Some Perspective on the Economy
Even more so than history, the economy and the concepts related to it can become so abstract that it’s difficult to navigate through a lot of what many experts are talking about. The vocabulary itself creates a gulf between what an ordinary person might understand and what is actually going on. Not to mention all the complexity tied up in the various institutions, forms, and graphs. Yet, at the same time it’s something that fundamentally touches each and every person to some degree.
Throughout different discussions about the economy, bailout plans, and national debt, it’s difficult to really understand what these large numbers mean. What does $700 billion dollars look like? What does it feel like? At a certain point it becomes so abstract that it just seems like people pulling numbers out of a hat and using a calculator to solve all the world’s problems.
That’s why I think financial concepts are always ripe for some good design work, and why I was especially interested in a recent poster by GOOD:
(via GOOD)
I think it’s wonderful that they combined a bunch of layers of information. What’s great about it is that you quickly get a sense of what happened by looking at the main components: the timeline and the increasing debt, but over time you can keep digging and reading the various nuggets of information that are at more of a micro level.
Yeah, I love the GOOD infovis prints that come out. I picked up the “What happened during the first 100 days of office for US Presidents” one from Starbucks yesterday.
To comment on both history and the economy, though, there is always the element of interpretation. There’s an awesome video called “story of stuff” (http://www.storyofstuff.com/) that is an excellent presentation and good use of design and design thinking. It’s also being presented at schools all over America, I believe. HOWEVER, I think it’s terribly biased (like much of the media). These types of representations of history/economy claim to be based off of facts, but there are philosophical assumptions. I think it’s fine if you make good presentations and leave it at that. However, when it’s being brought into public schools, I don’t agree with it.
In it’s extreme case, in Japan, they have textbooks that omit significant aspects of their history. It’s been a controversy as to why certain Japanese textbooks omit facts about the colonization of countries like China and Korea.
So, I think there’s a area of ethical responsibility that isn’t being taken serious when many designers represent and interpret history/economy.
Although I can’t view the GOOD document b/c of the firewall at work, I’m sure it would be different if a “conservative” and “liberal” were to do it. Perhaps a good visualization would have multiple variations.
Are you re-doing your main imransobh.com site? All I see is a smiling face