This post is an ode to hundreds of thousands of anonymous illustrators who’ve laid their pens and pencils to show “How to use stuff”. A trivial milk bottle contains graphics on how to gauge the temperature of milk in the bottle, or an important exercise on using the telephone, the right way.
Graphics like these have been around for centuries now. What was missing was the acknowledgment to these unknown artists, who make our lives simpler, day after day, process after process. Not any more, my friend!!
Jennifer Trontz maintains a blog – How to graphics, on all such illustrations. Also, if you get a good image, you can mail the image along with the credits specified to Jennifertrontz [at] yahoo (dot) com.
For those, who want an explanation on how to cook with microwave steaming bags. Here it is:
Pictualize is not alone in the journey of thinking and explaining concepts/technologies/services visually. There are industry mavens out there who have done and are doing a fabulous job of giving the world a clutter free explanation.
We are doing a series of such visual thinkers and the awesome work they are doing.
The first mention comes of the LeFevers. The husband and wife duo who have been doing groundbreaking work in visual explanations since 2003. The duo shot to fame from the “RSS in plain English” video and never looked back. In their recent posts, they admitted that as technologies behind products and services increase in complexity, there follows a need for explanations which cut through the redundancies and clutter in our understanding.
Currently, they do explanatory videos for training and explanations. The entire video library can be accessed from their Common Craft Store. Below is one of the videos they’ve done to explain “Borrowing money in plain English” .
Very often we see huge media and ad campaigns thriving on a very subtle message delivered through strong phrases or graphics.
While this becomes relevant in product based advertising, I really think whether it can be somehow done away in a service/technology based campaign. I somehow harbor the notion that deep inside every person is a thirst for knowing what he’s using, and when it comes to internet/collaborative tools/ new applications, it becomes important for him to realize the importance and to know what happens behind the scenes when he clicks on a tab.
Visual communication holds a very crucial key [ amongst the other keys in use] to explain to the layman, what he’s about to use and how his life would get simpler. Google Chrome, when released, kick started a very subtle revolution of explaining the technology behind their browser. The comic book version by Scott McCloud was a hit amongst the techno-savvy, geeky public for whom a pictorial view for explanation was a pleasant surprise.
The only drawback which makes it a subtle revolution is the fact that Google did not materialize the tremendous impact that this comic would have had. A single link on the browser, asking the user to download Chrome and read the story behind it would have increased the power of this explanation.
Visual communications have the power to educate, if used correctly. More on the power of visual communications soon.
