President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union was/is available online in an “Enhanced Version” which features visuals to support certain speaking topics. I thought these were great so I’ve taken some screen shots to use for inspiration.  The theme and style of the slides was “Blueprint For An America Built To Last”. The visuals were very simple and utilized the limited real estate very well.

Enjoy.

Infographics have gotten much popularity lately but essentially they are products of information design and have been used for a very long time to help people understand complex or raw information. A true inforgraphic doesn’t simply add pictures to words or summarize articles, it should be a visualization of information that’s hard to comprehend on it’s own. Today I stumbled upon some very old and very beautiful true infographics illustrating Black History.

The three colored versions are available in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. The black and white versions have been compiled for a reconstruction of  The exhibit of American Negro by professor Eugene F. Provenzo Jr. of School of Education, University of Miami which was originally produced by W. E. B. DuBois, Thomas Calloway and the Historic Black Colleges for the Paris 1900 International Exposition.

Found Via All My Eyes

Memorial Day is a week away and for many it will mark the beginning of the summer. And what is great about the summer besides the obvious? … well it’s the summer blockbusters of course.
I LOVE movies so I anxiously anticipate summer release dates for months ahead. I spend countless hours on IMDB.com (Internet Movie Database) looking up movies and actors almost on a daily basis. It’s saved me many a times from watching bad movies too! I’ve been a huge fan of IMDb site since my college days when a professor in a Film Appreciation course suggested it as a resource. Sometimes I play little games with myself trying to see how all the different actors connect. Once I started a sci-fi tv shows recycled actors tree after seeing the same folks appear in all of my favorite shows. The results were insanely amusing.

The other day I was browsing the summer movies pages and some of the movie pictures/posters didn’t really tell me who was in the movie or what kind of a movie it was until I actually visited the movie page so I created my own guide for 2011 Summer Movies. (US releases).

-Enjoy!

-Magda

UPDATE 2 :

More changes to the guide since it’s been first posted.  Thank you very much to all the “editors” for submitted corrections. Your help is much appreciated. LOTS of changes to this post based on comments/requests.

Don’t forget this is for the Game of Thrones television series NOT the books so PLEASE DO NOT post spoilers from the books in the comments.

Lastly, thank you for all the comments, retweets, reblogs, and likes… it’s very rewarding to read notes that say my character guide has made it easier to understand the content. It’s the best compliment an information designer can get.

Illustrated guide based on HBO’s Game of Thrones mini-site

WARNING! This guide is based on all the various character pages on HBO’s Game of Thrones guide. I simply combined it into a one page infographic. Most people consider it SPOILER FREE but some  (esp. those reading books) might consider information in this image as spoilers since it reveals all the names, backstory and relationships between the characters which occurred PRIOR to the events in the first episode of the HBO series. To view how information was revealed on the HBO show scroll down to Episode Specific Guides.

Click image for a full screen version.

Houses Only

Illustrated map based on HBO’s Game of Thrones mini-site

House Locations

How All This Started:

I’m a huge fan of HBO’s new series Game of Thrones. I’ve anxiously anticipated the show since it’s been announced and simply can not get enough of it. In addition to viewing each episode TWICE I’ve spent countless hours on the HBO website looking through the character guides. There is a lot of back story for this show and the multitude of characters is almost overwhelming. Yesterday  I started doodling the different relationships between the houses… and before I knew it I was at the computer creating a full blown relationship tree. This hasn’t been an easy task due to the sheer volume of characters involved but I’ve had a lot of fun trying to come up with an easy to understand guide.

SOME NOTES / Explanations:

1. Concerning the relationship between Loras and Renly. This hasn’t been explored in the series and I’ve tried not to include any future spoilers. For now I’ve put double quotations around their icon=).
2. Concerning Direwolf Lady. This is included in the episode specific guide.
3. Colors. I’ve seen some comments about the color choices for the different houses. I picked colors that make sense to viewers of the show who have not read the books

• Lannister – Yellow. Their symbol is a gold lion on a red background so yellow made the most sense.  Also the actors are blond and Jaime’s Armor is kind of yellow colored. Nothing in the show made me associate them with red.
• Targaryen – Red. Red dragon is their symbol.
• Stark -  Gray. Gray direwolf is their symbol. (OR GREY for you across the pond people
• Tully – Aqua. Fish is their symbol. Water = Aqua
• Arryn – Dark Blue. Their emblem is a falcon with a moon on a dark blue background. Pretty straight forward.
• Baratheon – Brown. A stag/deer is their symbol. Which I associate with brown.
• Tyrell – Orange. Well I didn’t want to use another yellow so there wouldn’t be any confusion.
• Greyjoy – Purple. It was the last color left in the rainbow. LOL! Well also squid made me think of purple.

Thanks for Stopping by & I hope you all enjoy my Game of Thrones Illustrated Guide.

Magda

Episode Specific Guides

WARNING! Some of you might consider information in these images to be a spoiler as they reveal names, backstory and relationships between the characters. Each episode’s image shows names of characters IF they appeared on screen or were mentioned but their full name might not have been said out loud by another character.

Map of locations and episode specific events

WARNING! Some of you might consider information in these images to be a spoiler.

Let me know if I’m missing anything on this one.

The Fight for Better Presentations from Jakob Jochmann on Vimeo.

This animated short to promote better presentation design was created entirely in Keynote.

The Keynote source file and additional information can be found on (Jacob’s) blog.

This will come in handy if you’re switching computers or using multiple computers and want to quickly re-create the QuickAccess toolbar.

The Quick Access Toolbar for PowerPoint 2007 is saved as “.QAT” file (stands for Quick Access Toolbar) and depending on your Windows version will be located in one of the following folders

Windows XP:

C:\Documents and Settings\(User Name)\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Office

Vista:

C:\Users\(User Name)\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office

Windows 7:

C:\Users\(User Name)\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office

Note for this screen shot I've changed my username.

(User Name) denotes the user name you use to log into the computer

The file you need is called PowerPoint.qat

All you have to do is first set up your QuickAccess Toolbar and then copy this file to a safe place like a second hard-drive. When you get a new computer simply paste this file into the same location and you’re ready to start working.

Note you can also use this same tactic to restore Word or Excel QuickAccess toolbars. The files will be called Word.qat and Excel.qat

Format Tab on a Mac

When you click the line go to the Format Tab in the ribbon and look at the Size option. On the right you can see that the line above has a height of .05″. Well that’s not the stroke (thickness) of the line. This number actually denotes the height difference in the location of the starting point and ending point of the line. Which means that the end point is raised above the starting point by .05″. (Think of a right triangle. The width of the line is the hypotenuse and the height is the opposite side.) Now all you have to do is just zero that field out and you’ve got yourself a perfectly straight line.
Note in vertical lines you’ll see the opposite effect. The “crooked” difference between the points will be in the width field.

Dirt image by M.Maslowska (Typeface: 28 Days Later)

A quick way to create a unique slide background is by simply using a great texture. By definition a texture is “The feel, appearance, or consistency of a surface or a substance” (Dictionary.com)

Textures just like photos can convey the message and they work particularly well in situations where the art direction of a presentation is more abstract.

I love textures. In fact I love them so much, while still in college I’ve briefly considered becoming a texture artist. What is a texture artist? It’s someone who creates textures for digital media, for example for mapping on 3D objects that are used in 3D animated movies or video games.

Creating Your Texture Collection

Example of a stone texture used on a 3D model. (by MMaslowska)

While I was taking a “texturing class” one of the ongoing assignments was to take photos of interesting textures for use in projects. So I walked around with my camera and took pictures of everything that could be used as a texture in a 3D environment: walls, hardwood floors, rocks, papers, rusted pipes. And many years later I continue to build my texture collection in the same way. For example I took the dirt image above in my moms garden over the weekend.  I have one of those small Canon Elph cameras I carry in my purse wherever I go and take pictures of anything I could use in projects, including textures. The key is setting the photo output size to the highest possible available (somewhere in the 6k width is more than adequate) in case there is need for cropping and using the “Macro” setting.

Green Texture from Clementine Paper, Inc notebook cover.

I also use a scanner to scan objects that have great textures. For example this green pattern texture on the right was scanned from greenroom eco Clementine Paper, Inc notebook cover.  In addition to the great pattern, the cover was printed on paper that had it’s own embossed-like texture.

Scanners are relatively inexpensive these days and a great way to quickly build up a texture library.  For a typical 7in by 10in PPT slide you need 2200px by 1540px resolution for a full slide image if you’re planning to print it or show it on a large scale plasma or LCD monitor. This means a scanner with a minimum DPI of 2200 x 1540. Of course scanners with higher DPI values will be better for small details. Flatbed scanners are best for scanning textures because you can lay down almost any object that will fit on the scanning surface to scan it.

Scanned texture tiled as a slide background (Typeface: Hand of Sean)

Gravel picture by M.Maslowska

Rust texture by M.Maslowska (Typeface: Bebas Neue)

To create a subtle texture background simply cover the slide with a rectangle shape the size of the slide with a solid or gradient fill and increase the transparency.

Format Background dialog box in PowerPoint 2007

Setting a slide background in PowerPoint is very easy. Right-click anywhere on the slide and scroll down to Format Background… Then click on the File button and look for your texture. You can use the Offsets to adjust the texture position directly in PowerPoint.

Cool little informational video for your inspiration. This was most likely created in Adobe After Effects and credits Luke Harris Graphics and @professorfunk

Enjoy!

Bruce Gabrielle, the author of Speaking PowerPoint actually wrote the tip into his book and recently created a short video tutorial for it. So if you rather follow the steps on screen here is the short video: