By now, everyone knows what an infographic is. But do you ever find yourself mindlessly scrolling through tumblr or fffound, wondering why they work so well, and how they look so good? While there's no formula to making a successful graphic, this class will help guide students down the path of understanding how to create basic data visualizations.

We’ll take you from beginning to end of a simple map infographic project, that you will feel confident posting to your portfolio!

Our Background
As two industry professionals, Gavin Potenza & Liz Meyer, who have worked for the likes of Google, IBM, Time Magazine, Bloomberg Media, Intel, Herman Miller, New York Times, Starbucks, AOL & many others—we like to think that we know what it takes to make attractive and easy to understand graphics.

But we all need to start somewhere, so before jumping into the wild world of infographics, in this class we’ll explore the oft-misused “map infographic.” We’ll show you how to create a customized, interesting and easy to understand graphic while staying true to your personal style.

Who This Class is For
Whether you’re a designer, illustrator, painter or writer—looking to learn about data driven graphics, how to work with maps or just to improve your repertoire of skills, this is a class for you. It would be great if you have a working understanding of Adobe Illustrator CS3+ (you can download a free trial here), but if you want to work in a different medium for this project (hand drawn, cut paper, paint, etc.) feel free to experiment. We'll also provide some resources to get your started with Illustrator if this is your first time using the program.

What We Will Provide
The first module of class will include a pre-recorded video lecture on the do’s & dont's of map making. We’ll review what makes an attractive and successful graphic and how to recognize the qualities of a worthwhile piece. At the end of this video, we will be providing 5 sets of data. Pick one and begin sketching ideas of how to communicate this data visually, using a map.

In the next module's pre-recorded lecture, we'll take an in depth look at how we work, and how we think you should proceed with the map project. 

The third module, you'll submit your final projects and wrap up the class with some closing thoughts.

Class Award

For the class award, we'll post a few of our favorites to our blogs, twitter and tumblr. We want the most outstanding infographics that come out of this class to get lots of recognition!