On 24 April 2020, I attended an interesting online session by Rafael Höhr on “Applications to create graphics in newsrooms“.
Although the title was explicit, we were going to talk about tools to create graphics, I cannot help thinking that tools are not the most important part in the process of creating graphics. Rafael explained this very well during the session and despite everything we spent (too much) time on tools.
The process of creating graphics should follow this order:
- First, create a story! A story around the questions you want to answer, around what you want to show, around the 5Ws
- Link your story to skills. Surround yourself with a multi-skilled team that will help you analyze, edit, interpret, tell, graph, animate your data.
- At the end only, choose the tool (s) best suited to your needs
My sketchnotes of Rafael’s online session:
Thanks to my colleagues in the EU Publications Office for organising the online session.