Reconstructing The News_
Happiness
Brief
For this brief, we were asked to create a feature article that fills a large double page spread, for a publication that focuses on communicating a specific news back-story to a readership. Data visualisation and diagrammatic display need to play a key role in explaining, clarifying complex matters to a reader. The visualisations need to be integrated in an editorial design context. Strong layout skills and typographic excellence are essential.
Concept
When choosing a current story/theme, I started by looking into ‘The Happy Newspaper’ by graphic designer Emily Coxhead. This newspaper has many issues that I have been collecting over a large period and is of particular interest to me; which is why I decided to focus on this theme of Happiness. The chosen datasets I found were based on happiness within the UK regions, the results of this lead to London being the unhappiest region. As this was a simplistic dataset, I gathered another set based on the unhappiest boroughs of London.
Outcome
After finalising my data visuals, I noticed that my spread didn't instantly say happiness. I initially wanted to incorporate my theme into my visuals however due to the poor amount of data I found, this would not have worked. By using my own handwriting as the main hierarchy of type, I felt this would capture the theme perfectly to someone who may be unaware of the article. Adding to this personal feel will bring a reader in when flicking through the newspaper and allow for instant understanding.
