http://imgur.com/r5v72I9 - Better link
With Gun control being a recent topic for debate in America I decided to take a look at our history with firearms. Australia's gun control used to be similar to America's firearm policy, however, after several mass shootings they were amended to reflect the growing concern of the general public. In the years following the amendment firearm related deaths fell and have remained significantly lower than the levels in 1996 (prior to our current firearm policy). With that said there is once again a growing interest in firearms, and the death rate due to firearms has begun to creep upwards. It is important to remember the importance of gun control in protecting the lives of innocent people, and though there may be more firearm related deaths in recent years than there were several years ago (specifically 2004-05) it has worked in its intended manner.
Its hard to argue against just how effective gun control has been in Australia. Though there will always be some who are opposed to restricting the ownership of firearms the positives far outweigh any of the negatives that could be presented on the subject. By making the restrictions on who can own a firearm stricter without entirely removing them from the general public the Australian model of gun control has also been effective in reducing the black market for firearms in Australia.
I had originally intended to use a much lighter colour palette however, I decided to go with a much more muted colour palette to reflect the issue in a more serious light. The red highlights work to keep the piece engaging and draw the audience's eyes to the graphs and help to account for the otherwise fairly dark colour scheme.
I was going to use bullets to display the information in the graphic however I felt that it made it to hard to differentiate between some of the stacked graphs and it detracted from the overall design. The bullets also didn't translate well to a more muted tone and as a result stood out to much against the rest of the graphic.
The title block depicts two stylised firearms (a shotgun and a revolver) to reflect the data displayed in the infographic. It also uses a slightly altered colour palette to set it appart from the rest of the graphic.