Even without a full-blown explanation, some shapes have meaning.
This is what Washington Post graphics editor Laura Stanton told a group of people during a recent seminar at The Poynter Institute. She asked them to select a shape that they identified with and to think about why.
She’s a smart woman, that Laura Stanton. A casual conversation with her often leads to mind-expanding ideas. Here’s her description of the exercise during an information graphics seminar at Poynter in November. Stanton worked closely with Archie Tse of The New York Times and Juan Thomassie of USA Today during the workshop.
Sara Dickenson Quinn: You presented the group with a full page of interesting, random shapes. What did you ask them to do?
Laura Stanton: Since it was the first session of the week, I wanted to get to the heart of what we do, both visually and conceptually — but not be too serious, since half the fun of Poynter is being outside of our normal restrictions. I was the warm-up act, tasked with getting them to stretch their minds, so I called it “Getting in Shape.”
What were some of your goals with the exercise?
Stanton: Visually, I wanted to explore how certain shapes intrinsically tell certain stories. By looking at shapes, divorced from information, we can attach our own stories to those shapes. In real life, we so often start with the information and have to figure out what “shape” best explains it: internal structure of a page, a graphic or a simple chart. I thought it would be fun to turn it around and start with the shapes and think about what kind of stories they suggest. We looked at images in nature and art for inspiration.
Conceptually, since we are storytellers first, I also wanted to explore the driving force or tension that makes a story worth telling. It seems that, at the core, we are identifying some difference, or we wouldn’t bother telling the story. Change over time. Size difference. Price difference. Size comparison.
The most successful graphics crystallize that difference into a clear visual message. Something’s up. Something’s down. Something is bigger. Something is smaller. Something’s in the center — or on the periphery. It all comes down to basic shapes.
I then asked the participants to pair up and interview each other about something that makes them different. Then the interviewers were to pick a shape from a sheet of suggestions — or draw their own — to tell a story about their partners. The partners could disagree and pick a different shape that best told their story. It was fun to see how others interpreted our life stories visually — and how some of us disagreed!
If you were explaining this to a class of young kids, why would you say it’s important to use imagery and symbols to convey an idea?
Stanton: Actually, I think kids are better at visual storytelling than we are. My 4- and 7-year-old kids consume stories through pictures, and they spend endless time drawing. I think they would actually think it bizarre if I told that one day they might not tell stories by drawing pictures. I think as adults we sometimes forget the joy and fun of shapes and colors. We have become so program/software-immersed, so technical — and possibly — so limited by the options they present us.
I think we can learn from kids to see inspiration in the world around us. Does the shape of that winding road suggest something? A carton of eggs? Before “family trees” there were, well, TREES. A trip to the art museum can also be inspiring, since the storytelling is ALL visual there. Before “treemaps” were all the rage on the Internet, there was Piet Mondrian.
I tried to get the group to think about graphic possibilities in everything they see, inspired by color combination, shapes of buildings, necklace designs, etc. Shapes can convey meaning before a word is ever written.
Is there an example from someone in the seminar that comes to mind, that helps to illustrate this?
Stanton: A graphic we looked at during class illustrates this very basic power of visual storytelling. Luis Chumpitaz, an infographics director in the United Arab Emirates, showed a graphic about a car pileup on a highway in Dubai. Viewed in Arabic, we could understand the essence of the story without understanding the language.
The shape tells the story. The words provide details. Most stories happen across time and space. So it is natural to try to explain a story employing time, space, movement — even before we attach words to it. Visuals cut across language barriers, age barriers, cultural barriers.
I would encourage kids not to forget their natural ability to communicate in this way as they get older.
Looking at some of these symbols chosen by people in the class, what would you say they convey?
Stanton: At the end of the week I made a poster of the shapes people chose that best described themselves. Here’s a look at a few of them:
Archie Tse: I was Archie’s partner for this exercise, and I picked a different one for him, but this is the one he picked for himself. He says he feels like he has peaked professionally — and is now declining. We know that’s not true!
QUINN: Right. No way is that true!
Stanton: George Rorick: I actually picked this one for George, since he is partly famous for his invention of the USA Today weather map.
Laura Stanton: I’m beginning to feel like the old fogey at 41. With those in their 50s all taking the buyouts, I find myself becoming one of the old timers.
Juan Thomassie: He is JUAN in a million.
Julie Fallon of The Christian Science Monitor: She’s in management, and she’s orbiting a staff, running around all the time!
Star Shape:
Besides the opening session, I did series of little challenges and warm-ups every day to get the juices flowing. One involved giving teams a 5-foot piece of string, thumb tacks, and a short “story” to tell. (See photo, above).
The star is actually my career history. Archie and Juan came up with the shape based on the facts of my life. I was born in St. Louis, went to college and interned in South Bend, Ind., had my first job in Dallas, second job in Chicago and my third job at The Washington Post. Now I’m back home in St. Louis, working for the Post from there.
Another team “solved” my life using a circle, as if I had come “full-circle” back home, and they segmented the line of the circle based on the time I had spent at various jobs. The fun in solving these was to see very different core shapes telling the same story. Different shapes emphasized different facts. The star solution emphasizes the physical location of my jobs. The circle emphasizes a duration of time, and returning to the beginning.
