the Introduction and 1st chapter to Alberto Cairo's The Fuctional Art. The book's introduction explains four major themes concerning using infographics correctly. Some of these themes include proclamations like how 'The brain doesn't process info that comes through the eyes, but creates mental images that allow us to reason actions that facilitate survival' or that 'Graphics, charts, and maps aren't just tools to be seen, but to be read and scrutinized.' The two chapters also explain the foundations to using infographics as an operating work of art by using their visuals to communicate the systematic facts found in another intellectual's research. The main reason many publications, authors, and scientists, and specialists in academia use infographics to visualize their theories consists of the basic fact that visuals with a satisfactory summarization facilitate the mind better learn a new idea or theory. Cairo includes a chart in The Functional Art's first chapter depicting the process of an image transitioning to basic, uninterpreted info into knowledge into wisdom, relating how data visualization is a crucial method to speed up this process in tandem with the data's original results. The most intersting tidbit I received from the reading is when Cairo explained towards the end of the first chapter that, "the role of an info architecht is to anticipaate the process and generate order before people's brains try to do it on their own." Basically, info designers use their work to accelerate the brain's decoding of factual information, rather than letting the reader decode it based off their personal opinion. It helps provide an objective opinion, if used correctly, to the research without having to fight through using objective language.

3rd Generation iPod Nano (Rights to Apple) Seeing that each reading should help me identify with either an infographic that stuck out in my mind previously or a story relating to data visualization, I actually noticed a small tidbit to include with the chapter's details that came from Cairo's own pages. In the reading he explains that not only technology facilitates everyday life, but also helps society implicate memories without even realizing. He used an mp3 player as an example that seems simply like a source for a person's everyday playlist, but it actually symbolizes much more than daily streams of the same song. Cairo reiterates that technology is simply an extension of ourselves, and data visualizations should be taken just as seriously. A personal example of how technology proceeds much of my identity is the fact that I use technology to either write, record, or create the foundations for my music. Like the author mentioned, I spent most of the childhood either listening to the same 100-200 songs on the way to school or cheer practice, or would save my Christmas/birthday money to purchase music I'd wanted for a months on end. My slim, hot pink iPod nano was first peak I got of what a world filled with musical memories would look like. Now I use technology like my Macbook, iPhone, and Beats to either stream music or create music of my own, and it's pretty mindblowing to realize that without these small machines and a little bit of internet connection none of that would be possible. My biggest joy in the entire world would disappear, if technology had never been developed, whether that be as recent as a wireless computer or as introductory as a phonograph.

Infographic Illustrating a Regional Map of the 2018 Grammy Nominees

from the Western United States (Rights to the Grammys)

As a response to Cairo's fair point that data visualizations should be an extension of oneself, I took a mental note to ensure that every small exercise/project completed in class would have something to do with music in way, shape, or form. Examples of my completed work so far are creating a promotion flyer for a concert, creating an infographic about the analytic demographics of the Grammy's Album of the Year award, and measuring the most frequent vocal ranges among recording artists. Whether a person specializes in data visualization profession or is just developing their creative skills like me, collecting data for subjects that matter to the creator helps make it even more beautiful and informative. If I could help imprint a fact or musical technique in a classmates' mind through one of my larger projects later on in the semester, that would mean so much to know I'm helping sproud informational awareness in an environment I initially believed to be just for learning. Although much of data visualization corrleates around illustrating factual experiements/data, a deisgner's main task is to make the data beautiful and welcoming for readers to enlighten their minds. In a world where everyone is constantly putting one another down or trying to prove how one demographic is more ignorant than the other, a pretty picture with harmless informants is very crucial and necessary at the moment. Data visualization could actually become a very productive peace-maker, if used correctly and authentically.