iiiiinfoooograaaphhiiiiiicsssss: so it begins

woohoo, infographics! we have begun shouldering the nigh impossible but ludicrously necessary burden of a designer to take a bunch of facts and figures and abstracted relationships and visualize them to better explain them to others. (oh, and then we have to make it pretty.) so, because i don't expect anybody to have read my infodump (that's the point: you don't wanna read it! you want to wait until i can show you a pretty thing that'll let you absorb it more easily, right?), i'm at least a teensy bit proud to present my first ever, newborn, just-wobbling-on-their-spindly-little-data-legs, infographics...! (starring, of course, my icons. perhaps you've met them.)

marian bantjes.

i'm trying to make posters about her! here's what i started with:

the thing about marian bantjes is, she's extremely varied in her work. given that, there's not necessarily a particular style to try to emulate or reference... so i kind of toddled after some of her methods to see what i could come up with. i have both all-digital and partial-analog work here. the analog includes text made out of vines, and text & image made out of beads. as for the digital, i tried in two to create the kind of complex vector pattern that she has been known to relish, and for the other, i experimented with trying to construct a pattern out of the text itself.

the plants got knocked out of the running early because bantjes is super duper precise in her work, even/especially her analog, and i just couldn't achieve that. my bead rendition of the vanderslice facade wasn't really communicating like i needed it to, and the photo underlay was kind of a failed experiment. but everything lent at least some aspect to the next round, which went a little something like this:

upon marty's recommendation, i tried out a different piece of vanderslice for my beadwork: the blocky concrete border that goes up corners and around windows. bantjes has been known to use a frame or two in her designs, so this was perfect. i tried several ways to ease the burden of that pink pattern on my computer, and in so doing, heightened my precision a great deal, but in doing that, i forfeit some of the whitespace that i had been trying out in the first pink poster. (my poor sweet macbook hates that pattern. illustrator crashed over and over again while i was working, causing much wailing, gnashing of teeth, and re-doing things after it would save 98% and then make me force quit and lose all my changes. i would love to know how marian bantjes does it! probably with an behemoth of a computer.) fortunately, the pink pattern all by itself is no longer in play as a possibility, which is a tiny bit sad in that i wish i could've played with that pattern like i had in my head to do, but it just wasn't very practical.

unfortunately, though, i have still not unearthed a clear direction and will be putting both beads and vectors through their paces one more time before figuring out the look of my final design. i look forward to seeing what comes out!

infodump! music research.

i had quiiiiite a lot of difficulty finding any statistics that related just to djs, so i kind of fanned out into the technology on one hand and the business of music consumption on the other, with some hip-hop history in between.

http://www.itfacts.biz/music-consumption-statistics/10786

40.35% recorded music 59.65% live music. where does music budget go?

http://www.riaa.com/keystatistics.php?content_selector=MusicConsumerProfile

2008

rock 31.8

r&b urban 10.2

rap hiphop 10.7

country 11.9

pop 9.1

religious 6.5

classical 1.9

jazz 1.1

other 15%ish

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110106006565/en/Nielsen-Company-Billboard%E2%80%99s-2010-Music-Industry-Report

digital = 46%

71% vinyl purchased at independent music store

Percents:

Alternative: 16.82718056168901        17%

Christian: 7.58753096743682           8%

Classical: 2.805313088224701 3%

Country: 13.69238334163308 14%

Jazz: 2.749877069846251 3%

Latin: 3.867993372733622 4%

Metal: 10.19584261181946 10%

New Age: 0.5199084209504302 .5%

R&B: 18.12507242700141 18%

Rap: 8.559070679357443 9%

Rock: 32.4814351978001 32%

Soundtrack: 5.140203014842446 5%

synths:

http://documentation.apple.com/en/logicexpress/instruments/index.html#chapter=A%26section=5%26tasks=true

1897: telharmonium/dynamophone invented

1919: theremin invented

1928: ondes martenot invented

1929: automatically operating musical instrument of electric oscillation type!!!

1945: electronic sackbut invented

1952: mixturtrautonium invented

1963: moog's 

speakers:

1876: alexander graham bell makes a speakerthing for the phone.

1898: air compression loudspeaker by horace short

1924 coil transducer

1937: shearer horn system: first industry standard for metro goldwyn mayer

1958: first box-enclosed loudspeakers invented. onward.

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blloudspeaker.htm

http://www.ehow.com/about_6465426_history-stereo-speakers.html

http://www.martinlogan.com/learn/electrostatic-loudspeaker-history.php

mixers

http://www.ehow.com/about_5519271_history-mixing-consoles.html

1958 early analog mixing console

1982 digital signal processing available

computers:

http://inventors.about.com/library/blcoindex.htm

1936 first freely programmable computer

1951 univac, first commercial computer

1974 first consumer computers

1981 ibm and microsoft happen

1984 apple macintosh starts

1985 microsoft windows

1991 apple powerbook

1999 ibooks!

2006 macbooks debut

headphones:

1919 radio headphones invented for professionals

1937 beyerdynamic in germany invents first dynamic headphones

1950 DT dynamic telephone headphones demonstrated to public

1958 john c koss had a portable phonograph & stereophones

1968 electrostatic headphones to replace papercone speakers (hifi)

1978 walkman invented with supra aural headphones 

1990s earbuds

http://www.brighthub.com/computing/hardware/articles/31558.aspx

http://www.ehow.com/about_5414706_history-record-player.html

http://www.randomhistory.com/2008/08/04_ipod.html

http://www.ehow.com/about_5084410_technics-turntable-history.html

1877 record player invented by edison "phonograph"

1887 gramophone, emile berliner uses discs instead of cylinders, invented

1905 victrola started the 78 rpm disc 

1929 disc becomes standard

1940 331/3 rpm lp introduced

1969 panasonic launced "technics line" direct line pro turntable

SL1100 birth of hip hop. disco hip hop

locations:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_jockey

http://inventors.about.com/od/estartinventors/a/Thomas_Edison_3.htm

edison was in boston for the phonograph

first dj was ray newby in stockton california in 1909

1935 NYC walter winchell coins the term "disc jockey"

1943 jimmy savile first dj dance party in england

first commercial nightclub to use recorded music in paris in 1947 whiskey a go-go

1950s sound systems developed in kingston jamaica. street parties, "toasting"/rapping

1969 NYC started beatmatching/slipcuing

1973 turntablism dj kool herc in the bronx

1975 grand wizard theodore invents scratching in the bronx

1982 afrika bambaataa uses synths in the bronx

1980 house emerges in chicago with dj frankie knuckles

1985* techno emerges from detroit

1988* raves begin in manchester UK

axial hierarchy, amendation!

i'm posting again because i like the ones i have posted, but i realized that i forgot to take one from each section and instead just posted the ones i considered my 5 favourite compositions.

now, one from each of the stages of the exercise:

axial hierarchy!