Infographic Storyboard

Purpose/Goal: The purpose is to inform readers on the daily experience of prisoners

Type of Infographic: Depiction       

Title: So You’re Going to Prison

Name: Scott Trepper

Date: January 26, 2013

Narrative Description of Content

This infographic will follow the narrative trajectory of a person entering and living in prison. Because people who commit different crimes encounter different prison experiences the infographic will focus on the daily lives of inmates serving time at maximum security facilities. Most common experiences and statistics will be selected to narratively show the “prisoner’s” life. The facility’s features will also be explored when relevant.  

Content organizers:

Entering Prison

            -Common reasons for imprisonment (percentage)

            -Trial statistics (length, cost to state, appointed vs. non-appointed lawyer)

            -Sentence statistics (opportunities for parole,

-Ethnicity and gender breakdown

            -Age distribution

Correctional Facility

            -Likelihood of entering public vs. private prison

            -Number of inmates serving in facility

            -Ratio of staff-to-inmate

            -Security features of prison

Daily Life

            -Temporal representation of daily activities (eating, sleeping, free time, work, school, etc.)

            -Kinds of recreation

            -Foods served

            -Work performed

            -Size of cell

            -Items in cell

Narrative Description of Design

            Simple cartoon pictures will be used to illustrate concept topics. For example, the statistics given in the “age distribution” section may be visually organized with a stick figure of a woman and man. In order to emphasize the narrative “journey” of the imagined prisoner, the infographic will be vertical. It will begin with trial statistics, then facility information will be graphically presented, and finally, the daily life of the prisoner will be displayed. The color pallet will not include bright, “happy” color so as to reinforce the seriousness and tone of the prison experience.

On Representation

My initial reaction, after learning that we were to blog about our project’s representation, was that most “representation” decisions would have to come from group discussion and consensus. And although that might be true for some aspects of our project’s representation, it is very helpful to begin thinking about how our intervention will be perceived by its audience at this stage. Because we will not be given specific instruction regarding what our intervention should look like, this thought-activity helps each group member visualize a rough idea of the finished product.

Our group is continuing with the “comedy” instructional package that was begun last semester in R521. To summarize, we created an instructional module with the goal of giving elementary teachers (grade 1-4) the skills to improve their student’s engagement through the integration of comedy into the classroom. The content of the intervention will be designed with this audience in mind. For example, as one aspect of our intervention, we plan to recommend several activities with humorous elements teachers might consider using during subject-specific lessons. These activities would be designed for students in grades 1-4.

Also, because our project deals with adding comedy in the classroom, I believe it is very important for our intervention to be viewed as “professional.” Essentially, this is to off-set those who would think that we do not take student learning seriously because of the topic’s light-hearted nature. Ironically, we can reflect this professionalism by not adding superfluous jokes or funny pictures in the online instruction. The instructional module previously created did not have this kind of professional veneer and I believe it detracted the credibility of our message to an extent. Of course, this kind of representation will need to be discussed with all group members before any decisions are put in place.

Infographic Ideas

Hi class. Below are three infographic ideas I am considering. Let me know if you find any particularly interesting!

Evolution of most common jobs held by different generations 

            -Benefits from pictures illustrating job

            -Can show industry trends (more tech-based, less factory-based)

            -Could show distribution with more detail by showing what kinds of jobs people of different ages had.

American prison system

            -How ours differs from other countries (quality of care, amount of time prisoners are incarcerated, gender/race percentages in jail, percentage reasons why in jail)

Where the internet comes from

            -Geographically show where and how the internet travels from one point to another

Infographic Principle

My design principle: An infographic should keep their audience in mind when designing the graphic.

This is likely an obvious principle that pervades multiple design theories. However, I was reminded about the principle’s importance after seeing all the varied infographics that were brought into class. For example, the audience of the infographic below could roughly be assumed to be young music lovers that attend concerts. The infographic actually does advertise “Bonnaroo”, a music festival, and the information it displays are the names of bands attending. The graphic puts creativity and artistry over clarity because the designers realize that their audience holds similar values. Also, the design harkens back to the concert posters of the 60s and 70s that additionally employed the style in order to emphasize their culture’s subversive nature.

I believe the humorous infographic below illustrate how some people are tired of seeing graphics “cut from the same mold” rather than being designed with an audience in mind. When I imagine the standard infographic it is very similar to the one below. There are size-scaled numbers, pictures, and words on a long, vertical page. Considering many of us have determined creativity to be an important infographic quality, we may also want to remember that that creative element has a relationship with the audience perceiving it. 

Sources:

Bonnaroo Infographic: http://bit.ly/SSnc34

Criticism Infographic: http://eagereyes.org/media/2010/infographics.jpg

Self Introduction

Hi everyone!

My name is Scott Trepper and I'm a first year resident Master's student studying IST. I spent most of my childhood in northwest Indiana before beginning my undergraduate at Indiana University Bloomington. My degree was in Communications and Psychology. 

For the longest time I've been interested in the teaching process. I participated in several teaching internships during my undergraduate and usually spend a portion of my summer volunteering at a local elementary school. I'm grateful our program has provided me opportunities to practice designing instruction as I hope to some day work in the field of education.

For fun, I really love watching movies. Although it's difficult to find the time during the school year. I do try to make it to the IU Cinema as often as possible. It truly is a Bloomington gem that must be experienced at least once.  I also considering myself a futurist in that I love thinking about and talking about the future. I subscribe to subreddits like "science," and "technology" just so I can be wowed by all the fantastic things constantly being discovered.

I genuinely look forward to working along side of everyone in our class! 

-Scott Trepper (219-617-2522)