This is probably one of the more fun radial graphs I've ever seen. Although the information doesn't have to be portrayed in this manner and could convey the message just as well in table form, I don't think the radial design detracts from the overall infographic at all.
Ahh, I do love me some interactive maps. These maps of the distribution of mobile tweets that included location tags in 4 different cities are cool, but I kind of wish I could see the data overlaid on physical maps of the layout of the city, rather than the boroughs merely being indicated by a point.
See all four cities here!
At least that's what Education Web Design thinks, and I totally agree! :)
"By definition, an Infographic is 'an Information graphic – a visual representation of data.' When you have complex statistics and data, how else are you going to give it that mass appeal that new media companies are striving for?"
While it's rather sparse on text, I do love the cleanliness of the above infographic they featured.
I was Web surfing during a quick work break today and came across these beautiful infographics generated by Well Formed Eigenfactor, which creates interactive visualizations based on Eigenfactor Metrics. Absolutely gorgeous....
Information is Beautiful currently has a nice collection of infographic works from design duo Tyler Lang and Elsa Chaves. Their stuff is clean, visually appealing and most importantly, gets the message across in a clear and concise manner. Check out the full showcase to see more of their creations.
Specifically, long-distance communication via technology, and not communication powered by humans and animals trekking long distance to deliver written messages or to speak to your in person. I'm quite surprised the tin can and a string trick wasn't discovered until 1810. Anyways, super fun, super clean. Overall, well done, even if it is a promotional infographic for Google Voice.
Another one! I just can't get enough of these, because they're so funny and yet so true! Infographic Showcase has an even larger version so you can see the whole thing in all its snarky glory.
So beautiful and elegant! If only I could find a bigger version and actually read the text!
With my contract coming to an end soon with my current cellphone carrier, I've begun looking into whether I want to upgrade up to a better phone or go with something else entirely. Luckily Chart Porn posted this infographic today to help me decide.
Jam packed with all sorts of information, this is a go-to source for info about the American Presidency. The creator of the Infographic has quite a resume:
"Designed by Nathaniel Pearlman--one of the founders of Time Plots, which creates infographic posters, and also a former student of Edward Tufte--the Visual History provides historical data on population, presidential elections, Congress, the Supreme Court, the Cabinet, the U.S. economy, and the federal budget and debt. And that, '...places each president in historical context, visualizing a remarkable range of political, social, and economic measures to succinctly tell the story of the presidency.'"
via Fast Company
Wow if I could make this infographic into a poster I would. At the very least it deserves a new place of honor as my desktop wallpaper. Anyway, Eric Fischer has put together a bunch of maps of major cities based on photos uploaded to Flickr. In addition to mapping where the most photos were being uploaded, he also broke the data down into his guesstimation of which ones were taken by tourists and which ones were locals. Here's how he describes the breakdown:
"Blue points on the map are pictures taken by locals (people who have taken pictures in this city dated over a range of a month or more).
Red points are pictures taken by tourists (people who seem to be a local of a different city and who took pictures in this city for less than a month).
Yellow points are pictures where it can't be determined whether or not the photographer was a tourist (because they haven't taken pictures anywhere for over a month). They are probably tourists but might just not post many pictures at all."
Check out the full set of maps on Flickr.
via Flowing Data
Here's a fun interactive infographic that displays two variables over time: absolute number of unemployed people per state and percentage of unemployed people compared to total labor force. It even throws in an extra bonus by displaying each state's bubble in its geographic location with respect to the others.
Link to the interactive infographic is here: http://datadrivenconsulting.com/js/protovis/cartogramemp.html
via Chart Porn
via Geekologie
The unit of measurement is number of degrees per square mile, which in of itself isn't bad but it doesn't put the figures into perspective. What would be really fascinating is to compare that number with the total number of people living per square mile. For example, the top two cities in the graph are San Francisco and New York. As a Bay Area resident and a frequent visitor to New York, I can tell you that the overall density and number of people in New York City is way, way higher than the overall density of San Francisco. With so many people packed into such a small space, it makes sense that New York has a high number of graduates, but as a percentage this group may be just a tiny fraction of the overall population. Considering San Francisco has a small total population and population density than New York, it's all the more impressive that it ranks on the top of the list. (of course, as a native, I may be a bit biased in my perceptions, hehehe).
"Here's my guess about what happened. A deadline was coming up quick, and a graphics editor put this together to get a feel for what the final design would look like. He then saved it as a different file, and then went to work. Except when it came time to send the file to the printers, the editor sent the wrong file. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often."
(via Flowing Data)
(via Flowing Data)
(via Infographic Showcase)
(via Smashing Magazine)
(via Geekologie)
"Salmon." Heh. Then there's also their amusing breakdown of the top color names by gender. The most popular colors used by women were:
There's a lot more on the xkcd blog. It's definitely an amusing read. :)
The trend looks pretty damning indeed until you realize that the y-axis only ranges from 3.0 to 3.5, which means the difference between a student who consumes zero drinks of alcohol per week and those who have 6+ drinks a week is far less than a full letter grade. At that point you kind of have to wonder if you can even really call it a trend anymore. I for one don't really have much faith in GPAs as an indicator of intelligence or performance because of the wide-spread proliferation of grade inflation (or maybe I'm just bitter because most of my engineering classes were curved to a C average, which honestly is as it should be).
Anyways, check out more examples in the full post.
If the intention of the artist was to demonstrate its complexity, then they've definitely succeeded. But if the diagram was actually intended to be a useful tool for discussion and planning then it utterly fails. Ultimately, the article isn't about this diagram at all but how PowerPoint tends to oversimplify complex and difficult concepts into rigid bullet point lists.
See the full New York Times article for more details.
Full article here (via Chart Porn)
via Geekologie
via Fast Company
Full article here (via Chart Porn)
Speaking of food intake, the New York times had an article in its business section about how commercialized, processed foods have begun to completely dominant the average American diet. What's interesting about the breakdown of different countries' food intake is how much baked goods Mexico each, how many veggies China eats and how incredibly little India eats in general.
Full NYTimes article here.
I agree wholeheartedly.
via (Infographic Showcase)
(Full poster via Zazzle)
Heather Lins Home (via Boing Boing)
"The expansion of Web technology over the past decade has opened a number of doors to presenting data online. One of the most rapidly improving tools for interactive presentation is the map."
"Interactive maps on the Internet present data most effectively when they invite action from the user. Showing relationships between data is easier when the user has the power to change the visuals. These are advantages that traditional print maps do not have. If a print map is not clear initially, a person can do very little to make sense of it. With online interactive maps, the simple action of moving sliders around reveals relationships between data and content."
Here are some of the more nifty examples of different map navigation styles they provide:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/election/uscounties.html
http://awesome.good.is/ecosystem/#/home
Check out the full Smashing Magazine article!
This other infographic, from Chart Porn, declares that North Korea has 1.1 million. Even though that's the smallest nominal-size military on the chart, it's put up in huge red highlights above the other countries listed. Nominally, China is now the biggest military in the world and the U.S. is number 2.
http://www.onlineschools.org/blog/the-craziest-country-in-the-world/
Both charts try to emphasize North Korea's huge military with respect to its population and GDP, but go about it very differently. Personally, despite the use of area to represent 1-dimensional data, the first chart is much better at showing just how ridiculous North Korea's military is compared to the actual size and resources of the country, whereas in the second chart you have to look all over the place to piece together the full picture, and the nominal rankings of the countries is confusing when looked at separately from the rest of the infographic.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/04/02/nyregion/taxi-map.html
He goes through and makes the chart clearer, step by step, to make trends in the data easier to discern. Eventually he gets to this chart, which looks like a total breath of fresh air when put up next to the original:
Jon goes through several different ways of displaying the data. It's definitely worth the quick read here.
http://flowingdata.com/2010/03/20/graphical-perception-learn-the-fundamentals-first/
"The two of us see the world as a stream of color, and in 2009 we finally had a chance to draw the river in our heads. We began with a collection of photographs of the Boston Common taken from Flickr. Using an algorithm developed for the WIRED Anniversary visualization, our software calculated the relative proportions of different colors seen in photos taken in each month of the year, and plotted them on a wheel. The image below is an early sketch from the piece. Summer is at the top, with time proceeding clockwise."
Read the full post for close-ups of each season and the final infographic.
You can get the full lowdown about the new feature at the company's official blog.
(via Geekologie)
The next is intended to highlight McDonalds:
(via Consumerist)
Through a simple change in color scheme, what was glaringly obvious in one version suddenly blends in and is almost unnoticeable in another.
