Ode to Freedom
Infographics for the Forbes magazine, Czech Republic, December 2020
Although the Czech Republic is doing quite well, we can be sure that we are not sure of freedom, security, and prosperity. Plus, we can always get even better. This also applies to world premiants, who rarely achieve 100 % results in rankings. It's definitely not just about high GDP, low corruption, grades in school, or ratings, it's about much more. It's about life. And that's why we want a Better Czechia*. As the data show, countries that have freedom are achieving greater prosperity and happiness. Let's go their way!
The first part of my infographic contains data about 30 countries and 8 indexes. These countries are all top 10 from each one of the ratings + Czechia + Slovakia + China + Russia for a more telling comparison. They are ranked from the overall best (Denmark) to the worst (China). Ratings are 7 worldwide indexes + a new Czech Forbes index which gathers ratings from the three most important rating companies Fitch, S&P, and Moody's. Each circle is one country and the color of every field shows the ranking of the country in the index.
The second part is about the Czech Republic. I have researched many international rankings and converted data from 16 of them on a scale from 0 to 100 while 100 is the best possible score. Dots show the position of the Czech Republic this year and the last one, and rankings of Slovakia, Germany, and Denmark. 16 indexes are yellow, all other lines show details from these rankings (environment, macroeconomic stability, easiness to start a business, etc.).
I first start with the idea and gather as much data as possible. The idea for "the sun" evolves from my similar infographic from 2015. And I changed the approach - while it was about rankings in the past now I chose scores. Different indexes use different methods, therefore I had to unify everything for a scale of 0-100.
While I know some of the data my goal is to put as many important information to one simple picture. Therefore I start drawing by hand, using real data, working with digital automatic graphs to see correlations and more important details.
Final drawings with a color scheme and other details goes after approving by a client to a graphic designer who make it perfect. On this final design I worked on with a graphic designer from the Forbes magazine (Czech Republic) Stepan Kettner.
(and you can see my daughter pitched in during the process as well :))
