Tufte, Wurman, and Holmes.

Edward Tufte [1942-present]

Edward Rolf Tufte is an American statistician who is currently working as a professor Emeritus at Yale University in the fields of statistics, information design, interface design, and political economy. He is an expert in the presentation of information graphics and the New York Times has described him as the da Vinci of data. Tufte was born in Kansas City, Missouri, was raised in Beverly Hills, California, and now resides in Cheshire, Connecticut. When he was a student at Yale, he was taught by John Tukey, a pioneer in the field of information design. Tukey obviously had quite the impact and influence on Tufte. 

Tufte is notably critical of the Microsoft software, PowerPoint, saying that instead of it being a tool used to enlighten the audience, it is used as a crutch, guiding and reassuring the presenter.

Richard Saul Wurman [1935-present]

Richard Wurman was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is an American architect and graphic designer. Wurman has written and designed over 80 books and is the creator and founder of the TED conferences. In 1976, he coined the term "information architect" as his reaction to a society that creates massive amounts of new information on a daily basis, but with little to no care, organization, or order. He is also the creator/writer of the popular ACCESS travel books.

Nigel Holmes [1942-present]

Nigel Holmes is a British graphic designer and theorist. Holmes graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1966 and a decade later, was hired to work for TIME magazine in 1977 to design "explanation graphics." His work primarily focuses on information graphics and design. He has done work for Nike, Apple, Fortune, Sony, United Healthcare, the Smithsonian Institute, US Airways, Visa, Harper's, the New York Observer, and the New York Times.

www.nigelholmes.com

www.edwardtufte.com

www.wurman.com/rsw/

Stories.

One.

In the 2004 presidential election, roughly 126 million people cast their votes at the polls. This number may jump off the page as a large one, but when put next to the United States' eligible voting population of 226.5 million people, it disappoints in comparison. Another interesting number to compare the voter turnout to is the number of United States citizens that are eligible for the draft, if one was ever reinstated. That number is 135 million. 68 million fathers, uncles, brothers and sons. 67 million mothers, aunts, sisters and daughters.

What I want this motion graphic to explain that even if you don't believe that voting is personally important, that you should make your voice heard for the ones you care about. Speak for those who do not have a voice. I want people who think that politics have little to no effect on them to realize that it may not matter right now, but what about when WWIII occurs. History repeats itself, it is bound to happen. It is only a matter of when.

I want voting to initially appear daunting, unmanageable, and not worth the effort. I want the voter to examine the word, and tip over the word, bend over the "O" and peer into its endless darkness. A wind blows and he/she falls in. As he/she falls through space, I want points to be made and images/graphics shown. Towards the end, I want a speck of light to appear, and grow larger and larger as he/she makes the realization that voting is important, it effects more than just you, and that it's not hard. I want him to "see the (voting) light." I see him/her coming out of the same word that originally engulfed him, a changed, enlightened and conscious voter.

Two.

I think that for the second story idea, I want to approach it from a more humorous point of view, since the first is a bit darker and may even turn into something slightly morbid depending on how far I would want to take that whole family-being-sent-to-an-ugly-war bit. I think that everyone, at least everyone of voting age, is familiar with the classic movie, "A Christmas Story." It could open with republicans on one side and all of their propaganda and ad campaigns screaming on the right and all of the democrats on the left doing exactly the same thing, with some "non-partisan" people in the background screaming to vote!vote!vote! 

It would be like a "I double dog dare you to vote" sort of thing. The person would go to the polls uninformed and confused, with images of all of the stuff that the media has bombarded him with, and essentially licks a frozen flag pole of voting because that is what everyone is telling him to do. I want to bring up that he shouldn't be voting just to prove that he did it, to satisfy others. He should be educating himself and going out to vote for no one but himself. He will rise above the whole game of politics (i.e. 5th grade winter recess) and not lick the icy frozen flagpole, but rather go to the voting poll and stand up for himself.

I feel like the second one is a bit (or very) scattered but I still like the general correlation...

p.s. I just realized that I don't have a statistic for this one. Maybe the number of 18-25 year olds that don't turn out to vote? Make the connection of the youth vote and not being childish? hmm...

Project Brief [my own words.]

To me, the goal of this project is to first engage a viewer, present an abstract concept, and through the use of motion, time, color and sound, morph and communicate the abstract and present it within a clear, concise final product.