PROJECT 9: Data Translation

This project was based around the idea of data translation in graphics and the idea of infographics. We were tasked with researching information and data around a topic of our own choice. I chose to focus on politics, in particular the results of general elections in the UK every four years. I used the maps they publicise of each constituencies elected party post-election from the past 50 years (1966-2015) in which there have been 12 elections.

Using these maps as well as charted data fetched from Wikipedia, I gathered information on how many seats went to each party in the elections. After this I started experimenting with the visual aspect of these maps.

I also started experimented with the idea of charting the data in visually intruiging ways. I started with creating 650 lines (one for each constituency) and coloured each one according to which party held the seat for each constituency. I also then used circles to express this graphic, using the same idea.

The idea of using the lines was inspired by artist Lisa Jevbratt who uses patterns and abstract visualisations of data. Although a nice idea, this piece was not clear enough to portray any meaning, and the circles seemed clearer and still aesthetically effective. I started experimenting with ideas on how to present the grid of circles and how it could portray the difference in each election over the 50 year range. The thought of an animation of each image seemed like it could work so I started experimenting with the design of the transitions between each image. I started by creating a warped version of each image, and used them as a fade transition. The result is below:

Click here for video

I then wanted to develop an alternative way of presenting this information, and decided to use a more uniform pattern and made a grid of each image, with the year of each graph underneath each image.

Through the simple change into having the final piece be separate still images, I believe the abstract look of the grids put into a grid like above is a nice concept which worked surprisingly well.