25 Tuesday Oct 2011
Posted in Currently Reading, Currently...
This is my baby girl, Lily, with Guy Kawasaki‘s Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions. The Orange County Library has an amazing home delivery service, so this text was on my doorstep when I got home from class this afternoon.
I’m only on Chapter 3, but I’ll review the text as soon as I am finished. So far, Chapters 1 and 2 have covered a lot about ethos, which I am loving!
25 Tuesday Oct 2011
Posted in Education, Inspiration
In this RSA Animate, author and psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist discusses the complex, divided brain. What we know about “left brain” and “right brain” certainly isn’t so black-and-white.
McGilchrist says, “For imagination, you need both hemispheres [of the brain]. For reason, you need both hemispheres” (Source). Instead of this very segmented brain that we all think of, McGilchrist argues that we instead an interconnected, unified brain. He explains how the two halves work together AND examines which side of the brain is undervalued in society today.
I always love RSA Animate talks, as my brain processes visual data much more quickly than it does the spoken word. What type of learner are you: visual, auditory, or kinesthetic? Find out here.
25 Tuesday Oct 2011
After covering Influence and Persuasion yesterday, I thought we could take a closer look at one of the three modes of persuasion: logos. The logical appeal is about providing evidence for your claim through words, structure, and data.
To me, “logical” most often translates to “boring.” I’m an artistic, creative person, so data has never inspired me. Luckily, David McCandless changed all of that! (I previously blogged about him here and here.) McCandless says this about himself: “A passion of mine is visualizing information – facts, data, ideas, subjects, issues, statistics, questions – all with the minimum of words” (Source). He takes a lot of information, logos, and makes it visual. For visually-driven thinkers like me, this is a great way to turn logos into something more design-oriented.
Here is one example:
While McCandless didn’t design the infographic above, it is a beautiful example of data visualization. Here are some beautiful information design websites starting, of course, with my favorite David McCandless:
What are your favorite information design websites? How much does an infographic contribute to logos?
