We got interviewed by Carlos Gámez Kindelán for his blog dMultimedia.es. Read the english copy of the interview below. A spanish translation can be found here.

dMultimedia.es: Why graphics for iPad?, can you explain us how do you developed it?

Paul: We believe that it can help to deliver a complex message in an easy way. We make big efforts to create the contents we deliver to our clients. It’s necessary to take care of the way it is brought to the end user. We find that research on modern media is the right way. They have so many advantages: interactivity, mobility, the possivility to update quickly, etc.

Since our lab is quite new and still under construction, we have been concentrating on the main business—printed graphics—and considered working on iPad apps as an investment. Also, the fibonacciLAB experiments are not only for animated and/or interactive uses. Some of our graphics for printed products include work that comes out of our test tubes.

The Gorch Fock (the ship you saw in our demo video) is actually just a placeholder for testing. I still need to learn more about the Objective C programming language and the iOS API. It’s just a prototype, but it shows how simple it is to offer insights, not only pictures.

What kind of software are you using?

Xcode.

Do you know any other place where we can find a lab like yours?

I guess there are quite a few labs we never hear of, because they only act locally or are just a small part of a bigger company. The Nieman Journalism Lab http://www.niemanlab.org/ and the Visual Communication Lab http://www.research.ibm.com/visual/ are places that do research in a similar way. We like their stuff.

How much time do you spend to experiment at GSG?

To be honest, I don’t know. It mixes up pretty well with the daily business. Attempts to define regular hours for experimenting are destined to fail. But to give you a number, I estimate it to be about 20%.

What kind of devices are you interesting for or you think we can see on a while?

Currently, we only develop for the iPad. It is not just a bigger iPhone as many people believe who haven’t been playing around with it for a few minutes. In fact, it’s something very different. With the larger screen, you have the freedom to, for example, show things side by side or implement popovers.

Applications running on the newest generation of tablet devices offer and require very different things than, say, a Flash movie. It should be prepared for a differend kind of input. Multitouch, gestures, reduced precicion, a change in viewport size following a orientation change, just to mention a few.

Over time, new standards in mobile user interfaces will be established. The split view for example is something very useful and therefore many iPad apps are based on it. Creative minds will come up with innovative concepts that may become similarly significant and adopted by others. We try to have this abstract thinking and develop different kinds of intuitive operation precepts that work specifically for infographics, always keeping the common usability issues in mind.

Do you think we have to show the information on a beautiful way or the aesthetics concepts are not so important for you?

Our philosophy on designing infographics is simple: information comes first. Of course it is important to present it in a beautiful way. Any design aspect concerning the look of a graphic that helps to transport an idea into the reader’s mind is welcome. Our company name says it all. As soon as an aethetics requirement prevents this, it’s unnecessary and should be avoided. The subject of a graphic as well as the target audience decides if it can be more artful or should be modest. As long as the story being told gets the attention it deserves.

How do you mean an interactive graphic? can you show us any examples you like?

For example, Applied Works http://www.appliedworks.co.uk/ served a very interesting and beautiful approach on presenting data with its Health of England for The Times iPad app.

Do you think visual journalists must use social networks like a proffesional tool? Do you use them?

We can be found on Facebook and integrated “I like”-buttons into our online portfolio. We like to experiment a little with social media and get to know them. They already seem to be everywhere, but I think their importance will increase even more. We recommend to at least know their current  significance. Visual journalists can only benefit from it.

Define GSG philosophy work in three words

RESPECT — respect information, respect truthfulness, respect neutrality
QUALITY — let this be a constant factor
PASSION — what you need to have for this kind of job

What are your professional references?

I guess that my interest in information design has always been quite big, and during my studies I figuratively ate all infographics I could find. There’s so much reading recommended for infographics enthusiasts. Of course, Edward Tufte is essential if you want to learn how to produce easily readable and visually correct infographics. Inspiration for visual styles can be found everywhere, the Flowing Data books for example.

I enjoy the discussion whether the community of people working in the field of Data Visualization should be split up in a group of “academics”–more interested in numbers and where they come from—and those people who use data as a material for artworks. My personal belief is, that this discussion is good but kind of unnecessary. There are so many disciplines having both an artistic and a more scientific approach to its essence where the inspiration between the two faces is being questioned. We observe it every day in music, architecture, film, sports… you name it. Even medicine! Instead of building a communication wall between those two groups, we should create a dialogue about new ways of visualization that use our modern technologies we didn’t have earlier.

What is your next goal?, what do you like to do?

We would like to find the best ways to present and interact with different kinds of infographics. Our next goal, of course, is developing an app that can be sold over the app store. Future apps should be able to handle more complex data and let the user manipulate it.

Do you see the work published in Spain? What media do you think are doing better?

From time to time, we see very good infographics made in Spain, and we love them! Being participants or even jurors at the annual SND Malofiej Infographics World Summit in Pamplona, we get to see many good works from all over the world. We know that there are a few hot spots like Germany, Spain, Italy, Brazil and USA for the type of graphics we refer to as infographics, using similar technologies as the ones we use (flash, graphics for iOS devices).

— I’m looking forward to meet you and other infographic artist from around the world at The Jumping Jester in Pamplona!

work in progress: iPad app from Leonardo Fibonacci on Vimeo.

One of our experiments in iOS app development and simple multitouch control concepts for infographics, featuring the »Gorch Fock«

For our client GEO we made a graphic which was published today (Jul 23, 2010). It shows an imaginary continent that would exist if all land mass was squished together parallel to the equator and then sorted by surface type—forests, grasslands, farmland, cities, among others.

For the surface type, we used data from the GLCF and then applied our own projection method after adding some sorting algorithms to it. So again: thanks to ActionScript and AlivePDF!

For our infographic about the election of Germany’s President, we decided to show a large set of numbers as small circles. Basically, the size corresponds to “number of members” (empty ones are zero). The example shows three years, and the grouping works as follows: the different colors are different parties—left wing, major parties and right wing are distributed from left to right. The innermost circle visualizes the number of members who are in the Bundestag. The surrounding circles show, how many delegates are from the 16 German States (in the original context, there’s a legend that helps the viewer to allocate each State).

Those people vote for one of the candidates for the German Presidency. Read even more about the whole graphic on our main website.

The newest customer magazine from PricewaterhouseCoopers features two Infographics made by Golden Section Graphics. One of them consists of a world map which uses the Fuller Projection, a.k.a Dymaxion Map.

If you cut the map out and glue the edges together, you get a nice paper globe.

It’s surrounded by lots of triangles, each one representing a nation of the world. Inside each of those triangles, there is a small bar chart with five bars. The values are different indexes on sustainability, like energy efficiency and carbon footprint.

Both the map and the triangles are generated with AlivePDF, the ActionScript 3 Open-Source PDF Library. The vector graphics were then processed in Adobe Illustrator.

This projection is based on the equirectangular projection, meaning that all areas between earth’s 360 meridians and 180 latitude circles are displayed as squares equal in size. But, in reality, the corresponding area near the equator is different to one near one of the poles (at the poles, it’s actually triangles). The Schwochow-Blickle Projection shows this fact with the squares getting smaller towards the poles, which are arranged on two lines parallel to the equator at the top and the bottom.

This was generated with a simple word map that was converted to a PDF with Adobe FlashBuilder and AlivePDF. No manual aligning and/or scaling done here!

Without the space in between the squares, one gets this picture:

Hi there, and welcome to the website of the fibonacciLAB!

We here at Golden Section Graphics set up this establishment to have a place where we can experiment with new ways of showing information or even invent some methods. This is our attempt to gain access to and keep up with the newest media that provide global distribution and interaction possibilities. For this, we have the proper tools and a broad experience in visualizing information. In combination, this will generate convenient creation processes we are seeking.

One can create wonderful things through coding. In many cases, an interactive and animated infographic helps explain one’s idea better than a static one. Also, there are many other purposes for smaller apps, like processing complex data we then use in our print products. We intend to develop the applications for tomorrow’s sophisticated users (you) who are using the ever improving devices.

Eventually, we post some of the results on this site, hoping for your opinions on design, usefulness and—ultimately—potential. Saying this, we want to invite you to this discussion. Let’s talk about what one can do with the stuff coming out the fibonacciLAB‘s E-flasks!

Greetings from Berlin!

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This was made with Mathieu Badimon’s FIVe3D.

For visualization demonstration purposes only. The represented data does not convey any meaning.

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This was made with Mathieu Badimon’s FIVe3D. For the plane I wrote a drawRoundRectangleComplex method.

For visualization demonstration purposes only. The represented data may be incorrect.

click here for full browser window version

This was made with Mathieu Badimon’s FIVe3D. For the plane I wrote a drawRoundRectangleComplex method.

For visualization demonstration purposes only. The represented data may be incorrect.