One of the best ways to communicate a complex idea is through visuals. As a designer this is something I face every day. How can I express as many words as possible, using as little as possible? But it is also extremely useful for instruction. A speaker or teacher who knows how to use illustrations will be far more effective than one who counts on their words alone. 

In the last several years animation has become the internet’s info-spreading- tool-of-choice, whereby quirky and witty illustrations are put with audio in an entertaining 1-5 minute format – making it easy to pass around among friends to share its humorous and/or educational value.

Here are a couple of my recent favorites, which are both about money, hence the heavy use of green. 

1) “A Trillion Dollars Visualized” illustrates the enormous size of a number that has been thrown around by the President and Congress lately. 

2) “The Crisis of Credit Visualized” is a bit long, but it does a great job of making sense out of a complex and unfamiliar system. I may note though, that it seems to leave out two important players: the sub-prime mortgage borrowers and the government pressures and regulations.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized