Are pictorial statistics still appropriate for use in projects involving public decision making?
Perks, Sue (2017) Are pictorial statistics still appropriate for use in projects involving public decision making? IIID Conference Journal. (Submitted)
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This presentation will review a series of social policy campaigns from the 1930s and 1940s that use pictorial statistics to explain key facts. Its aim is to establish whether this form of graphic explanation still has resonance today. The discussion was prompted by the confusion caused by the barrage of information presented to the British public for the June 2016 European Referendum. It was also prompted by the current trend for McCandless style pastel coloured infographics which proliferate in our bookshops today, but were not used by the Government to explain ideas behind the Referendum. This begged the question, would this style of infographics have had any greater relevance or been any more convincing for a confused British public and would they have taken any more notice of the Government’s appeal to remain in Europe.
Published material such as the British Government’s 1943 Social Security and Social Insurance booklets (designed in collaboration with The Isotype Institute), the County of London Plan and American New Deal policy documents from the same era (designed by Pictorial Statistics, Inc.) will be used as examples of campaigns that used pictorial statistics to rally and inspire the nation. These projects will be used to highlight issues of implied trustworthiness, integrity and clarity in projects used to explain important social policies.
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