“I wouldn’t chuck this out!” –Applying Infographic Design and Information Shortcuts to Local Election Candidate Booklets

Here is the full text of my dissertation/research on applying infographic design and information shortcuts to local election candidate booklets. You can download it over at scribd.

View this document on Scribd

The Politics of Grey-Why our politics needs to be explained in a better way.

For most people Politics is grey. It’s grey and its too hard.

Its grey because it’s boring. Its controlled by people mostly with grey hair. and its usually represented with black and white text saying black and white words.

Its too hard because its confusing and complicated. And because for most of our lives it all seems like someone else’s problem, someone else’s argument and then, when it suddenly does get in the way of things, and someone asks you “what you think”, “who you’re gonna vote for” and “what on earth can you do?”- most of us have no idea and no idea where to start.

And its at this point that Politics and Democracy have a huge explanation problem.

Yes, of course people make do when they need to. They grab on to the shreds of political knowledge that they do know and then if they care enough they turn to those who do understand- the media, commentators and politically-animal-ised neighbors. But that is where the democracy shrinks and the confusion begins. Its seen as a complicated, convoluted game thats out to trick you and play upon the slightly unsure. And the huge cognitive chasm between the informed and the apathetic only opens wider with frustration at the other side. Politicians plead voters to “inform themselves”, “to vote” “to engage”. While voters plead politicians to “explain themselves”, “to listen”, “to engage.” There is little connect, little understanding and far too much grey.

Politics needs to be re-designed. It needs explanation. It needs color.