in the mood to reminisce

self-destructive business rat gorging himself on the economy

cryogenically frozen business rats: please thaw out after the recession

inspiration

Robert Massin's typographical interpretation of French play 'La Cantatrice Chauve'. I love these expressive compositions where the meanings of words are enhanced through their position on the page

delayed

new project iv

work is based on the nationwide campaign run by Citizens UK to promote the living wage.

in brief, the living wage is the minimum hourly rate someone needs to earn in order to afford a decent standard of living and is unsurprisingly a lot higher than the minimum wage, which is at £5.93p/h compared to the living wage which is at £7.60p/h for England and £7.85 for London. the living wage is based on someone working 40 hours per week whereas someone on the minimum wage in London would need to work 13 hours more to earn the equivalent living rate for the city.

i'm going to be creating content for Citizens UK's social media and other online presences to market the living wage campaign because currently it's not that visually appealing (imo) and of course that counts for a lot these days!

tweaked

all of these characters below (minus the bankers) represent only the lowest income decile of the overall sections of the population they are from. each character = 100,000 people and the numbers have been rounded to the nearest 100,000. although these are the poorest people in the country, the lowest five income deciles are all below average in terms of income

note: the pregnant woman is now a symbol for a single mum as i thought that they are probably worse off in general

demographics

not to scale yet

number of workers in financial services in London = 333,162 = 0.005% of entire U.K. population

. number of adults of retirement age in U.K. = 20% = 12,358,400

. number of live births in U.K. (2009) = 698,323

. number of disabled people in U.K. (working/not working) = 19%/9.5% = 11,740,480/5,870,240

. number of under 16's in U.K. = 20% = 12,358,400

averages calculated from U.K. population for 2009 (61,792,000), percentages from Office for National Statistics website, Disabled Living Foundation website and the City of London website

isotype i

isotype is the name of the picture language invented by otto neurath that aimed to transform complex statistics into self-explanatory pictographs made up of signs and symbols. one of his examples below + more info and pics here

here's my own take on that idea that i'm probably going to make into some kind of infographic.

the City banker...

the old age pensioner...

the pregnant woman...

the disabled person...

and the child

the winners and losers of the emergency budget and the forthcoming spending review

genius ii

video - the crisis of credit visualized

this animation explaining the recession is a bit old now but the goal Jonathan Jarvis had when he made it - to make the complexity of the issue easier to understand for those unfamiliar with it - still has great potential for areas in media and design relating to political, social issues, etc. and it's what i'm hoping to do with my work

small spaces

went to the V&A exhibition of small scale architecture today. all 7 of the final structures were great in their own way but these wooden ones below were definitely my favourites. each one of the pieces served a different purpose: study, play, performance, meeting place, work, relaxation and contemplation

information is beautiful

since going to the new blood show back in june i've become really interested in infographics. this discussion on newsnight a few nights ago, on the pros and cons of infographics, the old style versus substance debate, got me thinking about what i'd like my final piece/s to look like.

attractive design can make complex information/statistics more accessible to a wider audience but the problem with a lot of infographics is although they look very sleek, they don't help their audience identify on a personal level with the facts they are representing, which is a shame i think. i'm hoping a more illustrative approach might improve this.

thoughts

after a while spent researching the budget measures, responses and ifs analysis i have decided the aim of my project is to get across the message that it will be the poorest who will suffer most as a result of the actions taking place to cut the country's deficit.

my work is going to be aimed at people with lower incomes, specifically those who defected from 'the left' at the last election or who don't see a difference between the values of the left and right. it's not a party political thing, more of an educational thing. it really annoys me to see the same people who enjoyed increased public investment, benefits, etc over the last 13 years switch to a completely new set of principles that don't even favour them. i feel people who are not politically aware enough can be too easily bought over by weak (and sometimes false) claims such as:

it's a progressive budget

it's a necessary budget

we're all in this together

if we don't cut the deficit hard and fast we'll end up like Greece

it's what the markets want/need (only economists should be allowed to say this)

we can cut public spending by up to a quarter AND still have quality services

i want to do something that really clarifies for people what this budget is going to mean for them

new project iii

the emergency budget was announced over a week now but seeing as how the true effects won't be felt for a little while i've decided to illustrate (for the summer project) some of the measures that will be the most damaging