Le nouvel essor de l’open data est pour un graphiste comme moi assez intéressant. Comme l’a fait Otto Neurath dans la première moitié du 20e siècle, Les données libres permettent, ou accentuent la possibilité, de rendre plus clairement lisible et visible ces fameuses données sous forme d’infographie. Sur des sujets complexes, cette nouvelle manière d’illustrer des faits est particulièrement précieuse. Mais ce dont je voudrais vous parler maintenant va plus loin.
Il s’agit du projet que j’ai eu l’occasion de découvrir sur Internet et que j’aimerai partager avec vous. Il s’agit de The Noun Project ( http://thenounproject.com/ ).
Je m’en suis servi récemment pour partager des pictogrammes que j’ai réalisé pour un projet, Voxe.org. Je cherchais un endroit pour mettre à disposition mes icones et permettre leur réutilisation par d’autre, qui auraient pu les trouver utiles. En effet, une image va souvent plus loin que son seul aspect esthétique, elle sert à véhiculer un message. A communiquer.
The Noun project est donc une grande bibliothèque de signes, pictogrammes, symboles, icones… en open data. La plateforme qui regroupe environ 500 symboles ou “nouns” permet en effet, en fonction de differentes licences, de réutiliser et transformer des icones.
Au delà de leur curation de pictogrammes, un autre aspects intéressant du projet est que ces fondateurs organisent régulièrement des hackathons pour créer sur un thème de nouvelles icônes et ainsi développer et compléter leur base de données. The noun project a récemment accueillit un “Iconathon” pour créer de nouveaux signes autour de la notion d’efficacité energétique, et de lumière LED. Grâce aux participant du Iconathon qui se tenait à Durha, 15 nouveaux symboles ont vus le jour dans le domain public.
A while ago I participated in a workshop at Transmediale about illustrations and wikipedia. There were many reflections regarding the apparent contradiction between demands for a neutral, objective description and the ability to visually convey meaning which is never entirely neutral. We sat down and collaboratively produced illustration for very abstract concepts and it was hard! Somehow this process of collaboration/ collaborative production of visual communication was the least difficult part of the challenge, but it is something that interests me deeply. The other aspect more directly tied to an understanding of and ability to interpret open data— which of the icons that you created was the trickiest and why?
By the way you may be interested in checking out what Jody has written about Design Occupy Uk.
Thanks a lot for the link to Jody’s article. I’m going to have a look to it. It seems quite interesting.
A year ago I had almost the same experience as you did during a workshop I was leading, on the creation of signs for an event.
The job of designing pictograms or icons, becomes hard when the concept is abstract. The difficulty concerning what I did for Voxe was that an icon was associated to a category that melt different concepts. If I had to choose one, I would say this one : Society Icons - Free SVG & PNG Society Images - Noun Project because it has to represent : society, family and immigration. Not so easy.
Thanks a lot for the link to Jody’s article. I’m going to have a look to it. It seems quite interesting. A year ago I had almost the same experience as you did during a workshop I was leading, on the creation of signs for an event. The job of designing pictograms or icons, becomes hard when the concept is abstract. The difficulty concerning what I did for Voxe was that an icon was associated to a category that melt different concepts. If I had to choose one, I would say this one : Society Icons - Free SVG & PNG Society Images - Noun Project because it has to represent : society, family and immigration. Not so easy.
