Where Serial Killers Prowl + Why Infographic
I am fascinated with true crime. Whether it’s fiction or non-fiction. What intrigues me the most when it comes to true crime, specifically serial killers, is why they do it. What drives a person to kill, is learned, or are we born with it? I constantly research and look for answers once I hear a story. I figured that for this project, it would be interesting to find out this information by creating an infographic of where serial killers prowl and why.
Inspirations
I knew I wanted to create I tried to keep with the investigation board motif. Specifically, the red string is used to connect the information to solve a mystery or murder. I could have gone with a dark tone, but I wanted the red to pop up against a beige background. My second thought was how to layer the content, which was quite a lot to take on from 1910 to 2021. How would I connect the red string with the amount of data I had researched was my first thought. I took some time to dig into Opening and ending title sequences of true crimes, other true crime infographics, book covers, film posters, etc. for inspirations.
Sketches
Wireframes
This infographic was inspired by the questions I have about true crime. It was difficult to get to my final version because I wanted to make the poster look like a detective board. The most common item when it comes to investigation is a red string. I used the red string to direct the viewer's eyes through the narrative. As well as using color red, when it comes to true crime, red seems to always be an accent used to represent blood. I used a texture bloated brush to make it look like old dry blood stains.
Interesting research I found during the process of designing this poster. Going through articles, books, and databases, I found out the main reason why murder rates were high between the 1970s-1980s (known as the Golden Age of Serial Killing). Many can say that most serial killers during that time just snapped with the events politically and socially. But when you look at the data, the serial killer doesn’t have their first kill until their late 20s/early 30s. This means we have to go back 20-25 years to was born and look to their father/mother figures. That is where the Golden Age of Serial Killing is born.