Designing Qatar and India

Circle of Blue design intern Laura Stegmeyer reflects on her first week.

Here’s a preview of one of the infographics I designed for the upcoming Choke Point: India series. Infographic © Laura Stegmeyer / Circle of Blue Click image to enlarge.

This is the beginning of my second week at Circle of Blue as a graphic design intern for the summer. I am from Traverse City originally, but I just finished my second year in the Graphic Design program at Grand Valley State University. I heard about Circle of Blue from my friend Amanda Northrop, who is a year ahead of me at GVSU and interned here last summer.

The first day I started at Circle of Blue, I jumped right into designing pieces for them. During my first week, I worked on setting up a timeline for story production and also made an information brief for director Carl Ganter and senior editor Keith Schneider’s recent trip to Qatar. Read more about their trip in these three In The Circle posts from Keith:

• Qatar Challenges Way of the Desert (April 30, 2013)
• Doha’s Toybox Skyline (May 2, 2013)
• TIQ: This Is Qatar (May 3, 2013)

At the end of last week, assistant editor Aubrey Ann Parker went over the data sets and maps for my current project, an infographic for Circle of Blue’s Choke Point: India story, which will be rolling out in four separate pieces in the next few weeks. The infographic that I’m currently designing focuses on the second story in the series, which is about Punjab and Haryana, two major food-growing states in northern India. Read more about the trip that Carl, Keith, and Aubrey took to India last November and December in three In The Circle posts from Keith:

• Delhi Dispatch: No Running Water But a Delhi Slum Hut Community Teems With Life (December 6, 2012)
• Delhi Dispatch: Rice, Wheat, and Water Serve Up Equal Helpings of Punjab’s Wealth and Risk (December 17, 2012)
• On Water and Energy, India Is Different (January 16, 2013)

–Laura Stegmeyer
Circle of Blue design intern