Show and Tell:Using Illustration + Infographics

toStrengthen Your Message

ENC 4212, Professional & Technical EditingWeek 5 Lecture • Fall 2015

USF Sarasota-Manatee

Length of this lecture audio (14 slides): 00:52:15Write down the three audio codes and the slide numbers where they are mentioned;

send the Week 3, 4, and 5 codes with Assignment 2 by 6 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 28, 2015.

© 2015 by T. E. Roberts, Instructor

ENC 4212, Professional & Technical Editing • Fall 2015 • Week 5 Lecture • Slide 2 of 14

Week 5 Agenda

• Assignment 2 progress?

• Editor’s role in choosing design

• Should editors function as art advisors?

• Longman Guide, Chapter 18

• Harnessing the combined power of words, images, and ideas

• The “new normal” of digital communications

ENC 4212, Professional & Technical Editing • Fall 2015 • Week 5 Lecture • Slide 3 of 14

Assignment 2 Progress?

• Wikipedia articles vary in levels of authority, timeliness, accuracy, and objectivity

• Editing involves both content (the primary message, information, theme) and style (vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, documentation)

• Original article author has primary control over message; subsequent editors may challenge this

• The process represents the iterative editing typical of document preparation by multiple reviewers

• Due via Canvas by Sept. 28, 2015, 6 pm: don’t wait until the last minute to ask for clarification!

ENC 4212, Professional & Technical Editing • Fall 2015 • Week 5 Lecture • Slide 4 of 14

Editor’s Role in Choosing Design

• Sender => message => receiver• A beautiful illustration must also be a meaningful illustration• Don’t settle for style over substance• Modern term “infographics” points to major purpose for technical illustration and design

• Using empathy, imagination, taste, and judgment• If you think people disagree over language, wait until you try to defend graphic design

concepts• You’ll be most persuasive if you base your choice on knowledge, judgment, experience,

and users’ needs

• Balancing time, budget, and competitive pressures• Starving artists like to eat expensive meals• Editor may need to function as platoon sergeant and or mafia enforcer of deadlines and

quality standards

ENC 4212, Professional & Technical Editing • Fall 2015 • Week 5 Lecture • Slide 5 of 14

Should Editors Function as Art Advisors?

• Your knowledge of basic layout, photography, typography, and page design -- in both print and electronic media -- will give you and your employer/client notable advantages

• Don’t succumb to corporate inertia or guild-centric mentality• “We’ve always done it this way.”

• “You wouldn’t understand ... I’m an ______” [artist, writer, musician, performer, etc.]

• “You can’t do that ... it violates my color principles.”

• Success depends on respect for the users, deadlines, budget, message, and teamwork

• Great graphic design is admirable, but design that creatively communicates the right message at the right time and in the right way to the right user is even better ... this is a key concept behind the use of “infographics”

ENC 4212, Professional & Technical Editing • Fall 2015 • Week 5 Lecture • Slide 6 of 14

Chapter 18: What Illustrations Do

• Help readers use relevant information

• Motivate readers, convey meaning

• Get results in selling, convincing, explaining (and even evading!)

• Provide a break in text-heavy message

“Mortgage Bubble Chart,” Source:http://tkcollier.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/mortgage

ENC 4212, Professional & Technical Editing • Fall 2015 • Week 5 Lecture • Slide 7 of 14

Chapter 18: Types of Illustrations

• Tables• Graphs

Bio-Diesel FlowchartSource: http://www.learnbiodiesel.com/

• Structural illustrations• Representational illustrations

Dell Inspiron E1705/9400 Exploded View (source: support.dell.com)

ENC 4212, Professional & Technical Editing • Fall 2015 • Week 5 Lecture • Slide 8 of 14

Chapter 18: Editing for Accuracy and Clarity

• Content: appropriateness and number of graphics, accuracy, and clarity• Matching form, content, and purpose for emphatic message

• Would a cheery photo of playful puppies be appropriate for the cover of a brochure on funeral planning?

• Consider, however, an innovative approach: use tasteful illustrations and design for Social Security benefits booklet

• Organization: sequential and spatial• Especially important for large, complex documents• Formatting should be simple, consistent, and logical• Creativity must match the message, audience, and purpose

• Style: discriminatory language and good taste• Use humor cautiously• The U.S. marketplace and society generally seem polarized over issues of gender, sexual

preference, race, ideology, physical/mental health, and religion (see “political correctness” and “the New Puritanism”)

ENC 4212, Professional & Technical Editing • Fall 2015 • Week 5 Lecture • Slide 9 of 14

Chapter 18: Editing Illustrations for Graphic Elements

• Perspective, size, and scale• Use the vanishing point to your

advantage

• A mis-scaled illustration or photo can have the same effect as an error in spelling or grammar

• Maximizing data ink and avoiding “chartjunk” in statistical graphics (see Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition, 2001)

Size Color or shading

Labels Foregrounding

White space Shape

Sequence Typographic cues

Emphasis and Detail

ENC 4212, Professional & Technical Editing • Fall 2015 • Week 5 Lecture • Slide 10 of 14

Chapter 18: Integrating Text & Illustrations

• Placement on page or screen• Above, below, left, right

• Before, behind

• Blended, screened, cropped, blocking, over- and underlapping (see example of cropping at right)

• Include title (“caption”), description (“cutline”), and source information

• Nonverbal instructions• Don’t leave the message in your head!

• Simple lines and arrows, but avoid clutter

• Combine simple action verbs (push, pull, turn, lift, close, open) with clear illustrations of actions

• Preparing illustrations for print or online display• Cropping, reduction, scaling

• Bleed, boxed, over- or underlapping

• Digital compression for on-screen (vs. in-print) display

• These and other effects can be achieved through Photoshop and other software

Source of illustration: http://thebikepalace.com/?page_id=6108

ENC 4212, Professional & Technical Editing • Fall 2015 • Week 5 Lecture • Slide 11 of 14

Harnessing the Power of Words & Images

• Effective editors and designers form strong professional bonds -- in some rare cases, an individual combines both verbal and graphic skillsets

• Learning to think in both visual and verbal terms will advance your career and your value to clients -- train your eye as well as your verbal intellect

• Read and practice the tips in the text and in other supporting publications and websites

• In the Week 6 lecture, we will consider how these principles apply in particular to web-based communications

• In the following slides, see what you can learn from the sample graphics

ENC 4212, Professional & Technical Editing • Fall 2015 • Week 5 Lecture • Slide 12 of 14

Illustration 1: 2008 DHL Annual Report

• Color fits the DHL logo and becomes a major element of overall design

• Illustration like this usually combines graphic design and photography

• Audience: shareholders, employees, investment analysts, the media

• Does it positively communicate the company’s image as a progressive international carrier and logistics partner?

ENC 4212, Professional & Technical Editing • Fall 2015 • Week 5 Lecture • Slide 13 of 14

Illustration 2: 2008 Gensler Survey

• Grayscale photo with red accents• As an architecture and design company,

Gensler needs to portray excellence in graphics

• Cover illustration should support and even amplify the text:

“Today, business success flows from intangible assets such as ideas, information, and expertise. Post-industrial metrics fall short of offering the insights that companies need to gain a competitive edge in a global business environment that values these kinds of assets.

“Gensler’s research establishes new measures of performance that make the difference in a knowledge economy: the power of people and place to drive profit.”

ENC 4212, Professional & Technical Editing • Fall 2015 • Week 5 Lecture • Slide 14 of 14

Infographics Examples• See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infographic for

origin and background

• Combine VISUAL IMAGE, CONTENT, and KNOWLEDGE

• Used frequently in today’s news publications, textbooks, television, and online media

• Pioneer in journalism was USA TODAY (it was in the beginning, and still is today, often ridiculed for its reliance on such images by traditional journalists)

• Very appealing to “youthful” readers and users because they are often more receptive to images than words

• Infographics became more widespread with the introduction of affordable graphic design software on personal computers

• Technical communication has always been a leader in combining words and images

Source: http://dailyinfographic.com/

ENC 4212, Professional & Technical Editing • Fall 2015 • Week 5 Lecture • Slide 15 of 14

The “New Normal” of Digital Communications

• Technical communicators must take data and convert it into information; this process is known as visualization, or visual communication. Because of the widespread use of digital media, modern technical communicators have a lot to think about concerning visualization for digital forms and documents. ... Though many forms and documents will still have a hard paper copy to distribute in offices, most forms and documents are now utilized online in some fashion; this is why there is such focus on the computer-supported representations for maximal cognition. [One professional] defines visual communication as “designing print, Web, and multimedia documents ... creating visual displays of information/data, generating other visual material ... and any other communication tasks which rely on visual language.” -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_and_document_creation

• While formal study is helpful, many professionals learn technology on the job• Every company and client has its individual needs, tools, preferences, and standards

• Digital technology changes so rapidly that only a constant learning process can meet the demand

• To deliver value and meet user needs, be curious, open-minded, creative, flexible, and tolerant of sleep deprivation while you try to keep up!

• USFSM offers two courses in this discipline for majors: ENC 3416 (New Media for Technical Communication) and ENC 4218 (Visual Rhetoric for Technical Communication)