For my Infographic project, I decided to focus on the comprehensive nature of hunger and food insecurity in California. Before beginning my research, I did understand the magnitude of the issue, so I expected I would discuss the pervasiveness of hunger throughout the United States as a whole in my infographic. Upon further research, I began to grasp the scope the issue, and decided it would be more informative and poignant to narrow my topic and discuss hunger and food insecurity in California. I used the provided data sets as a starting point for my research, and then laid out the statistics and information I collected to begin drafting the story for my infographic. As a student in Los Angeles, the information I found most important from my research revolved around food insecurity among students in California and hunger in Los Angeles specifically, so I decided to have multiple sections of my infographic that could focus on each of these facets of the problem. The infographic begins with basic facts about hunger and food insecurity in California. I wanted my infographic to act as a funnel — there is more general statistics at the top and the information becomes more specific as the reader continues reading.
As I was researching hunger in Los Angeles, I was shocked by the fact that “food insecurity is on the rise, reaching 20% of LA households,” according to the County of Los Angeles Public Health Department. To make this information visual and engaging, I decided to write this statistic along a rising line with an arrow at the end to show how the percentage is continuing to increase year after year. Instead of illustrating this data on a graph showing the relationship between the year and the percentage of food insecure households in Los Angeles, I decided that using the rising line above the Los Angeles skyline would be more user-friendly and help paint a cohesive and visually-appealing storyline.
When drafting my section about hunger and food insecurity in schools, I had a lot more information than I would be able to include in my infographic. I decided to focus on the angle of summer hunger, which refers to students who rely on federally provided meals during the school year and therefore face food insecurity during the summer months. Personally, I did not know that there were federal and state programs that specifically address the summer hunger gap, so I decided to focus on that portion of food insecurity among students to ideally inform more people about these programs. To make a visual for the statistic that 20% of students go to bed hungry each night according to the California Association of Food Banks, I found a picture of a cartoon black and white lunchbox on Google Images, and put it through Photoshop. On Photoshop, I edited the picture so only 20% of it would be in color, while the rest is in black and white. I am pretty happy with how the edit came out, because the vibrant colors and the lunchbox itself help transition the storyline to talking about schools and students. The drastic difference between the color and the black and white sections of the lunchbox helps emphasize the divide between students that exists because of food insecurity.
The final section of the infographic serves as the call to action. By this point, the reader has made it down the funnel, seeing the more general information at the top and more specified information about hunger and food insecurity in Los Angeles and schools in the middle. With that information, the reader now has a deeper understanding about the scope of the issue, and can use the call to action at the bottom as a starting point to help alleviate the issue. Based on my research, I suggested that people volunteer at their local food bank, donate to initiatives aiming to end hunger and food insecurity, and help educate others about the extent of this issue in California and beyond.
Bon Dia Barcelona 