Nicolas Rapp / Information Design

Data Visualization

Nicolas Rapp — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 23:16:16 +0000

It’s very useful to provide users with visualizations that help them to easily understand complex problems or situations. Nick has experience working with large databases, including financial and economic data sets, and has the analytical and editorial skills to select data that is relevant to show visually.

Data maps and cartography

Nicolas Rapp — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 23:00:10 +0000

During his career, Nick has regularly spent time creating maps. He is passionate about cartography and fond of experimenting with data and geographic overlays. Nick uses ArcGIS software to prepare maps and map-based data visualizations as well as Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop to refine the illustrated aspects. He has spent time developing new methods of illustrating elevation maps through the use of a 3D application, and by using animation and lighting techniques. He also worked with interactive Web programmers to create dynamic maps to display election results or other relevant data.

Information Graphics

Nicolas Rapp — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 22:59:43 +0000

Nick has been creating information graphics for the past 15 years. His work has been published by the Associated Press, The New York Times, Fortune magazine, as well as many international newspapers, books and Web sites. Working across all mediums and with many types of information, he has developed a diverse style that includes hand drawings, classic vector-style illustrations, pictograms, diagrams, and complex 3D renderings. He has experience reporting and creating graphics about topics such as international news, politics, economics, sports, science and medical reports. He is also experienced with architectural renderings and others to-scale illustrated models.

Art Direction

Nicolas Rapp — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 20:18:49 +0000

Since May 2011, Nick is the Graphic Editor at Fortune Magazine, a division of Time Inc. In the ten previous years, Nick has been the art director at the Associated Press and managed a team of 30 graphic artists to report and produce daily news graphics. He was responsible for selecting stories on a daily basis for graphic coverage and leading the departmental response to breaking and feature news coverage. On large projects, he provided detailed sketches or wireframes for print or interactive packages to direct artists in the production of visual content. In addition to art directing, Nick also completed many projects himself. So on any given afternoon, you could have found Nick in his office, juggling with the phone, working on a graphic and answering artists’ questions on the fly.
News never stops, and Nick doesn’t sleep. He is used to be reachable 24/7, and always ready for breaking news.
He also has the weakness to think that there is no problem he can’t solve. On his most recent project, he decided after studying a mountain of maps that hit would be possible for a determined man to drive a car around the world. 425 days later, he was back in New York after driving 37,000 miles through three-dozens countries.

Interactive Graphics

Nicolas Rapp — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 19:33:04 +0000

Click to see an interactive on water contamination

Click to see an interactive on urban combat in Iraq

Click to see an interactive about U.S. unemployment

Click to see an interactive about caves in Afghanistan

Click to see an interactive about debts

Click to see an interactive about laser weapons

Click to see an explainer on aircraft carriers

Click to see a video about the stimulus package

Nick has extensive experience using Macromedia Flash to produce data visualization and animated explainers by himself and working with programmers for more complex database-linked interactive graphics. More recently, Nick has been working on short videos for the iPhone platform. He was part of a team of editors and producers developing ideas and scripts on very tight deadlines (three to four days) for mobile news delivery.

Nick’s blog on information graphics

Nicolas Rapp — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 00:11:00 +0000

Nick maintains a blog located at http://nicolasrapp.com.
It is updated in average every three weeks.