There has been a recent surge in the amount of infographics that we have been creating for our clients, as well as our own brand. Craig Troskosky, a Management Supervisor on the Public Relations side of the agency, recently ping’d me for key things I think about when I am creating an infographic. Here is a quick run down of what goes on in my head when I start to concept an inforgraphic design.

Information
As much as you can supply to the designer. Even if you think it is meaningless monkey trivia. The more information the better. Sure some of the information might not make it into the final design, or even really relate, but a designer feeds off of the information to start crafting a design or concept. In my opinion the more information you can give to your designer, the better.

Connections
After I review all of the information that has been given to me I start to look for connections. Data that feeds off other data. Making these connections can help shape the graphic. Sometimes, it can also add to the ‘playfulness’ of the data.

What is the story you are trying to tell?
Every infographic is telling a story. What is the story or message you are trying to convey to the reader/viewer? How can that story lend itself to shaping your graphics?

Impact
How can you engage your viewer/reader to keep wanting to look at the graphic. How can you attract them, inform them, and leave them with some kind of new thought/emotion/feeling?

Great Design
Make it look sick nasty. (for all of you adults out there, sick nasty is a good thing)

That’s a quick rundown of some things I think about when I start to concept an infographic. Here is a recent infographic I did for our brand. It shows what some of the things are, that make EMA, EMA.

Want to see some of the best infographics being designed today? Check out this list of killer infographics over at Good.
Want to know more about how to design infographics? Check out this book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by Edward Tufte.

Stay Fresh!

I downloaded the new Google+ iPhone app (itunes link) yesterday thanks to a link from Mashable. After a day of use here is what I have found so far:

Main Screen

When you launch the G+ app, the main screen is super clean and super simple. There are 5 sections you can dive into; Your Stream, Photos, Circles, a Huddle or your Profile. At the bottom of your main screen is where you will find your notifications.

Main Screen

Notifications View

In the upper left of your screen you will find a settings/preferences icon. This icon opens a screen that allows you to find Help, Give Feedback, the Privacy Policy, the Terms of Service or the ability to sign out.

Main Screen Settings

Streams

Once you tap into your Stream you have some different views you can take advantage of. By swiping your finger from left to right, or right to left you can change these views. You can view your Circles streams, and streams that are flowing from Nearby sources, or an Incoming stream. You can tell what stream you are in by the name of the stream increasing in pt size (see below). In this section of the app you will find a Check Mark and a Pencil icon in the upper right corner. These icons are exactly what you think they are, the Check Mark allows you to check into a location as well as post a pic with your check in. The Pencil icon allows you to post something to your own stream. To refresh Streams, just tap and drag down.

Streams

When you go to post something that is on your mind, the screen will look like the one below. Be sure to take notice that it also has your current location already populated. You can tap the ‘x’ to the left of the location, allowing you to turn that off for your mobile post. Posting a picture along with your post is very intuitive, you can snap a shot or choose from an album at the bottom of the screen, and it has the same location on/off feature. You can also select which circles are going to be able to see your post. If you look in the picture below you will also see an icon of a keyboard in the type window. This will open and close your mobile keyboard.

Post

Photos

I think this is pretty rad, just like I think the photo display on the web version of G+ is rad. Why do I think it is rad? Because I like a lot of visual stimulation for my ADHD.With the Photo section you have some options, it is laid out in a four square pattern. From the upper right to bottom left you have: Photos from your circles, Photos of you, Photos of your albums and Photos from your phone. On this four square layout the images that are used for the icons rotate out like a slide show. Killer. Photos from your Circles displays all the photos from your Cirlces like it would on the web, in a brilliant simple layout of inspiration, fun and life. Photos from your albums are grouped by album and then you can view the individual album by tapping it. Photos from your phone lets you instantly grab a shot from your phone and share it with the rest of the world. Commenting on photos within the G+ app is super easy, and the design, just like everything else, so fresh and so clean.

Your Albums

Circle Photos

Four Squared Layout

Circles

Your circles are displayed very clean on the screen. There are 2 views here, ‘People’ and ‘Circles’. The ‘People’ view allows to see you all of the people you have in your Circles as an alphabetical list. Similar to the display of your address book on the iPhone. Also, at the bottom of this screen you can change the view from ‘In Circles’ to ‘Suggested People’ . The ‘Circles’ view allows you to see the circles you have, with tiny thumbnail pictures of who is in those Circles. There is the ability to add a circle in the upper right. You can also tap a Circle group and this takes you to another screen. This screen shows that Circle in a list and gives you options to see only those streams or only that ‘Circles’ photos.

Circles > Circles View

Circles>Posts/Pictures

Huddle

I’m diggin’, on the Huddle feature. You can invite multiple people to a Huddle and everyone will receive the messages that are being sent across the Huddle. Currently if you are in a Huddle, and still in the G+ app you do not get a noise or push notification letting you know that someone else has pinged the Huddle back. This only happens when you are outside the app. Creating a new Huddle is a snap, just tap the upper right speech bubble icon from there you can add one or two friends. You can even add entire circles. When you are in a Huddle, there are 2 icons in the upper right of the screen. There is a ‘+ person’ icon, which allows you to add people or circles to the Huddle. There is also a settings icon, this lets you leave, or rename your Huddle. The whole Huddle part of the app was a little buggy this morning, but the idea is great. If you need to contact a bunch of individuals at once and what to keep a conversation going, Huddles are great for it.

What a Huddle looks like

Profile

The profile section of the G+ app is really nice as well. Super clean. It shows your Stream in a similar view to what you would see if you were looking at a ‘Friends’ Stream. Along the bottom are three sections within your Profile Stream. An ‘About’ section, ‘Posts’ section (default) and a ‘Photos’ section. I don’t know if such a large profile pic is needed in your own stream, it takes up a lot of reality at the top of the screen. Maybe some individuals have very long names, but if it is your own Stream, you already know your name, just a first name would work here. Refreshing your Stream works the same as it does to refresh other Streams, just tap and drag down.

Profile

Profile > Photos

Profile > About

Overall I am really enjoying the Google+ experience, the mobile app makes it all just that better. Nice work Google, and thanks for making a really nice mobile interface. If you feel like checking me out on G+ head over to gplus.to/tommylincoln.

You know that feeling you get when you buy your first Mac? You turn it on and can actually start using it. There isn’t a world of preloaded garbage that you need to sort through before you can actually start using it. You can just dive in and go. You realize, this is just so easy to use! “Wow!” you say. “Wow! I cannot believe I wasted all those years on that windows based machine”! Apple’s team of UI designers really knows their stuff. Having an interface that is very intuitive, can make all the difference in the world.

I started using google+ last week thanks to an invite from Nick Cicero, and I got that feeling. I kept looking for the garbage component, and I couldn’t find it. Where are all the advertisers pushing their products?! Where are the ads with a picture of a guy surfing, with a headline that reads “Top things to do in Syracuse”? Have you ever been to Syracuse?! There is no surfing in Syracuse, so why is there an AD on facebook suggesting there is? Not only were there no advertisements, the user interface is just so squeaky clean! The use of color is minimal, but is consistent across pages. Colors in google+ carry specific definitions that are easy to understand. Blue, highlights any type of link that would take you away from the page you are on, and red, calls out an area you are in or a button that may change something on your current page.

Circles/Sparks/Draggin’ an Droppin’

Google+ introduces ‘circles’ and ‘sparks’, and have been designed with the user in mind. Circles, or your friend lists, are very intuitive to use. It has a drag and drop function, so you can drag and drop friends from one circle to another. This functionality also exists in the photo uploader. Just drag a photo from your desktop and drop it into the uploader. Managing your friend lists, or groups can get very tedious. Circles eliminates that. Also, on your circles page when you hover over a friend or potential stalker, the circle(s) in which that person is filed will glow. Little flavor like that is all through G+. You may also double click the friend’s icon to go directly to that friend’s page.

Sparks is essentially interests. For instance, search for a spark like ‘graffiti’, G+ will then populate with articles that are all associated with ‘graffiti’. From here you can share a story with your circles. I imagine that the more people share one article, the higher it will be put into a spark list. Could this be used to potentially create a world of new journalists based on +1′s or sharing?

As I said before, G+ has little flavor through out the UI. Google has always had a very simplistic approach to the design of their sites. As you navigate G+, you will see hints of life. When you add a person to a circle, it spins and a tiny +1 bubble floats away. When you delete a friend a -1 bubble floats away, or delete a circle completely and see what happens. There are little things like this all over the site and new for Google. It makes the whole experience much friendlier.

The use of the Google Bar

The Google bar stays with you across Google pages, and you can post to your Google+ account from any page via the bar. This bar also displays notifications through a drop down window. Each notification you get has a different icon to let you know what kind of notification you have. A small bullet list is a post notification and a green circle is a notification that someone has added you to a circle in their google plus world. The bar is grey, it stands out against Google’s dominating white. I think having this functionality atop all pages within the google grid is a great feature. I would like to see the ‘sign in’ function be displayed in a drop down functionality rather than it taking you to a new sign in page.

Hangouts

I have not used this feature yet, but essentially it seems like if you wanted to get a group video chat, or just text chat going, you can do so via hangouts. If you want to learn more about the hangout feature you can read some facts here.

Photos

There are a few things that I really like about the G+ photo section. The way it displays photos from your circles is really well done, not to mention it how it displays your photos in your albums. The photos that are displayed from your circles come together in a giant page of inspiration, life and emotion. Nice work Google.

screen shot of photos from your circles

The way it displays photos in your albums is great as well. When you hover over your albums multiple pictures fan out, this is another little nugget of animation within G+. Then you click into an album and it gives you your album cover huge with the other photos smaller. I’m not sure if it is my monitor or google, but the imagery seems to come in very crisp and clear.

Album Photo Layout

If you click on an image from one of your circles or from your own album, you get a modal screen with the comment pane on the right hand side. Very nice design and the photos look nice against a dark background. As I previously stated, adding pictures is a snap with the drag and drop feature. If you want to have a little fun you can put multiple photos in your profile album, then when someone is on your page they can click your profile pic and it will change your picture per click. Animation sequence anyone?

Photo with comment pane

Businesses

Google has announced that it will be creating a whole different Google+ for businesses. You can read/watch more about that here in an article by Christian Oestlien. I am excited to see how Google incorporates this into Google+.

In my opinion, overall Google+ is superior to Facebook on UI and UX alone. I am stoked to see where this is headed.

Check out my G+ page at gplus.to/tommylincoln

I made my short G+ nick name at gplus.to. Read an article about gplus.to over at Mashable.com. You can read about some other G+ resources here in an article by Stephanie Buck.

Designers feed on many things to fill their creativity energy pixels, one of my things happens to be music off of Stones Throw Records. I listen to a lot of music that comes off of the Stones Throw Records label. Recently the dudes over at ST had a contest—take any track off from the ST music catalog and create a video for it. There were lots of entries, you can see them all over on the ST vimeo page, but there is just one video I just had to share.

Directed by Tuomas Vauhkonen and Jeremias Nieminen. Backed by a cast of 4 actors; Juha Ilmari Laine, Markku Laitinen, Rami Rusinen and Petra Lumioksa. With the music of J Dilla, they reached inside their creative brains and pulled out some great imagery to go along with what is truly a dope joint. It is almost like they were sitting around with some police officers and said, “Have you ever had a weird dream about donuts?”  I haven’t seen any news about a winner yet, but this crew totally has my vote.

It’s Friday, so turn up your speakers, and enjoy yourself a donut.

Google has recently dropped it’s new desktop voice search, and the kids over at breakfast have made a device that makes the search a little more rad.

The Verbalizer, which looks like a microphone icon you would see on a computer, connects to your computer via Bluetooth. When activated, it will launch Google with voice search ready to go. An audio signal then tells you when to speak into the Verbalizer—which works with Arduino. By leaving some I/O ports open, this device lets you get your fun on.
Did you just say “What kind of fun?!” Maybe a microphone drops down from the ceiling and you hear Michael Buffer announce “Let’s get ready to rumble!”, or maybe you are blind and the device tells you where everything is directly in front of you, or maybe you hook it up to a Rube Goldberg machine that starts breakfast for you when you search the daily news in the morning, or… or…. OR!!!

To see what the kids over at breakfast have done with the Verbalizer check out the video below, or see their other creations over on their website.