I'm not gonna lie. I do have my own special way with technical stuff for a long time already. But that's not to say that I'm skilled with graphic design. I may know and am also friends with a good few myself who are graphic designers by trade and passion. But me on the actual digital easel? Not really.
So, much like everybody else in the class, I too would be having my first experience in trying my hand at creating infographs, and apparently not just any ordinary ones - more like the ones that are intended for government officials like the Secretary of the Department of Health.
Ok. So here we go.
Initially I didn't have much of an idea on how to get this done, albeit a few lists of enumerated little things. That's my usual creation process. Start with little pebbles, then either watch them grow, or make them. So I started taking on the project by listing down some potential ideas and concepts that could be thrown in to the final work. I took interest in the JAMIA debate (riveting) especially with how they defined the ideal areas where the government could intervene to potentially improve the health information infrastructure and decided to base my work on those.
So I got my pebbles and started things off with a list of 1-word roles for the government:
- STANDARDS
- RESEARCH
- RESOURCES
- RIGHTS
- COOPERATION
Things started going a little bit from here to there and back at this point, where I keep changing focus with whether to come up with an actual design for the infograph, or go on with finishing up the information and content.
I kept referring back to the Column Five Media article, especially with the alleged "classic" version of the infograph, where it look like a perfect mesh of data and design.
It'd be sure nice to be able to make one of those. Perfect balance. If you can't get with the info, there's always the artwork lol.
It wasn't long until I came across the data visualization for Microsoft's HealthVault, which happens to be their web-based storage of health and fitness information.
Ok cool. But that data visual sure is something.
Now I have an idea on how mine would look like. Back to content.
Seems that researching for info was hard for this one. Getting significantly fresh data from the net was turning out to be a challenge, with even my tricks in Google eventually failing me. In the end, though, I was lucky to be able to provide a little bit of something for each of the roles that I've set to define in my work.
Next is to plan out the look.
So I decided to cut out some icons first which I'll be using to bring out specific points in the infograph, much like how the HealthVault visual did it. I usually prefer to take some icons off the net to use so that I could choose piece per piece. Setting up a transparent background behind them, though, is quite a trick.
Checking on the Layers panel that's normally set to the lower right of the window of your Photoshop, one needs to give the image/layer one right-click to bring the option "Layer From Background..." in which another window appears (doesn't really matter much what's in there; just click Ok). Then you use the Lasso tool from your Toolbox panel to the left so you can circle anything that you'd like to disappear into thin-air transparency by pressing on your Delete button on the keyboard once you make the full circle. If I recall, this could work on A.Photoshop CS3 going up.
Right, so where was I...
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Then comes the board or actual image size to be worked on and the next challenge of setting a slant view of the infograph. Once I set gradient down, I knew I needed some additional help at this point.
Here's a helpful one that I came across after one quick run through Google.
For beginners like me, I'd recommend you go straight to Distort and just have fun with it. Oh and this is the work so far.
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In moving around the shapes, though, one needs to work on the Marquee tool to set up a shape made out of dotted lines around the shape to move it around. Once inside the dotted lines, just right-click and choose "Free Transform Path". And in making numerous copies, you can choose the image/layer, right-click it and choose "Duplicate Layer" and , from there, you just click Ok on the window that will appear so that a copy of the shape will come up on top of the original..bmp)
Up next would be placing the icons on the shapes. You just need to drag your image files all the way into your Photoshop and it'll automatically be placed there, waiting for it to be moved or applied permanently.
Now my infograph has its "roles" set up. All it needs now is to setup connections to each other then the content.
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Time for another trick. And again, I'll need help again, this time to get some shapes to go translucent, which will serve as the spots for text in the infograph. So to make those, all you need is to create a regular shape through the Shapes tools. Once created, make the change on the Layers panel by right-clicking and choosing Blending Options where one can see the opacity meter where the clarity of the shape can be adjusted.
Make a few last lines and this one's done!
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Quite a little more simpler than your regular infograph for the most part, but it makes for it in directness of thought, with five connections stemming from the center to denote what is expected of a government as an entity highly involved in the deployment of the health information network.
In conclusion, this is how I view the government should be doing so that an information network for health could be properly implemented into the country. They need to set the standards on how data and workflow should progress throughout the network. They must be the ones to provide or allocate the necessary resources to the various sectors involved with the network. They must be able to lead research and development, constantly guiding the nation to innovation. They must be the ones to protect the rights of those involved, especially patients and other clients. And they must learn to facilitate cooperation among each other and other entities so that the continuity of the network could be sustained.
Hopefully I was able to share something to anyone who reads this. Until next time.
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