Hot News: Is CO2 The Culprit?
The infographic is designed to raise awareness and educate students about the current state of global warming. It also breaks down the scientific processes behind this worldwide problem and draw the connection between CO2, greenhouse gas and climate change.
This infographic is ideal for inclusion in student magazines and social media posts byenvironmental associations at universities, as well as environmental blogs focused on climate change awareness.
Project
Year
2024
The Challenge
The brief requires us to design 3 different types of digital information visualisations. Alongside the provided datasets from NASA and WHO, I incorporated more data from credible sources like the World Bank Group to enrich the visualisations. The topic that I chose was Greenhouse Gas Emissions and its strong correlation to Global Warming.
The infographic's target audience is university students interested in the environment and Global Warming. With higher education level, these individuals can interpret and study this infographic more easily than younger audiences.
The Process
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The Initial Sketch
Given that there are 3 datasets available, I sketched out several potential visualisations that can best portray each dataset. I decided to go with a time series (line graph), a process diagram and a series of glyphs organised on top of a cartogram.
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Design Iteration
One of the most challenging but interesting step of this project is to iterate the design. This is a non - linear process since the first draft is likely never going to best illustrate the versatility of the data.
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Infographic Planning
Before compiling all three visualisations together, it is crucial to plan out how the infographic will look like. It is convenient to look at the initial layout to see how well the order of the designs communicate to each other.
Series of Glyphs
Each curved line of this glyph shows the CO2 emission per capita of United States, ranging from 21.3 to 15.7 tonnes, from 2000 to 2019 respectively. The purple color indicates CO2 emissions. The darker purple lines represent interval years occurring every five years, including 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015.
The Final Inforgraphic
Info Principles Design Analysis
Reduced Chart Junk
The grid background, x - axis and y - axis are removed to maximise the data - ink, enhancing the ratio of data - ink and non - data ink. This improves clarity and focus on the data itself.
Bijective Mapping
Consistency of color is strictly followed, with purple representing the global Co2 level and light blue representing global land - ocean temperature index. This is applied through the two lines and the two y - axis on both sides.
Color Consistency
Each region is represented by distinctive color and only for that color. Yellow for North America, pink for Europe, green for Euroasia and Blue for Asia and Oceania.
Location Categorised (LATCH)
The glyph series is organised based on Location (L in LATCH). In this cartogram, each country is mapped to their geographical location. Countries are also categorised (C) into region, with different colors representing each region.
Range Frame
This graph does not use the default range frame (0 - 500). Instead, it limits to the minimum and maximum values of the data, which fall within the range of 340 to 430 on this y - axis. This minimises non - data ink and spaces the values out more logically.