The Functional Art (Profile 2: Juan Velasco and Fernando Baptista) - MariaAguilarV/JMM-622-Infographics-and-Data-Visualization GitHub Wiki

Continuing with the interviews shared in the Functional Art, this time Cairo speaks with Juan Velasco, who was the art director of National Geographic Magazine from 2005 until 2014; and Fernando Baptista, a senior graphics director of National Geographic Magazine. They started talking by explaining the creative process of infographics at the magazine. Once the story is approved, they gather a team composed by a photo editor, a copy editor, an infographics or art editor, a cartographer, and a researcher. Then, after some months of discussion, the team presents a proposal to the editor in chief and once it is approved, the researcher in the team investigates about the topic and passes the information to the artist to create the art for the story. The process is a back and forward of sketches and redesigns. The infographics made at National Geographic have to be as accurate as possible, thus they have to be careful with every detail and information they share. Even more, before publishing an infographic, many experts review and approve them. Depending on the chosen topic, this process can take months, or it can take a few weeks. For instance, it could take months because sometimes they travel to the place where their story is going on so that they ensure that their work is based on the reality.

Then, the interviewees shared an example of one infographic they designed about a temple in Turkey and they told the story of how they achieved such amazing work. What impressed me the most in the process was that the 3D model of the temple was actually made of clay, it started as a model but then they decided to use it instead of making a 3D illustration using the technology. For the final piece, they took pictures of the model from different angles and added the details with Photoshop. Another stunning work was the representation of the Basilica of The Holy Family, in Barcelona, and it is an example of how deep they investigate to make their infographics, they took such detailed information that they helped the architect to find a misleading calculation in the architecture planes to restore it.

Reading about this process meant a lot to me, I did not have an idea of how these infographics are made in a professional environment, especially when the environment is a renowned magazine like National Geographic. This reminded me when I was working on my second project for the Data Visualization class and I was looking for some inspiration for infographics about Peru. I found the image below, precisely from National Geographic, and I thought it was beautiful. Illustrating the Amazonia, showing its regions, the flora and fauna that can be found there, and transmitting the beauty of them is extremely hard, but they made it possible.