Basel startup receives award
The architecture magazine Arch + and the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation have announced an international competition for information design. Among the winners is a design startup from Basel.
More data is available today than ever before. But how can meaningful information be extracted from this sea of data? How can we meet the need for legibility, clarity and orientation? Which facts are unobserved or underexposed? These were the questions addressed by the international competition "Out of Balance - Critique of the Present. Information Design according to Otto Neurath". The task was to record social inequality on the basis of empirical material and make it tangible.
499 designers, scientists and students from 18 countries took part in the competition. Six 1st category prizes, six 2nd category prizes and five commendations were awarded. The only Swiss participant to win was the young design agency Yaay from Basel. The interdisciplinary team, consisting of specialists in the disciplines of graphic design, product design, IT, economics and sociology, specializes in the visualization of complex issues.
Yaay's award-winning work "Looking beyond the horizon: wages and prices in the world's major cities" refers to the discourse on social justice and fairness. It addresses the growing discrepancy between the incomes of individual occupational groups within a society using the example of twenty cities in different countries.
One subject (see above) graphically illustrates the income gap for various cities, while another shows the different purchasing power of the income of the occupational groups for various consumer goods and services depending on the city/country. Finally, the purchasing power of food in the lowest income group is shown for the respective cities and compared with the purchasing power that the income of a Zurich worker would have in the respective city. You can find the subjects here as PDF.
All winners and further information on the competition: Archplus.net.
