CR Blog

2009, the year of graphic stats

Graphic Design

Posted by Mark Sinclair, 31 December 2009, 16:23    Permalink    Comments (5)

Sent to CR recently: Faber's 2010 catalogue and the illustrated short story collection, We Are The Friction, both proudly wearing their stats on their sleeves...

In CR's January issue, Michael Johnson wrote about designer Nicholas Feltron's latest Annual Report, which divulged every mile he had travelled in the course of 2008, how many emails he'd sent and received, what he'd eaten, even each and every type of music he'd listened to.

In an equally self-centred feat of statistics compilation, Christopher Doyle's Identity Guidelines also showed that anything and everything about one's life – particularly that of an information designer – could be run through the old graphs and pie-charts mill.

So the technique was already familiar when we saw the new Faber & Faber catalogue (which includes details from how many crates were used to move the company to its new London office, to the amount of tea and coffee consumed once at said new office) and the cover of an interesting new publication which pairs up a series of fiction writers (and a few songwriters) with some great illustrators.

And, intriguingly, We Are The Friction promises "two horse deaths"; a whopping "six instances of the ocean"; and even "one sentient muffin".

Rather than coming across as self-absorbed, the technique as used on WATF's cover impies that, within the 136 pages, there really is something for everyone.

WATF is the second book edited, designed and published by Sing Statistics and is available at singstatistics.co.uk for £12.

All spreads from We Are The Friction

5 Comments

I saw a lot of this kind of 'ephemeral infographic' over the course of the last year, but no-one who had done it as well as Nicholas Felton. Worth a mention though is Andrew Kuo, whose graphics concentrate mainly on his music and listening habits.

Also, if anyone wants to try this for themselves, check out Daytum, Nicholas Felton and Ryan Case's web application for logging personal statistics.
Mark Bell
2010-01-04 20:12:46


Why is Creative Review showcasing a company whose work is a shoddy rehash of those mentioned?

I know everything has been done before blah, blah, blah... but surely there is more creativity worth focusing on?
Pat
2010-01-05 12:23:25


Nice collection. I used the "plastic bottle" spread (with a link back to this page) on my daily design blog "Design Thought for the Day."
http://designthoughtfortheday.blogspot.com/

All the best, Ted
Ted Rex
2010-01-05 13:49:22


I think we are all more interested in states these days. If they can provide info and be good to look at then that is sure to be a hit
Art Smith
2010-01-06 12:16:57


There were 70% more stats in 09 than in 08. Fact.

[insert Socket Studios pie chart here]
Tim Spencer
2010-01-06 14:49:46


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