THE ART OF
EXPLAINING
Before it was a thing. For years, the concept of condensing complex subjects into one graphic has existed, something that just in recent years has come to be known as “infographics” .
A long time before people could get a hold of all sorts of iconography and other pre-made, pre-established toolkits, to quickly put together an image that explains a process, a concept, a whole company’s structure, and so many other things that are best explained through images. Making something abstract and complex, simple to understand, through images and graphic representations.
The reason why I’ve known about this type of image since early 2000’s (which basically was about turning a whole Powerpoint presentation, into a single, well thought out and simplified image), is that then, for about three years, I was a founding partner of a startup Agency, which I worked on with a couple of friends/partners. And one of the things we came across, in a time when the Internet was entering it’s teen years, was a website/company that did just that: Explanation Images.
They made these amazing, extremely creative and unique (I’ll come back to that soon) “infographics”. The website/company was xplane.com.
They still exist, but they have gone far beyond just representing, by fully understanding, very complex concepts, ideas, processes, etc. Check them out, they are still awesome!
Now. As part of what we did (by we I mean the small startup I help build then), was work on this type of images for the clients we had at the time.
It’s VERY hard now to compete in an open global market for this type of work, precisely because of all the, even FREE toolkits out there, with which very GENERIC solutions can be made for a customer, who will normally go to the cheapest bidder. Most simply don’t understand the importance of having something that really makes an impact and gets across to the users.
Nevertheless, I still believe in creating something unique. Why?
Because no single process, idea, concept, company, etc are the same!
Each deserves something tailor-made to explain them.
Something creative, that will catch the viewers eye, not only with beauty but that also speaks a Brand’s name or reflects the heart and soul behind that which is explained.
It can use resources like humor, call outs to pop-culture, etc.
I especially love working with Isometric Perspective. In 3D.
P.S. If you ever wonder HOW MUCH you can charge for a FREELANCE project like this, make sure you check out my “Project Budget Calculator“, it might give you at least, a reference as to how to best calculate the value of your work.
