nigel holmes / explanation graphics

nigel holmes / explanation graphics lucia chen

Hello. My name is Nigel Holmes and I work in the field of explanation graphics, more commonly known as information design. For me, information design is the collaboration of art and science to create graphics that explain numbers, processes and facts that are often too complex for people to understand, such as the federal debt or how the brain works. I think of art to be in the service of information rather than just art for the sake of art. My mantra is “enjoyable clarity� because I want my work to make a concept easy to understand and to present it in an enjoyable manner so as to compel the reader to take the time to study it and grasp it.

(if you see this cartoon character of Nigel, he’s the one talking)

This is a “self-portrait� Holmes created that shows all of the different components it takes to be an information designer. Some of these characteristics and even the image itself hint at what he will soon explain to be part of his design philosophy.

my philosophy...

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my background...

You may be wondering why I am an information designer in the first place. As a child growing up in England in the forties and fifties, I read a comic every week called the Eagle, which “along with the usual kind of comic strips (ones that told stories of adventure in space or the wild west), had great cutaway drawings of buildings, race cars, tanks, airplanes and so on.” These explanatory drawings were always on the center spread of the comic and were often drawn by Leslie Ashwell Wood. My great-uncle George was the only family member to be involved in art and made plans of British sailing vessels, so I was inspired by his drawings as well.

As I grew older, I went to Hull College of Art and then was accepted to the Royal College of Art in London in 1963 to study illustration. It was in 1964 that I first decided to work in information graphics, thanks to my first mentor Brian Haynes, then the art director of the London Sunday Times Magazine. That summer, I worked as his assistant and I began to take up freelance work from Brian. One memorable task was when I helped Peter Sullivan on a huge project about Buckingham Palace and the Queen of England’s various staff members. I learned more in those short months over the summer with Brian than I did in the three years at the RCA. The RCA was unhappy with my taking on freelance work and gave me the lowest passing grade before I took off for the States.

I officially started working at Time Magazine in 1978 and later became the Graphics Director. After sixteen years there, I took a sabbatical and never went back. Instead, I started my own business and have been doing that ever since. That’s enough about me—now let’s take a look at some of my work…

diagrams | charts | icons | maps | illustrations

This is a wordless diagram by Holmes that shows how to tie a scarf from his book Worldess Diagrams. It was in this book that Holmes used only the colors black and red in his images to explain various things, from how to milk a cow to how to pierce a tongue.

diagrams | charts | icons | maps | illustrations

This diagram shows the two different types of mindsets: fixed or growth. Holmes uses colors to set the two mindsets apart, and he uses images to illustrate and support the words. However, the diagram is still simple enough so that anyone can easily distinguish between the two mindsets.

diagrams | charts | icons | maps | illustrations

Originally part of Richard Saul Wurman’s book, Understanding, this chart serves to show where all of the U.S. federal spending goes. Since this is a topic that is always trending on the news but is hard for the average American to grasp, this chart helps to demystify federal spending. In my opinion however, it could use a little more color, or else I would never take the time to study it.

diagrams | charts | icons | maps | illustrations

Holmes also has experience working with company branding and helping companies create logos or icons. Qtopics is an online polling company, and Holmes helped design their logo. The final logo is on the right. Again, you can see the simplicity of the logo and the minimal use of color.

diagrams | charts | icons | maps | illustrations

This is a map showing the locations of the different parts of the brain. Holmes uses many colors to distinguish between the different regions.

diagrams | charts | icons | maps | illustrations

This illustration for the New Yorker depicts global warming. One can see Holmes’ style of infographics adapted to his illustrations, as it is simple and uses minimal color but it is clear what the image is trying to show--the globe is literally being warmed on a stove.

nigel versus... other information graphic designers Neville Brody

is an English graphic designer, typographer, art director and brand strategist.

He believes that pretty infographics are meaningless if they do not invoke emotion and understanding.

This is similar to Holmes’ view that explanation graphics should be as simple as possible. For both designers, the function of the graphic (in this case, to explain or inform) is more important than the form. Brody says that if a design is too pretty, it can take away from one’s understanding of the data.

David McCandless

is a London-based author, writer and designer.

McCandless writes a blog titled “Information is Beautiful,” which along with this image, tells you a lot about his design philosophy. He enjoys visualizing information with as few words as possible, which is similar to Holmes, but the difference between the two is that McCandless uses color to make his data beautiful while Holmes focuses more on the information being shown instead of how it is being shown. McCandless believes that appealing to both the eye (beauty) and the mind (the data) makes for a good information graphic, but many critics say his images are not effective.

Stephen Few

is an American innovator, consultant and educator in the field of information design.

Few’s main concern with infographics is that they often fail to inform because they do not present the information in a way that our eyes can perceive and our brains can easily comprehend. Few and Holmes agree that sacrificing meaning and comprehension for beauty is unacceptable. However, Few goes further to say that a good graphic is one that merges beauty and function into one.

Juan Velasco

is a Spanish designer currently working as the Senior Graphics Editor of National Geographic.

He sees graphics as a form of journalism whose primary objective is to be accurate and informative.

Velasco is on the same page as Holmes when it comes to color. He says, “A good idea is to start in black and white, and then add color very selectively for the things that you want readers to see first.” He also believes that simple is always better, much like Holmes, and that one should not create visualizations purely for decoration.

Andrew Vande Moere

is a lecturer at University of Sydney and KULeuven and maintains a blog called infosthetics.com.

At the top of Vande Moere’s blog is the phrase “Information aesthetics. Where form follows data.”

He also wrote a paper arguing that infographics should be enriched with design and art to engage the audience emotionally rather than focusing solely on data metrics. The first phrase can be linked to Holmes’ outlook, but the paper seems to stress the reader’s emotions more than Holmes would.

Jer Thorp

is an artist and educator from Canada who explores the link between science and art in his work.

Above is a screen print by Thorp that shows the frequency of appearance of the words ‘hope’ (blue) and ‘crisis’ (graphite) in The New York Times over a twenty year period. The image is mesmerizing to look at, but is it really the best way to visualize the data? Even though there are some dates interspersed throughout, it is obvious that Thorp values appearance and beauty more than representing the data clearly, which is the opposite of what Holmes values.

Rafael Estrada

is a Spanish infographics designer who focuses on computer graphics.

Estrada, like Holmes, designs infographics. But unlike Holmes, Estrada uses 3-D technology, vectors and Adobe software in addition to drawings by hand to create his graphics. Despite his extensive use of computer technology, some of Estrada’s graphics look like hand-drawings or sketches. Many of them are quite detailed, and Holmes may find them to be too cluttered and to contain too many words. Estrada and Holmes are both very successful infographic designers, but take quite different approaches to designing them.

Stephanie Posavec

is an American graphic designer who specializes in data visualization.

In one of her projects, Posavec maps out the literary geography of novels like Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. One graph shows the lengths of all of the sentences in Kerouac’s book grouped into bars based on the chapter and then into colors based on the content. Another image shows the word count of each chapter divided into colors based on content. The end result is what looks like colorful flowers blooming. Posavec’s graphics are very vibrant and beautiful, but Holmes would question how much the reader really gains from looking at them. For me, it was not very much.

nigel versus... other graphic designers Christoph Niemann

is an illustrator, graphic designer and art director from Germany.

Christoph Niemann is not an infographic designer, but he does deal with visualizing data everyday.

In his case, the data that he visualizes are simply matters of everyday life instead of hard facts or statistics. In an interview, Niemann says that when creating his graphics, he asks himself if someone across the world would be able to understand it. In this way, Niemann is similar to Holmes because for both, their graphics are meant to relate to people and to create an understanding.. Niemann also takes a very creative and humorous approach to his work, which Holmes stresses the importance of in graphic design.

Paul Rand

was an American graphic designer, best known for his corporate logo designs.

Although Rand made his biggest contributions to graphic design in the field of corporate identities, his beliefs are very similar to those of Holmes. Rand’s logo designs for IBM and ABC are simple but very successful, and he once said that a logo “cannot survive unless it is designed with the utmost simplicity and restraint.” He also shares Holmes’ views on the importance of humor in graphic design, designing for function, and the harm of depending on computers to do all the work for us.

nigel versus... other interesting people Michael Najjar

is an German photographer interested in a society driven by computer and information technology.

A lot of Najjar’s work has to do with transcending the boundary between reality and simulation. In his recent project called “high altitude,” Najjar gathered photos on the highest mountain in the American continent and used these to create images of virtual data mountains, whose jagged rock formations represent stock market charts. In response, Holmes may question the representation of data using mountains and whether people gain a better understanding of stock markets from Najjar’s photos.

David Carson

is an influential American graphic designer and is known for his experimental typography.

Carson is known for his grungy, unorthodox take on typography and his ability to arrange words in a design that captivates readers. Carson says, “I believe now, if the type is invisible, so is your article.”

Since Holmes’ favorite typeface is Eric Gill’s simple ‘Gill Sans,’ he probably would not have seen eye to eye with Carson, who thinks that if an article does not look interesting through its layout, typeface and color, it will not attract readers. Carson is all about form over function. Holmes is not.

Stephen Walter

is a London-born, Berlin-based artist who draws city maps and landscapes using pencils.

On first look, Walter’s city maps look like a dense mass of scribbles. Take a closer look and you will find countless words and symbols that refer to the “history, trivia, personal experiences and local knowledge” of the area. But Holmes would never use Walter’s technique for an infographic. There is so much information packed into such little space, and although this is the point of Walter’s work, Holmes would prefer a simpler map with just enough words and pictures to get the point across.

Otto Neurath

was an Austrian philosopher, scientist and social economist who was interested in visual innovation.

Neurath believed that art for art’s sake was a waste and that all art should serve to educate. He did not just create icons to show statistics, he also invented a universal language of symbols. He once said, “Words separate. Pictures unite.” Go to any country and you will see one of Neurath’s works: the universal symbol for the men’s and women’s restrooms. Holmes shares many of the same values, so it is not surprising that he admires Neurath the most in the world of graphics.

nigel versus... other RCA graphic design students Michael Amzalag and Mathias Augustyniak

are French graphic designers and creative directors in the fields of art, music and fashion.

Together, they have formed the design company M/M. Their work is quite different from Holmes’ work, because they mostly create their designs for big fashion houses or for music artists. They see graphic design as a way to make a living and a way to distribute their ideas. M/M also thinks of graphic design as a conversation and they use their designs to develop relationships with people.

Alan Fletcher

was an influential figure in British graphic design.

Fletcher was a founder of Fletcher/Forbes/Gill in the 1960s and Pentagram in the 1970s. Fletcher combined creative independence with commercial ventures and created some very successful brand identities that are still prominent today: Reuters and the Victoria & Albert Museum. Fletcher’s work was more commercial than Holmes’ work since he built his company, Pentagram, on designing for corporate identities.

Jonathan Barnbrook

is a British graphic designer who also develops typefaces and motion graphics.

Barnbrook uses his work to make social change and political statements. He believes that it is important for designers to engage in non-commercial work from time to time to maintain one’s creativity and to stick to one’s own design principles. Holmes does not really use his work to bring about social change, but he does use it to inform people, which is similar but a little less radical of an approach to graphic design.

Clifton Hepburn

is the Multimedia Director and co-founder of a design agency called Periscope.

Hepburn received his master’s degree at the RCA for information graphics but focuses on his digital marketing company nowadays. The few information graphics shown on his company’s website consist of either assembly diagrams or building plans. Hepburn focuses on the digital realm of graphic design by designing websites and mobile applications while Holmes prefers to stick with pen and paper. Also, Hepburn has built his career around helping companies build their brand image.

what do others think?

Nigel Holmes’ work has been applauded throughout the years and is often imitated. However, Holmes has also had his fair share of critics.

One critic of Holmes is Edward Tufte, a professor at Yale University who teaches statistics, graphic design and political economy. Tufte has coined a term called “chart junk,” which was created with Holmes in mind. “Chart junk” refers to Tufte’s idea of anything in a chart that is unnecessary. For him, anything that does not represent data or is a scale or label is unnecessary. While Holmes is known for creating very simple graphics, Tufte takes simplicity down another notch so that his graphs are austere. Holmes believes that a graph must engage the reader’s interest, which he achieves using strong visual imagery to support the data.

Holmes has also had some of his work rejected before because his clients thought the explanations were “too simple.” He experienced this while he was at Time Magazine as well. When Holmes began to tone down his work for the magazine, his editors responded with “so now you’re just going to do boring old charts.”

After Holmes left Time, his replacement as Graphics Director, Joe Zeff, was a big advocate of 3-D graphics.

Aside from the criticisms is the fact that many people, graphic designers or not, look up to Holmes for his unique approach to visually explaining the world. He is credited with creating the specialized genre of explanation graphics within graphic design and many designers look up to him for his ability to think visually.

what do I think?

As mentioned earlier, Nigel Holmes worked with Peter Sullivan on a project early in his career. Peter Sullivan was well known for his information graphics in The Sunday Times and there is now an award entitled the Peter Sullivan Award, the highest prize in the annual Malofiej-competition for information graphics.This year, the New York Times won this award with its online infographic--a video called “How Mariano Rivera Dominates Hitters.” This video explanation was said to be the path for the future of infographics.

I believe that as we move more and more into a world filled with new technologies and more dependent on the Internet and social media, information designers must learn to adapt. Holmes could be right when he says that 3-D renditions are just a phase, but his simple diagrams are not always enough in a world that is becoming so technological. There are things that 3-D images or videos can illustrate that a 2-D chart cannot, as shown in this winning video. Less people are reading newspapers off the stands and more people are reading the news online, where interactive graphics and videos are more likely to capture readers’ interests than simple charts and diagrams. My idea of a successful information graphic is one that will first grab my attention with its design and color, and then successfully simplify and explain the topic so that I will fully understand it. I admire Holmes for his work and his success, and I am impressed with his ability to simplify very complex processes into a few images with few words. I respect him for sticking to his mantra of simplicity, but I feel that Holmes should embrace technology and color so that more people will be attracted to his work. Holmes has already created several short films with his son explaining issues such as the US federal debt as compared to its surplus, so he is already well on his way into the world of interactive and animated infographics.

Aside from this, I think it is quite refreshing to see such a talented yet humble and lighthearted individual like Nigel Holmes succeed in the information design world.

He knows how to create serious, informative graphics but he also knows when to let loose and insert a little humor in his work, such as his silly diagram on “how to knot a cherry stem using your mouth” in his book Wordless Diagrams. Holmes believes that humor is the key to relating to his audience and driving his point home for any information graphic. If there is anything to take away from Holmes’ experience with explanation graphics, it is the importance of creating meaningful graphics and to remember to have fun while working.

where does nigel fit in british design history?

Graphic design subtly emerged throughout British design history. However, Nigel Holmes’ philosophy of information graphic design can also be applied to other fields of design, like furniture or architecture. Below are some ways that Holmes fits into the vast patchwork of British design history.

Aesthetic Movement also introduced the idea of flaunting one’s artistic sensibilities through the interior design of one’s home. This meant that some furniture pieces were created solely for display—something that Holmes never does when it comes to infographics.

Holmes is a big proponent of function over form. What better way to begin relating Holmes to design history than with A. W. N. Pugin, the Gothic revivalist and father of functionalism. Pugin and Holmes have very similar design philosophies. They both stress simplicity and the elimination of any excess ornamentation. Pugin’s functional objects, such as an ornament box, are very geometrical and unadorned. Pugin’s wallpapers are all two-dimensional and do not attempt to copy nature. The graphic design equivalent of this would be graphics that do not have 3-D effects and are not rendered to look like photographs.

Holmes is against overreliance on computers, and if such computer software existed during Pugin’s lifetime, Pugin would have felt the same way.

When it came time to brand the London Underground, Frank Pick and Charles Holden worked hard to create a simple, functionalist design that was uniform for all stations.

Pugin’s idea of fitness for purpose and no cheap decorations was applied. Harry Beck was commissioned to design the map of the Underground, and in his design he omitted all extraneous information like the proximity of the stations and focused only on the necessary information. Nigel Holmes listed Harry Beck as one of his graphical influences, probably because of Beck was able to simplify the entire London Underground system down to one neat map.

In 1851, the Great Exhibition was held as a way to promote trade and production, but the organizers were also hoping for it to be a way to educate the public and cultivate better taste in the arts. Both Holmes and the organizers of the Great Exhibition saw art as a branch of education.

Next comes the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain, in which John Ruskin and William Morris were very important figures.There have always been attempts to dictate societal behaviors through one’s art (for example, Thomas Hope’s book House Furniture and Decoration on the Neoclassical style was meant to influence the tastes of people through design), and Ruskin and Morris saw art as a vehicle for social and political reform. Ruskin thought of the decorative arts as a way to enlighten people, sharing Holmes’ hopes of education through art.

During the Aesthetic Movement, Christopher Dresser created abstracts of natural forms and made them into patterns. He originally specialized in botanical studies, during which he observed that nothing in nature was superfluous and everything had simple form and clear function. He based his philosophy of design on this, and Holmes would appreciate his love for simplicity and flat designs. E. W. Godwin’s furniture at this time was also very simple and functional with a focus on aesthetic purity. However, the

World War I stimulated artists and illustrators to create posters to aid the war effort. The design of these posters was a form of graphic design and was used to shape the public opinion. Several years after the war ended, the Bauhaus was created. Among the many designers at the Bauhaus was Herbert Bayer, who created universal sans serif typefaces and innovated new ways to arrange text.

Moholy-Nagy also experimented with typography and white space to create more visual forms of communication.

Bayer and Moholy-Nagy wanted to create simplified layouts of text to help direct the viewer’s attention through the information, just as Holmes creates graphics that lead the reader through a process so that they can understand the information.

The introduction of pop art and punk brought along many unconventional and either very bright or very dark and dull designs. Many of the album covers and graphics from this time do not coincide with Holmes’ approach to design. In the post-punk phase, Neville Brody created graphics for The Face magazine that incorporated a lot of texture and beautiful shapes. Nowadays, Brody has toned down his style and is on the same page as Holmes.

Fast-forward another fifty years or so and we arrive back in today’s world, where explanation graphics are more important than ever in helping people decipher the complicated news topics that trend in the media.

resources used Nigel Holmes http://www.nigelholmes.com/home.htm http://simplecomplexity.net/nigel-holmes-gallery/ http://update.snd.org/update/entry/nigel-holmes-will-be-buenos-aires-keynote/ http://infographicsnews.blogspot.com/2009/03/sndnyc.html http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/newsgathering-storytelling/visual-voice/93347/nigel-holmes-explainswhy-humor-helps-communication/ Other http://www.snd.org/2010/09/graphics-without-words-but-with-juan-velasco/ http://infographicsnews.blogspot.com/search/label/Mantras http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2010/august/brody-vs-mccandless http://joeclark.org/design/davidcarson.html http://www.paul-rand.com/site/thoughts_typeTalks/ http://flowingdata.com/2011/04/17/business-intelligence-vs-infotainment/#comments http://stephenwalter.co.uk/bio.php http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/24/pendle.php http://www.paul-rand.com/site/thoughts_graphicDesignAmericaInterview/ http://www.michaelnajjar.com/ http://www.itsbeenreal.co.uk/ http://www.rafaestrada.net/ http://www.perceptualedge.com/blog/?p=903 http://www.researchstudios.com/neville-brody http://www.informationisbeautiful.net http://designmuseum.org/design/m-m http://www.barnbrook.net/about.html http://designmuseum.org/design/jonathan-barnbrook http://designmuseum.org/design/alan-fletcher http://www.computerarts.co.uk/in_depth/interviews/vaughan_oliver Raizman, David. History of Modern Design. 2nd ed. London, UK: Laurence King Publishing, 2010. Print.

about Although I have probably over-relied on the computer to create this project in Holmes’ terms, I have put much thought into the design and layout of it so that it should agree with Holmes’ principles. I hope that it comes across as very simple and neat, not to mention the two-tone color scheme (aside from the graphics). Also I would like to point out that I used Holmes’ favorite typeface for the project.

I hope you enjoyed reading it just as much as I enjoyed creating it.