[Images: Matt Moody, latimes /Artwork: designslinger]

It seems I am stuck in a graphic loop, but I had a very visceral response to all the graphic
use of graphs in the September 8th issue of the print edition of the L.A. Times. There was a big front page report with lots of bar and line graphs illustrating the demise of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I am a big fan of well designed graphics and somewhat of a graph-nut. A lot of information can be gleaned from a well laid-out graph without the need for too much verbage. When you look at the graphs that the Times placed at the top of the article, those skinny rectangular boxes moving up and down along with the bouncing orange line, tells a very dramatic story of the rise and fall of these two financial institutions. The designers who work for media outlets creating these dynamic data-filled images, are the unsung heroes of the graphics profession.

[Image: latimes /Artwork: designslinger]

As I turned to the business section there was an article about Google's upcoming tenth
anniversary, that contained an eye-catching graphic representing their stock market value in relation to other internet companies. By using circles of primary colors and deviating from the traditional bar and line mold, the designer created an attention grabbing illustration which tells the same story as the conventional model but in a more modern way. (Unfortunately the paper didn't credit the individual who designed the artwork).

We started talking about how much fun it could be for any of us to chart, or diagram, data from
our personal lives. We are living in tight financial times, and sometimes that is hard to convey to everyone in our respective households when trying to cut back. So, what if you took a digital picture of - say - your family car and at the end of each month sized the automobile in proportion to the previous months spending, because ultimately that is what a graph demonstrates, the relationship between 2 or more variables. And, after you do that month after month you'll have a very easy way to show everyone how well, or not so well, y'all are doing.

[Images: Donuts with variety of toppings /Artwork: designslinger]

Here is our personal graph depicting the dollar amount spent on donut consumption over a period
of time. We looked at the past 10 years and grew, or shrunk, our donuts based on the highest and lowest figures with next highest and next lowest and median year. That gave us five donuts in all that tell a scrumptious,
sugary-glazed story that is much more interesting than a boring spread sheet filled with numbers that tally the amount of money we spent at the donut shop.