Using the Golden Ratio to boost sales

As part of my research into the psychology of design I've borrowed a book from the library (actually lots of books, but the one I'm looking at currently is) 'Guerilla Marketing Revolution', Levinson, J.C., Hanley, P. R. J., 2006.

One part of their book examines the Golden Ratio (1:1.618) which has been used throughout art and design history to render artworks more pleasing on the eye. Levinson and Hanley take this step even further by stating that design which is based on the golden ratio is so pleasing on the eye that "materials which used the golden ratio performed five or six times better than those that did not" (p.80).

Furthermore they find that it improves readability and data retention but they state that the horizontal ratio has the only benefit in sales and marketing literature while vertical lines can be used in website design.

I also always use a Golden Ratio grid on business card layouts.

Data visualisation debate featuring David McCandless and Neville Brody

It's good to see a healthy debate about the current trend of 'making data beautiful', especially on mainstream news programmes such as Newsnight. Highlighted here on the Creative review site, the argument says: is data visualisation an aid or hindrance to understanding.

The debate on Newsnight can be seen here and starts at 26:05.

Of course visualisation of data should aid communication, but for me, McCandless advocates the pretty picture road to infographics to the point where we can't tell what the main idea of the graphic is and needs further voice off explanation! I'm happy to report Brody was skeptical of the sorts of graphics McCandless creates and furthermore managed to plug his Anti-Design festival on 18-26.09.10. Something McCandless will no doubt find very unpretty.

More rants on infocrapics here, and here.

Infographics mean what they say don't they?

Ug. Infocrapics more like.

Currently working on a report with lots of data graphs and I needed a break as my brain was exploding. As I googled "infographics" I came across a lot of the very trendy way of portraying data, lots of which leave me fuming. A lot of style is plastered over many of these so that we can't really appreciate what the data is! It really is style over function. When I first started working in design my boss would very kindly guide me away from the garish colours and 3D graphs I would produce for the simple reason that they confuse rather than convey.

So it was with much glee that I found this by Phil Gyford (reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence:

He also makes a good critique of a 'dramatic' graph produced in the FT. Check out his article here.

Interestingly the same boss who steered me away from the 3D graphs and pie charts also instructed me in the techniques Phil talks about in this article: how to make more dramatic fairly plain data, cos guess what...? That's what clients want.

Infocrapics or infographics?