For their July/August 2010 issue, AARP The Magazine contacted me again to create an infographic for their AARP & You survey. That month’s survey was about informal volunteering; donating one’s time outside of an organization or association.
Unfortunately, the dataset was rather slim. It consisted of two points that indicated an increase in popularity of informal volunteering. Typically, more interesting stories come out of larger datasets where unforeseen trends and correlations reveal themselves. But I couldn’t let that get in the way of making an engaging illustration.
Hands seemed like the natural choice, expressive and human without getting tangled up with personality.
The data ended up cryptically encoded in the sizes of the hands.To call this an infographic is a stretch, maybe “information illustrated” is more accurate.
The facing page needed a spot for a story on summer reading, so AD Joanna Foucheux asked me to take a shot at it. I put together some sketches and gave her three roughs to choose from. She went with the sunburst book.
Big thanks to Joanna! It still boggles my mind that these images went out to over 24 million people!
Update: This work has been moved to my editorial illustration portfolio, Textbook Example.