The 7 Layers of Inception

New Inception Infographic

Hey there Inception Geeks… FastCompany just released a winner for their New Inception Infographic contest and this entry is really really good.  I’ve personally been struggling with the task of trying to understand how all the kicks and jumps work on the way back up to the surface.  My initial dream layer map was even highlighted out an MTV blog even.

But this infographic for me was solving a different problem.  This problem was, how’d everyone migrate downstream and then how did each member kick back to the surface?  Originally had something finished but just didn’t think it popped – so I trashed it.  Being a design geek as well I’m just as much about getting the design right as I am about getting the information right.  So I will continue to work this graphic until I think it works.

But for now I wanted to share this nice graphic your way in case you haven’t seen it yet.  Again, this was created out at a FastCompany competition.  First though lets take a peek at his initial drafts that looks to be done on a napkin of all things.

One major beef I have with this graphic is that it doesn’t explain how Ariadne & Fischer kicked out of Limbo #1.  It doesn’t explain how Cobb and Saito kicked out of Limbo #2.  It doesn’t show whether or not Cobb is dreaming or not… it assumes he isn’t actually.  But there are tons of things that I love about this – especially the skewing of time as the layers go deeper.  Very very cleverly done.