This week I came across Owen Gatley‘s bright and cheerful information graphics and was immediately reminded of 50s Fortune, when the magazine was in its heyday in terms of infographics, thanks to their Bauhaus-trained art director, Walter Allner. For those of you who were reading magazines back then, you’ll remember that this was a time when adverts for liquor and men’s ties hogged the margins, destroying any sense of graphic clarity, but Allner did away with all that, making room for double-page, full-color spreads to illustrate information that was difficult to understand.
Gatley here is a chip off the old Allner block. His recent work for clients such as Think Quarterly and The Times does what the best infograhics do: it conveys information and tells a story. Plus, and perhaps most notably, Gatley’s style is approachable, making even a bar chart on diabetes seem friendly.
