To identify the factors of an ideal infographic, one must understand the sole purpose and functionality of it. An infographic is a presentation of information similar to a poster that displays dense blocks of data to give off a message and lead the audience to a designated conclusion with the use of facts, graphics, colors, and fonts. A great infographic should catch the readers interest whether be the initial photo, color, font, or text. The beginning should be simple but general enough to encompass the topic that will be elaborated throughout the graphic. The text displayed at any given moment must be short and straight to the point preferably accompanied with an image that summarizes the thought to maintain a quick pace of acquiring information to maintain interest and engagement. The creative use of graphs for statistical based information is expected, use of colors for contrast or unity, and use of space for organization to improve the overall understanding is ideal. The display of information as one goes down an infographic should be a logical linear gradient of information from start to finish.
After brainstorming within groups of the English 101 classroom, a rough draft rubric was created using the five general factors: creativity, legibility, organization, simplicity, and credibility. A creative infographic should be unique, diversely display information (graphs, images, text), and dynamic in structure. Legibility of the graphic should be easily understandable, cohesive, and fluid with a logical line of thought per block. Organization includes a good use of space throughout a continuous theme and structured main ideas with labels for topics and titles. Simplicity is for the reader to not be oversaturated with information with the concise but dense display of data with the use of a phrase or image instead of a paragraph of information. Credibility is simply the use of correct resource identification and the diversity of sources within the infographic.
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Chapter 1 of Writer/Designer depicted and emphasized that multimodal projects are everywhere and are used daily. A common misconception of mine was that I thought multimodal only referred to a speech or website, when in reality it can be anything that uses multiple modes of communication. I also learned that the term “text” can be used to refer to any form of communication. When defining communication, the chapter also identifies the five modes of communication: visual, aural, gestural, spatial, and linguistic. At first I found ironic how certain modes seemed to overlap until I read in detail each mode. Visual has to do with the colors, point of view, and use of objects in a display. Aural is all about sound, tone, or even silence used to convey a message. Spatial is purely organization and placement, such as one would see on a website. The gestural mode, as it infers, is about body language and expressions. Linguistic is the use of delivery and choice of words while being coherent.
In application to my auto-ethnographic project, the website that I’ll create will require writing and designing using as many modes of communication as a multimodal project would have. Depending on my targeted audience I will have to manipulate my way of expression to entice viewers while getting the main idea across. For my multimodal “text”, the webpage must be visually engaging, special pleasing without being overcrowded by information, and linguistically direct to the point to maintain the interest of the audience. In the book Writing & Editing, chapter 1 focused mainly on how and why to write well and chapter 2 on the change from writing on a document to writing on a digital interface. Important terms that were mentioned are the following: the medium, organization (division and proximity), creativity and linearity, active voice, consistency, readability, credibility, bias, and transparency. When reading the chapters, there were certain concepts that I thought were obvious but was interesting how an aspect so simple has a great effect such as the dimension of space and using different organization skills to entice the audience. I also found quite intriguing how the style of writing changes when changing to a different format of display from essay to webpage. For my project, I want to attract the audience using subtle aspects of space and placement to engage the reader with a peripheral vision effect using what I learned of organization. I also want to be able to transform my writing to be packets of information easy to follow along without elaborating towards a lack of interest for being verbose. Although the goal is to be interesting, I want to achieve a certain credibility with the bias I inherently carry when writing about a topic I care deeply of. My proposed auto-ethnography topic is about my home island Puerto Rico. I will be researching and attacking the fact that the Caribbean paradise is an unacceptable colony under the masked title of a commonwealth. I will be researching on how Puerto Rico has gain such a status and what this means for the wellbeing of the people. Some curious questions to answer are the following. What is colony? What makes a country or a nation? May a nation be a colony or can a country contain multiple nationalities? What is the problem with multi-nationality? How does political subordination affect the people? What are the consequences (political, social, economical)? What led to this disaster? What about the people? The effects of political turmoil on an individual within the island? How come nothing has changed over centuries? What needs to be done and how? Will Puerto Rico ever be liberated from it’s contaminated past?
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Enrique SabaterA young man who yet knows nothing of the world. Archives
November 2016
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