Festival time is soon arriving!

Are you a live music fan who likes open airs? Are you already fed up with winter and you can not wait to buy your tickets for the next festival season in summer 2014?

I have some data for you if you are interested and maybe there are one or two festivals you haven not known yet. Maybe this graphic will help you to figure out the right place to go to next summer and to buy the right ticket.

I found it quite interesting to see that in this graphic within the 10 top festivals the "Rock am Ring" festival in Nuremberg is not mentioned. I thought it is one of the biggest festivals in Europe, although I was wrong.

This graphic gives you a lot of details about festivals in Europe and it uses a lot of different images, however I think that the graphic is an abstract illustration because without the explanations to the images I would get lost in the graphic. Do you think the same? Could you imagine to see this graphic without text, would you get the idea of it?

In my opinion there is a bit too much on this graphic which creates an multidimensional overload of dens information, which makes it difficult for the viewer to follow the different steps without getting lost or confused. Furthermore, there is a lot of decoration on the graphic which is not necessary to understand the topic of the illustration. 

However, the use of the different colors and the symbols which are used attract my attention and they are really familiar for me, especially the eiffel tower.

At the beginning when I was looking at the top of the graphic I thought it is an advertising for a festival, because it uses the image of a stage and the crowd in front of it, to attract people and emphasize the typical feeling of a festival, where the collective celebration of music is the main goal.

In my opinion I do not think that this graphic could be place on a flyer inside the metro or along the street to attract people to go to festivals because it has a redundant character which is indicated by different topics it talks about. The content of the graphic jumps from one to another information which creates a huge amount of information which needs to be studied for more than a minute to capture the information, otherwise it would easily confuse the viewer and the information gets lost.

In this case I think that you can find this graphic in a newspaper, internet page or magazine which tries to attract the viewer to the new festival season and to give some information of the main festivals in Europe. So in my opinion this graphic is addressed to a specific group which is interested in music but also in festivals.

What is your opinion?

Who makes money with music

I found a really interesting infographic about "who makes money with music". Most of you may thought that famous musicians are so rich because they make the most of the money from what they are selling. Sorry to disappoint you guys if you really thought like this but the following image illustrates in a simple but effective way, who are the big fishes in the music business.

The title of the image is not mentioned here, because i copied the image from a page where the title was written above the image. So imagine that the title would be on the picture which states:

"WHO MAKES MONEY WITH MUSIC"

As you can see, surprisingly the musicians make just 13 % in total out of their music and ticket sales. The big fish in the musician sea are the record labels and especially the distributors which make together 87 % of the sales revenue. 

I like this graphic because it illustrates in figurative by the use of symbolizing the characters of the musicians, record labels and distributors in different colors and size to show who is ruling the music business. Every element in this graphic has a specific function and content would be lost if you remove one of the elements. However, there is a lot of additional information in the band sector which would not be necessarily need. The band could have been summarized into one symbol to indicate the total amount of the band in just one symbol. Anyway i find it quite interesting to see which factors belong to the band and to split up the 100 % of the band in different factors.

The graphic is really simple and easy to understand because it has a unidimensional character according to the fact that it only focuses on the 3 main parts in music business and shows in nice characters "who is gaining who much" out of the music business. Furthermore, in fact of the well use of colors and to distinguish the characters from each other and also the amount of free space which is given in the graphic makes it in my opinion light to follow and light to read. 

The novelty use of familiar human body characters because by showing in colors and also by size  of the main focus on showing"who are the big fishes in the music sea" the graphic only focuses on the topic of showing how many percentage of the sales the main actors in the music business gain from their work.

I was shocked when I saw how much the distributors make in compare to the musicians. I think that this graphic could be in either in a business magazine or musician magazine to emphazise people that in compare to the distributors and record labels, the musicians are poor dogs.

Did you know this before watching this graphic? Leave your comment if you like?

Enjoy

Haircuts in popular music

I found this funny but also interesting infographic and would like to share it with you. The infographic illustrates the haircut of famous musicians in the pop music genre.
Try to find out which haircut fits to which musician without looking on the names. It can be a quite entertaining.

The graphic shows ín a figurative way the hairstyle of different musicians by just showing the shape of the hair without the faces. However, the graphic is still a little bit abstract because if the viewer is not familiar to the person he or she will have problems to define who is who.
You can have a try if you think you are familiar with musicians to see if for you this graphic is figurative or abstract.

The graphic is nicely organized because there is nearly in ever horizontal and vertical line the same amount of haircuts which helps to follow the graphic easily. Furthermore, the use of colour between light and dark colours helps the viewer not to get lost in the amount of information. These are the reasons why I think that this graphic has a lightness and functional style, in fact of the clear structure and colors which are used, which create an appearance of light information. Furthermore, every element in the graphic has its specific function and you can not remove elements without losing the content.

As the graphic only focuses on the haircuts of pop musicians, which are easy to recognize according to the familiarity of haircuts to the viewers eyes. The designer created this simple creation of haircuts just by designing the surface of the haircut and leaves away the faces. Through the different colors which create a novelty in the graphic, because at the first look it may seem that there is a lot of different information, although it focuses only the topic of the haircuts by the symbolic use of close ups. This creates a unidimensional character of the graphic which does not confuse while a viewer looking at it.

In my opinion this graphic could be used for a pop music magazine or also on internet pages which talk about musicians. Furthermore, I think you can use this picture as a poster in your house or apartment to entertain your friends because you can use it as a game when you cut away or hide the names of the musicians.

I would really recommend you to use this picture as an example. Put away the names and find out who is who.

Leave comments of your results. Did you manage to identify at least 10 or more of them?
Tell me your score.

Enjoy

100 years of rock

This visualisation of the development of "100 years of rock" which takes you on a short trip (not more than a minute) through the different genres which have developed over the last 100 years within the rock music genre.

Click on the following link to see the visualization I am talking about:
http://www.concerthotels.com/100-years-of-rock


The infographic shows in an abstract explanation the different genres which have developed within the rock genre in the last 100 years. The lines and the date indicates a historical movement from 100 years ago until now. The use of the labels of the music genres combined with lines in the same color are is significant to not get distracted while watching it.

According to the volume of the data the infographic is highly functional and the amount of information can confuse the viewer, because even though there are lines and dates used to guide the viewer through the information, the graphic creates and overload of information because you can't remove any element without losing the content or its informative propose. At first sight the graphic seemed to be highly multidimensional for me, although if you look through it and you give it a time to understand the graphic it becomes more and more unidimensional and also novelty because it only focuses on genres and subgenres which have developed within the rock music genre and they are mentioned only once within the whole graphic. . The familiar use of lines and labels in the same color makes it in my opinion easy to read, although there is a lot of information given.

In my opinion this graphic needs time to be read and also to be understand, so using it in form of a video clip within a internet page or as a trailer for the development of different genres within the rock music are the only possibilities for me to make use of this graphic. In a magazine or newspaper the graphic would not attract the viewers attention, because all the information would have to given at once which can be confusing according to the different lines and labels. The use of a hierarchical slideshow which guides you step by step through the last century gives the viewer time to understand it.

Leave a comment if you like to.

The history of music

This post is about how music developed from venyl to mp3 and other sources we use nowadays. Its a creative timeline which shows in form of different colors the popularity of each new and old source of music media through the years. From left to right it goes 0% popular to 100% popular.

The infographic is an abstract illustration of a timeline because even though there are different colors used to follow the timeline, there needs to be an explanation next to it to understand it, otherwise the viewer gets irritated. This infographic example is really difficult to classify as a easy or difficult graphic to read, because on the one hand it has a unidimensional character in fact it focuses only on topic of the history of music and its use on hardwares. Furthermore, the use of the horizontal hierarchy of the timelines, which indicates movement,  is a light and easy way to follow the story. On the other hand you can't remove any element without getting the viewer distracted or confused, which makes the graphic highly functional.

Even though the graphic seems to be tricky and difficult to follow, the redundant use of illustrations by repeating familiar symbols which are used in different ways to indicate music hardwares makes it easy to understand. So the repetition of the same symbols keeps the viewer attached to the graphic.

So in my opinion the graphic could be used either in a music magazine or newspaper because it gets the attention of the viewer through the well use of warm and cold colors and furthermore familiar symbols are used as an eye catcher to get quickly the viewers attention.

So feel free to leave your comments.

Where do we listen music to?

This graphic shows a statistic about where music is listened to and how many percentage of the people use this media or location to listen to music.

My analyzation with the tension wheel:

Figuration

My opinion is that the infographic is figurative because the symbol of the soundbox indicades music and the symbols of the location or media give us enough details to understand who and where people listen to music. In fact the graphic gives us enough details to understand what the infographic is exactly about.

Functionality

The graphic consists of element which are important to understand the context of the infographic. So every element has a reason and is important for the context. You can’t remove them without losing the informative purpose.

Lightness

The grapic is light, because the graphic is easily to follow and it doesn’t distract the viewer from the main topic. Also the simple use of symbols which indicates the location or media are easy to understand and they don’t destracte the viewers eyes.

Unidimensional

The graphic is unidimensional because it focuses on the use of music according to the location and media. It focuses on one subjects which are linked to the main topic.

Familiarity

The graphic is familiar to humans from the Western culture, because we can identify the symbols easily.  how a human head and brain looks like.

Novelty

The graphic is novelty because the centered illustration of the soundbox alone doesn’t give us enough details to understand what it is about. We need the different elements around the centered picture to understand the topic and the main idea of the infographic.

Conclusion:

In my opinion this graphic could be used on a flyer or a music magazin, because it attracts quickly the attention of the viewer and it is easily to understand. You don't need a background knowledge to analyze the graphic.

Leave your comments if you like

How music can help your brain

The graphic "Your Kids Brain On Music" shows how important music is for the evolution of a human and how music can help your kids growing in 6 easy steps.

My opinion is that this graphic is an abstract but also figurative illustration because the decorative representation of the human head and brain which is centered in the graphic illustrates in a easy but figurative way, what the graphic is mainly about. However, without the explanation to the image the viewer would not understand what the infographic is exactly about.

According to the less number of different symbols or elements this graphic represents a light graphic, although talking about different subgenres in which way music can effect the brain of kids this graphic is highly multidimensional because it shows in easy but important 6 different steps why music is important when you are young. 

The graphic uses familiar symbols like the head of a human, a pen or a star to make it easy to understand without reading the text, although the graphic is still novelty because the illustration alone doesn't give us enough details to understand what the paragraphs are exactly about. The viewer needs the text to decode the symbols and to understand the main graphic in the center.


In my opinion this graphic could be used in a magazine for parents or even in a magazine for kids, because it is easy to follow according to the hierarchical structure of the topics and it the use of light background colors and cold colors to highlight the paragraphs makes it easy to read.

Please leave your comments if you want

Thanks