History of the Information Age — Fall 2011

Going along with our discussion this week about television, I feel that I have learned as much about history from watching television as I have from learning about history in school. I usually prefer to watch television to learn about history instead of reading a book due to the fact that history makes more sense to me if I can visualize what has happened. Watching television is an easy and creative way for me to do that. I think that television can also be viewed as a time machine because it allows you to feel like you are reliving the past. Watching the History channel is not the only way I learn about history on TV. I enjoy watching movies where fictional characters are present at “real” historical events. In the movie Forrest Gump, for example, Forrest was present at historical events such as the desegregation of the University of Alabama and the Watergate scandal. Although the events in the movie might not have been historically accurate, the movie allows its audience to see what main events in history were going on through the 1950’s, 1960’s, and 1970’s through the eyes of an ordinary person.

I agree with Charlie – this infographic drove me crazy.

Once again, I’d only ever designed one infographic before this class, and it was for Professor Whalen’s Writing Through Digital Media class. It was on coffee consumption in the United States – how many people drink coffee, where it comes from, how much coffee the average person drinks, etc. I enjoyed working on it, and it was not difficult to find information on coffee consumption.

Early photography was an entirely different topic. While there is a fair amount of information available about early photography, it isn’t information that is easily conveyed graphically; it is mostly a collection of terms and dates instead of statistics. And I didn’t want to just do a timeline, because our last project had been a timeline, and that felt like cheating, somehow. And how do you talk about things like the calotype process, which isn’t commonly known about, without explaining what it is? A series of images might work, but I was limited by the fact that I couldn’t find any drawings that I could legally use under copyright, and my own drawing skills are minimal, and I’d never drawn anything on a computer.

As I struggled with layout and how to convey the information I wanted to graphically, I came to a realization. While infographics usually try to convey information visually to keep people from feeling underwhelmed, I couldn’t escape the fact that I had a lot of information which no way to convey it without text. Nor could I escape that the only real way I could think of to show off the information was in a timeline format. So I decided to try and make the piece feel more victorian, and as such, be more acceptably text heavy. After a quick google search, I found several examples of victorian pseudo-infographics that inspired my design.

I pulled the victorian people from a fashion plate from the  late 1800s, and the images of the camera obscuras from a google patent. The two cameras in the background were part of an advertisement for a series of cameras from the early 1900s. However, I still couldn’t find any images I could legally use of the calotype process, or lithography, or even of the kodak brownie. So I decided to draw them. It was a rather long and involved process, which was made worse by the fact that I had never drawn anything on a computer before. But I am fairly well pleased with the end result.

This project was a definite learning process. It certainly (if unexpectedly) pushed me out of my comfort zone. But while the infographic/poster/thing still is a rather intimidating mess of text, hopefully it is still visually appealing enough that people will be intrigued enough to still look at it.

For the first project, I chose to make myself uncomfortable. I had never researched cuneiform text before. I had no idea where to even start. Luckily, the University of Mary Washington Library had several sources on cuneiform texts. Only archaeologists wrote a few. A historian and a computer programmer wrote the other two. I attempted to prove a fact postulated in a text read in class that stated a linkage between computer programming and cuneiform text. I failed. Even the computer scientist’s writing failed to provide pictures or sources of cuneiform tablets to reinforce and back up his statements. I changed the focus of my project based upon the sources in hand. The books and articles I had discussed the progression of language from pictograms to cuneiform, or pictures to text. When I attempted to make pictograms, I could see the conscious decisions made by the scribe class to progress towards a more text and syllable driven language. It is hard to think about a shift of pictures representing ideas to those ideas becoming sounds and basic letters, but that is exactly what happened. At first, scribes to account for tithes to the religious temples used the pictures. Later on, cuneiform began to be used to write histories, laws, and lineages. Scribes into cuneiform wrote the Code of Hammurabi. I would only have been able to understand the progression by actually practicing the creation of the tablets. Try it some time.

Okay.
This infographic drove me crazy.
This was not my first infographic – I created my first one last spring for Whalen’s Writing Through Digital Media class.
At the end of that presentation, I realized that my biggest problem with infographics is trying to find a good way to lay out the entire image.  My first one, on the basics of being transgender, was a long, vertical layout with no exciting way to bring it all together.  I seemed to forget this going into my second graphic.
I made the same mistake again – I just went for it.  According to Twitter, I started the graphic on September 9 and in a few days I switched to try another layout. Here are some layouts I had:

As you can see, I had a lot more information on the image in the beginning.  In the end I decided to cut down the information so that people would read it and not feel overwhelmed.
This lasted until this weekend, when I switched to a horizontal view, putting the map of the US in the background.  Last night I finally settled on putting the graphics on the map and the information off of it.
I am proud of this image, but I’m not in love with it.  Comparing this to the trans one, my heart wasn’t as in this as it was in the trans one.  Granted, it is hard to compare the trans infographic (an identity that I have) with the Pony Express (a form of communication I picked on a whim), but still.  Don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed creating this.  However, I was frustrated by creating a good layout and it drove me crazy.
I’m not an artist, I only dabble in image creating/editing software and graphic design.   That is why for me, projects are always the most difficult in the beginning because I never have any idea of how it is supposed to look.  Once I get going with an overall idea of what the final product will look like I get excited and motivated.  But, for whatever reason I couldn’t (and still can’t) figure out how I want this piece to look.

Even as I look at it I just thought of a better way to lay it out.

Ugh.

I’ll do that later in the semester.  For now, I need to get out of the 1860.

This week I had to do some research on telephone for my project. I thought this project was really interesting and different. It was kind of difficult to keep it limited to 300-500 words just because as a history major I feel like we are so used to writing at least 4-6 page papers. You just don’t feel like you have enough information there, even if you answer everything you need to. I really enjoyed Kyle, Mike, and Joe’s presentations in class of their projects and I thought they all did a really great job. This week my discussion group was also working on getting our readings together for next week’s discussions. I’m excited to talk about advertising and propaganda since last fall I did my 299 research on propaganda of World War II.

This week I had to do some research on telephone for my project. I thought this project was really interesting and different. It was kind of difficult to keep it limited to 300-500 words just because as a history major I feel like we are so used to writing at least 4-6 page papers. You just don’t feel like you have enough information there, even if you answer everything you need to. I really enjoyed Kyle, Mike, and Joe’s presentations in class of their projects and I thought they all did a really great job. This week my discussion group was also working on getting our readings together for next week’s discussions. I’m excited to talk about advertising and propaganda since last fall I did my 299 research on propaganda of World War II.

When Johannes Gutenberg began working on the printing press in 1436, he created what can be considered one of the most ingenious inventions of all time.  It would lead the way for a massive wave of printed books to be sold all across Europe.[1]  This revolutionary invention paved the future for many great writers.  It also paved the way for the rise in fame of one German priest in particular.  That man was Martin Luther.

Martin Luther was not only a priest, but a professor of theology who started the
Protestant Reformation.[2]  For him to be credited with this, he needed
something to help spread his preaching out across Europe.  That ended up being Gutenberg’s invention, the printing press.  In 1517, Martin Luther wrote to his bishop, Albert of Mainz, protesting his dislike of buying indulgences.  He added something in the letter, which would later become the famous Ninety-Five Thesis.  Luther would argue that the sale of indulgences was a violation of the original intention of confession, and that Christians were being lied to by their own church.[3]

In January 1518, Christoph von Scheurl and other friends of Luther translated the Ninety Five Theses into German, since it was originally written in Latin.  They then printed and copied it, making it one of the first documents to be done with the help of the printing press.[4]  Within two weeks, copies of the Theses had spread throughout Germany.  Within six weeks of that, the Theses had been copied across Europe.  Luther’s writings reached France, England and Italy by 1519.[5]  This greatly increased the notoriety of
Martin Luther, and it also made many other people across Europe protest the ecclesiastical structure of the Catholic Church.

Another huge impact the printing press had on Martin Luther was the Luther Bible.  Luther went through many different areas of Germany in the 1520’s and picked up on many of the different dialects.  Luther then combined all of these dialects when he wrote the Luther Bible.  It was not the first German translation by any means, but it did standardize the German language and bring up a strong surge of nationalism in Germany.[6]  Luther was quoted as saying “I have so far read no book or letter in which the German
language is properly handled. Nobody seems to care sufficiently for it; and every preacher thinks he has a right to change it at pleasure and to invent new terms.”[7]  Above all though, the Luther Bible did what Luther needed it to do: spread Protestantism.

“…For I see what benefit it has brought to the churches, that men have begun to collect many books and great libraries, outside and alongside of the Holy scriptures…”[8]  Luther was referring to the benefits of his spread works, but also how men needed to fully respect their religion.  The printing press allowed for Martin Luther to become one of the most famous priests this world has ever known.  It also allowed for Luther to push the Protestant Reformation and standardize the German language.  Without Gutenberg’s invention, Luther’s successes would have been very limited compared to what they were.