Mapping Cultural Information: Augsburg and Venice in Infographics

By Michael Stoll and Emanuela Bonini-Lessing

Mapping cultural information
Augsburg and Venice in Infographics

Living in Europe today is a wonderful gift. Looking back in history, one hardly will find a timespan
of peace and prosperity as long as the current one, that started after the end of World War 2. A key element of modern democracies is the educational level of its inhabitants. Their ability to form and actively participate in political, social and cultural progress. This doesn’t come easy: Europe came with complicated, complex often abstract topics.

Information design is a discipline, that enables understanding through visualisation and explanation. Charts, diagrams, data visualisations, maps, cross section drawings help people not only to understand relevant issues but also to recall facts and figures.

With this series of collaboration between IUAV, Venice, and HSA, Augsburg, we wanted to shed light on the rich history and relation between both of our cities. Our students in mixed groups explored historic topics as well as questions on current life and living.

We compared architecture, tourism or water supply or public transport, to name a few.
By mapping information on the faces of a solid (in workshop 3 and 4) and on a city map (in workshop 1 and 2), students also learnt about new ways to tell their findings: from sorting, selecting and weighting on one hand to planning and designing on the other.

We as we are working in academics think, that it is our prominent task to educate students further in this field for a good reason: to enable insight and understanding.

These DAAD-funded projects were and initial series of sparks and mark the start of a much more comprehensive relation between our universities.

Emanuela Bonini-Lessing and Michael Stoll
Venice and Augsburg, November 1st 2015

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Release date: Jun 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9783741257001

Michael Stoll

Prof. Michael Stoll studied communication design at the University of Applied Sciences in Konstanz, Germany, from 1987 to 1991 and graduated with the thesis "A Classification of Infography“. From 1991 to 2005, he was an infographic artist based in Tuebingen. His clients included newspaper publishers in southern Germany. He also held courses in infography at the “Haus Busch” journalism centre (Hagen), the IFRA newspaper institute (Darmstadt) and the Akademie der Bayerischen Presse (Munich). Since 2005, he has been teaching infography at the Augsburg University of Applied Sciences, where he is head of the study track Information Design in the Department of Design. Key study-related activities he offers include field trips to international conferences and partner universities, lectures by leading practitioners and sector-specific exhibitions at the department. His students have won several awards for work they created in his courses, including silver awards at the Malofiej Competition, a silver award at the SND Annual Competition and five European Newspaper Awards. He teaches the course “Visual Storytelling” at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences (Germany) as part of the bachelor programme “Journalism/Digital Media”. At the University of Neuchatel (Switzerland), he teaches the course “Visual Culture: Infography” for the masters programme “Journalism”. He serves as the Educational Director (Intl. Affairs) for the SND Society for News Design (USA) and coordinates the academic exchange between participating universities. He is also a member of the International Institute for Information Design IIID (Vienna, Austria) and serves on the editorial board of its Information Design Journal (John Benjamins Publishing). He is also participating in the Adobe Education Leader programme. A programme, that enables networking and exchange of ideas among the most influencial educators worldwide. In 2009, he was jury president for the Malofiej-17 infographics competition at the University of Navarra (Pamplona). 2013, 2015 and 2016 he curated conferences about infography for the Munich Typographical Society (tgm). The 2016 edition featured 10 talks, 2 workshops and 1 exhibiton. It attracted about 500 participants. Prof. Michael Stoll also collects historic infographics and owns one of biggest collections on the topic. He put together the highlights of his collection for a travelling exhibition called “History of Infographics”. [e-mail]

Book preview

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE REASONS FOR OUR JOINT ACTIVITY

PROFILE IUAV

PROFILE HSA

A HISTORIC RELATION BETWEEN AUGSBURG AND VENICE

EXPLANATORY INFOGRAPHIC SOLIDS

MORE TOPICS IN AN OVERVIEW

STUDENTS’ QUOTES ON THE WORKSHOP

PARTICIPANTS

THE INFOGRAPHIC POSTERS

PARTICIPANTS

DID WE REACH OUR AIMS?

THE REASONS FOR OUR JOINT ACTIVITY

Living in Europe today is a wonderful gift.

Looking back in history, one hardly will find a timespan of peace and prosperity as long as the current one, that started after the end of World War 2.

A key element of modern democracies is the educational level of its inhabitants. Their ability to form and actively participate in political, social and cultural progress. This doesn’t come easy: Europe came with complicated, complex often abstract topics.

Information design is a discipline, that enables understanding through visualisation and explanation. Charts, diagrams, data visualisations, maps, cross section drawings help people not only to understand relevant issues but also to recall facts and figures.

With this series of collaboration between IUAV, Venice, and HSA, Augsburg, we wanted to shed light on the rich history and relation between both of our cities. Our students in mixed groups explored historic topics as well as questions on current life and living.

We compared architecture, tourism or water supply or public transport, to name a few.

By mapping information on the faces of a solid (in workshop 3 and 4) and on a city map (in workshop 1 and 2), students also learnt about new ways to tell their findings: from sorting, selecting and weighting on one hand to planning and designing on the other.

We as we are working in academics think, that it is our prominent task to educate students further in this field for a good reason: to enable insight and understanding.

These DAAD-funded projects were and initial series of sparks and mark