Cover graphic ©Fiell
Think.
A fistful of forceful facts wears their art on their sleeves
BY MAGAZINE EDITOR SUSAN MAIER-MOUL
website Fiell
website Barnbrook
Conversation: Charlotte Fiell
During World War 1, civilian casualties were less than 5%
Today the amount of civilian wounded or killed in wars total 75%
- cited from CSI in The Little Book of Shocking Global Facts
The Little Book of Shocking Global Facts is high gloss performance art: a color-shot compendium of devastating detail pulled into focus with arresting photography, graphic art and fine tuned typography.
Published by Fiell, the book is the next in their Little Book of Shocking Facts series, founded to create a collective sense of urgency through the appeal of strong aesthetic imagery.
Invoking the people-power faith of Gran Fury’s groundbreaking public health campaign “Kissing Doesn’t Kill, Greed and Indifference Do,” the gorgeous art and design forged by the craftspeople of Barnbrook, a London-based creative studio calls forth committed attention to global crisis.
Today’s news on the planet, told in graphic design
Each January brings a round of freshly published annual almanacs and compilations of figures about world economies and governments. It’s a very useful thing this year there’s an illustrated companion to the info stream of import and export.
Every year in India, 5,000 brides commit suicide or are murdered because their dowries are considered inadequate.
Ethical choices in day-to-day life depend upon understanding what’s beneath the seething protests and angry voices of fear and prejudice arising worldwide as we cope with vast financial, educational and healthcare inequities. The “shocking global facts” presented in this sturdy book give readers a foothold in a torrent of headline horror.
Style that champions substance
Where Fiell gets this series completely right is eschewing both cynicism and despair. The ad campaign, poster-style pages are a savvy education in disparities and disjunctions, the bottle rocket truths that underpin global tensions.
“Every day 6,000 people are killed by HIV/AIDS and another 8,200 are infected.”
Fortunately, Fiell is dedicated to turning out volumes that rightly connect our response to a beautifully organized page with focused data points in a way that doesn’t turn them into moral one-upmanship or sugar coated bitter pills.
The result of their dedication is no tricks, no cheap sensationalism, no made-you-look moments that merely exploit the tragic. Rather, the weight of these books appeals to our intelligence, making it seem natural and imperative to care about the incongruities in scale and proportion targeted on page after carefully designed page.
“Between 1998 and 2007, global military spending increased by 45%”
An index of hot zones
The Little Book of Shocking Global Facts is divided into eight content areas including arms trading, human rights, illicit drugs, and the environment. Every graphic is indexed in the back of the book so readers can look up the facts themselves, and gather further information about what most engages, or does in fact, shock.
800,000 people a year are trafficked across national borders.
75% of the victims are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation.
80% of the victims are female.
50% of the victims are minors.
The section on health reminds us, world-wide, “One in ten adult deaths are caused by tobacco attributable diseases.” That’s more than malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS total together. And you may not know the budget ratios for encouraging prescription drug use far outstrips the money provided to find cures:
The U.S. Pharmaceutical industry spends 24.4% on promotion and just 13.4% on research and development.
World trade may seem an impenetrable subject in the daily news, but The Little Book of Shocking Global Facts brings clarity:
If the continents of Africa, East Asia, South Asia and Latin America were able to each increase their share of world exports by just one percent, 128 million people would be lifted out of poverty.
It would generate $70 billion for Africa alone, five times what it receives in aid.
This year, instead of collecting another almanac of information, try gifting young minds, libraries and your own coffee table with a copy of The Little Book of Shocking Global Facts. Bring your favorite readers up to date on the most pertinent little facts at the center of world trends.
Also see our inspiring Conversation with Charlotte Fiell!
Previously in this series The Little Book of Shocking Food Facts
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© 2011, The Magazine of Yoga, LLC.
