I was particularly excited to tackle a new topic with this infographic. My last topic, I felt, was harder to display in an infographic because there was not much specific information regarding the topic I was researching.
I decided to choose HIV and AIDS as a topic because it is something I have been studying for a while. I took a class titled “HIV/AIDS in Africa” about two or three semesters ago. That course inspired me to write a play on the topic. Before taking that class, I had no idea about all the ins and outs of HIV/AIDS. I knew when the disease first came to the United States, a lot of officials and the general population were blaming its spread on gay men and homosexual sex.
This might sound ridiculous, but I didn’t even know that HIV still had as many new cases of infection as it did. I thought the illness had pretty much died out because there were so many treatments available. Taking the HIV/AIDS course really opened my eyes and made me realize how important it was to spread knowledge on the topic. I haven’t heard it widely discussed in the media since around elementary or middle school, in the early 2000’s. There have been some publications and billboards but for the most part the frenzy has died down drastically.
This topic was much smoother to research. There are so many online publications and databases about the HIV/AIDS crisis. There are documentaries, news articles, studies, and the like that are accessible with just a google search. This made it much easier to be invested in the topic. With the theatre and film topic, most of my research was rooted in frustration about not being able to find the desired databases or centers of information and because of this it was a little more difficult to really connect to and express passion about the topic.
My second graphic definitely came out better and more useful. The first one was kind of dull. It had some misinformation and was also a bit wordy. I was having some trouble getting a handle on the website at first and I think that affected the outcome as well. This project helped me to buff some graphic design skills. I enjoyed getting to research a topic of my choice and gather what facts and images I saw as important. This felt like a perfect mix between creativity and data collection.
Around The Way with Alexsis 