David McCandless : influences and analysis of work

David McCandless is a data journalist and information designer who works in the 21^st Century. One of my favourite images from him as a designer is ‘The billion pound-o-Gram’’ It reveals the scale of the budget deficit in the centre of the British economy. I find the way in which McCandlesss presents this data and makes even a subject considered ‘dry’ to be interesting. The presentation of this usually hard to comprehend data is really nice to look at and easy to interpret. David uses scale to represent the size of the debts and compares them to other world issues, he uses shocking facts to intrigue the audience and promote his own political agenda. The aim of his work is to make the audience think.

 Being a modern day designer and current artist, David is influenced by his own want to inform and raise awareness about many issues. He aims to help others understand the world, reveal hidden connections and distill the worlds data into interesting visualizations. There is so much mystery and misconception in the modern day and that is what ‘information is beautiful’ is about clearing up, they aim to create beautiful and interesting infographics that the audience will want to read. He is influenced by his own craving for information and to understand and passes his new found knowledge and understanding onto others.