Visual story of Ukraine
Student Project
November 2018
One week
Design brief
As part of the Information Design Studio class taught by Prof. Douglas Scott, we were required to visualize 30 variables of interest related to a country and tell a compelling visual story. I got the opportunity to design for Ukraine.
My final design shown below tells the story of a nation-best summarized as a corridor for conflict and commerce.
Process and Iterations
I first created quick sketches to see how different variables such as area, population, geography, economy, history could be visualized on the poster. I experimented with different types of charts and often questioned, which one would be apt for a given data set in terms of comprehension, accuracy, as well as aesthetics.
I also grouped the data points into meaningful categories of land, people, economy, infrastructure and, communication. This involved, multiple ideations for how each chart should look like.
Ideation sketches for each data points
Explorations for the layout design
In order to know the data better, I created quick plots on Excel.
Working files in Excel
Next, I explored various layout options and decided upon a 6-column grid for the poster. In particular, I decided to include Ukraine’s comparison with other nations (such as comparing its size with states of USA and population density with Bangladesh) in one column and its economic variables (such as agriculture, import, export) in a separate column. I felt some variables such as distribution of political affiliations and divide, linguistic diversity, and Ukraine’s famous pipeline infrastructure could be best depicted using a map in the central columns.
[Left] Initial experiments with layout and color [Right] grid layout
Final design
After several such iterations, my final design is shown below that tells the story of Ukraine as a hub of trade between present-day Russia and European Union as well as a history timeline to remind us of the transformation this nation has gone through in various conflicts.
Design resposibilities:
Graphic design, data visualization, infographics
Tools used:
Sketching on pen & paper, MS Excel, Adobe Illustrator
Head to my Medium Blog post to read about the process in more details.