Infographics have been around for a long time. Here's one diagramming the features of a future Ocean Liner... at least it was in the future when the graphic was created in the late 30s.

The style is representational (literal), with a very useful illustration device called a cut-away view to show parts of the interior. The artwork is also in perspective, and the subject is shown in an oblique view, which is harder to execute, but allows the graphic to be more detailed in the foreground while still showing the whole. It also uses keys for labeling, so the illustration itself is not cluttered.

Helicopter Seat Back Briefing Card

Here's an Infographic (below) I created for some Las Vegas helicopter tour companies to use as their FAA-required seat-back emergency instructions. You've seen them whenever you fly commercially in an airliner... well helicopters require them too.

Actually this is an illustrative instruction sheet I emailed to my printer so that they actually create the piece and process it the way I want it to be done from the files I provided... You'd be amazed at how often printers make mistakes. Then who pays? All eyes on the artist :-(

Actually when I think about it, this is an infographic of an infographic.. Don't get dizzy ;-)

Four Seasons Maui Site Diagram

These kinds of projects are great, a whole lot of work, but fun to do.

The Four Seasons Maui is a large, sprawling and very complex facility, built on a hillside on the ocean, with part of the facility actually tucked underground. My marching orders on this one was to create a diagram that helped the user understand the facility at a glance... To be used as a presentation piece for planning and even though 4SM is an escorted resort, this piece could still be used as a navigation guide. The marleting director that hired me ha been inspired by a cut-away view of a Spanish Galleon in a coffee table book he had.

Why not use an architectural rendering? Architectural software is not really an illustration tool, and doesn't offer the kind of control needed for coloring, interpretation, and creativity that illustration software does. This was doen entirely in Adobe Illustrator vector drawing tools, without any raster (pixel) based parts, which offers infinite scalability and the ability to quickly add or alter the illustration at any level of detail, since each and every element is it's own distinct entity. We update this one every year... the entire pool area on the right was added in 2009.