Mapping the Seven Deadly Sins

Geography students from Kansas State University have mapped the Seven Deadly Sins as committed by US residents. The results are pretty interesting, and arguably predictable in many cases. I enjoy that the Greed and Envy maps are so reflective of each other. The sources of the data used to create the spacial distributions is unclear, but an interesting perspective none the less.

Murmur Study

To me, anything you say on Twitter is said in an instant, and if you hear it - you hear it, and if you don't - you don't. I sometimes forget that Twitter is permanent, archived, indexed and searched. Christopher Baker's project, Murmur Study, helps put that into perspective. He has created two installations that print out local tweets on long rolls of paper and drop to the museum floor. Creating an "absurdity of the physical archive" of conversations.

I've seen lots of Twitter visualizations, but none quite as thought provoking as this one. Fantastic idea. (Found through ComputerLove).

Synchronous Objects

Synchronous Objects is a super interesting collaboration between choreographer William Forsythe and Ohio State University's Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design. It is a series of projects is to explore the art of dance from a scientific and data visualization perspective.

One of the sub projects, entitled Cued Annotations, visualizes a dance where each of the dancers starts their part upon a specific cue from one of their fellow dancers. You can watch the dancers preform the dance from a front or above stage view, and then re-watch the choreography with all the cues and their effects annotated. The project creators were "interested in the intensity and integrity of the dancers' attention to one another, the rapid exchange of information, and the different qualities of motion in each cue response". I can't wait to see more

Exactitudes

Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek are a German photographer and profiler, who have spent the last 15 years studying the dress codes of social groups. They have published a book and website featuring their photographs and findings, called Exactitudes (Exact + Attitude).

Members of the same social group are photographed in similar poses. Juxtaposing their similarity with their desire for individuality. Providing "an almost scientific, anthropological record of people's attempts to distinguish themselves from others by assuming a group identity".

Wikirank

One of the most interesting things about sites that aggregate data is what they can say about trends over time. The more popular the site, the more interesting its trend data. Wikirank is a site that tracks activity on Wikipedia pages over time. Graphing the results to show changes in page popularity. Out of the ordinary spikes generally reflect a news worthy event. The site also allows for a number of pages to be compared for more long term data. The image above shows the popularity of each of the Beatles' members. Clearly John is the most interesting (to Wikipedia readers).

We Tell Stories

We Tell Stories is a website created by Six to Start for Penguin books. It features 6 writers, telling 6 stories, in 6 weeks. The project takes classic Penguin titles and retells the stories in a digital format - but not your typical, eBook style digital format. Six to Start consider themselves modern storytellers who tell stories using high tech interactive methods and media. Of the 6 stories, one is told using areal view map fly overs, one is told using twitter, two are web based choose your own adventure stories, another was written in real time with real time readers, and yet another was interpreted by Nicholas Felton's data driven infographic style.

Whew. And I'm sure there is much more to come. The world of digital and location based storytelling is just beginning. (Found through Half Deserted Streets).

The World of 100

Toby Ng set out to simplify his world view by imagining the global population was a village of just 100 people. From this minimalized perspective, he was able to create a set of beautiful and effective posters to visualize global statistics.

Edible Prints

Mmmmmm, paper. My mouth is actually watering at the thought of these Edible Prints by Sawa Tanaka. So much thought has gone into the descriptions of the flavors and the method of eating, that you can't help but get drawn into the illusion. (Found through the always inspiring DesignNotes).

How Benjamin Button got his face

I really enjoyed the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Particularly because I was so enthralled by the special effects used to make the actors look younger and older. They were amazingly well done. I just watched Ed Ulbrich's TED talk about how Digital Domain created Benjamin's face, and now I'm even more impressed. His head is computer generated for the first hour of the film. The process that they created to make the effects realistic is pretty incredible. They innovated by using "technology stew" - combining little bits of relevant technology gems from gaming and medical imaging. I recommend listening to the explanation. They had me at phosphorescent makeup...

Baby Name Map of USA

The Baby Name Wizard has mapped baby name trends over time. If you want to know where and when a baby name was popular in the United States, just type in the name and explore the maps. The maps are viewable by year, highlighting the peak year and the trends over time.

Synoptic

I'm always looking for new inspiration to feed my information visualization addiction. Today I found that inspiration in Synoptic. Synoptic was created by German design student Roland LoBlein. It visualizes meteorological data specified by the viewer, and arranged chronologically. The visualizations are beautiful, but what really got me was the ability to turn the graph around in 3D. It immediately gives the data more life and relevance. OK, I'm going to say it again - Damn, I thought I hated charts. (Found through Computerlove).

So Many A Second

So Many A Second tries to visualize statistics in a friendly way on a "human scale". It uses falling graphics to represent events on a per second basis. You can choose the type of statistic to visualize, or enter your own stats. Shown above is 27 Mobile Phones sold per second.

The Breathing Pot

The Breathing Pot uses your emotional connection to living things to help remind you to water your plants. We all know that plants are living organisms, but sometimes we forget to treat them that way (guilty). Designer Jae-Han Song visualized life in a plant by creating a pot that appears to breath. The small subtle motion of breathing reminds you that the plant is alive. When the breathing stops, it's time to water!

You Are Free to Leave

GOOD Magazine created this interactive info-graphic showing the number of Americans issued passports by state population. It also shows the number of passports issued nationally over the years. It would be interesting to see this information juxtaposed with how many people actually left the country.

The Photographic Dictionary

The Photographic Dictionary defines words using photographs to accompany words. They are not your everyday A is for Apple type of dictionary photographs. The meaning of the word is photographically described through literal, figurative or personal interpretations. The photographs manage to give some emotion to the definitions. Definitions of everyday words like "lonely" or "home" are so beautifully enhanced by a descriptive photograph. I'm inspired to start my own personal version.

Wanderlust

Wanderlust is a fun infographic map from GOOD Magazine. It maps the most famous journeys of all time. Factual and fictional adventures are mashed up together onto one map. Each trip has information and images along the route. Journeys range from Amelia Earhart's round the world trip to the route from Around the World in 80 Days.

Typographic Links

Typographic Links was a book created by Dan Collier to experiment with typography. Words in the book are sewn together with strings, creating analogue hyperlinks across the pages. The red strings create a 3D web of information connections. It reminds me a bit of Kevin Kelly's Ted Talk: Predicting the next 5000 Days of the Web.

Plug into Now

I generally browse the web on high speed. Sprint's Now Network Widget made me stop in my browsing tracks and pause in one place for a few minutes. The widget displays all sorts of semi-useless, but incredibly interesting information about what is happening around the world and the web right now. Displayed info includes tons of eggs being produced, the top word being used online, number of calls being made to 911, and much more. I'm still watching the numbers tick...

Everymoment Now

Everymoment Now is an info-graphic comparing mentions of American presidential nominees Obama and McCain in the news. It provides an interesting glanceable history of the election talk over the past few months. Drilling down to either nominee shows a more detailed view of the references. Check back in on Everymoment Now after the election to see their next project. (Found through the always fabulous Swissmiss).

Mycrocosm

Mycrocosm is a web app that allows you to chart whatever useless information you feel like. I know, it sounds terrible but it's great. It's a lovely view into the daily lives of others. There is something about mundane information that just lends itself to charts.

Olympic Medal Count Map

The New York Times never fails to impress with their interactive info graphics. They have some great Olympic graphics currently on their site including this Olympic Medal Count Map, which animates a world map based on the amount of medals each country wins at the Olympics over the years, ending with this year's current count.

Movie Box Office Charts

Movie Box Office Charts are illustrations created by Zach Beane. Each chart tracks a year's worth of movies, showing the top 25 movies for every weekend. The movies from each week are color coded, allowing you to easily track how long the movie stayed in the charts and how its ranking changed over time. (Found through Neoformix).

Music Animation Machine

I attended Edward Tufte's class today. The class itself wasn't as inspiring as I had hoped for. I was inspired by the class's opening example - this Music Animation Machine by Stephen Malinowski. The Music Animation Machines visualizes music by animating the notes one on top of the other. The effect is very beautiful and allows you to see the complexity of the compositions. The Music Animation Machine is not new, it was first animated in the mid 80's, which is part of what I like about it.

Pulse

Pulse is a live visualization of recent emotional expressions written on blogger.com. Blogged emotional expressions are parsed using a list of synonyms which are translated into physical changes on a rubbery heart. This project has a fascinating mix of human emotions and computer data data. Feelings are coded as data in blogs, and the data is turned back into Pulse, an object with its own sense of life. I appreciate that the end result seems very alive, but very robotic at the same time. It appropriately represents the mix of warm emotions and cold data that are feeding it. Pulse is the thesis project of University of the Arts Berlin student, Markus Kison. (Found through Computerlove).

Barcode Plantage

German design student, Daniel A Becker, had created this great interpretation of a barcode reader. Barcode Plantage is a barcode visualizer, programmed using Processing. The program turns barcodes into coloured Bezier curves, complete with an auditory interpretation and definition of some of the number's meanings. Prints of the barcodes are available for $7 each.

Extinction Timeline

This trending map has taken a slightly backwards but highly effective approach. Instead of showing when technologies or trends will take off, the Extinction Timeline shows when things will no longer exist in any significant way. It provides a really great perspective of the future. I'm not looking forward to the 2025 years when we will lose work-free weekends, blogging and most upsetting, the Maldives (note to self: book trip soon). (Found through Swissmiss).

F**k Grapefruit

I Ffffound this chart today created by xkcd. I've been having chart and graph woes this week (if you are a long time reader this will not be a shock to you), so I found this chart particularity enjoyable. It graphs fruits based on their ease of consumption vs their tastiness. I'm not sure I agree with all the fruit placement. Peaches are not that easy to eat and tomatos are good! My favorite part of this image is the title - F**k Grapefruit.

All of Inflation's Little Parts

The New York Times Online often impresses me with its great online interactive graphics. I noticed this one earlier this week. It is an info graphic to visualize the spending changes that are affecting inflation in the US. Each shape represents a different category; showing how much the average American spends and how spending in that category has changed over the past year. I like that they are playing on the idea of a soap bubble for their graphic... very inflation appropriate.

Country Codes

This map of the internet country codes is really nice to look at. I wouldn't use it as an information resource (I mean, who uses .US anyway?) but it's a great graphic. Available as a poster from Byte Level.

Designing The News

I'm enjoying Dave Bowker's website, Designing The News. Dave describes the site as "A series of experiments which visually explore the news in various ways to encourage new ways of seeing a predominantly text based medium." David has a cool throwing-it-out-there approach to his ideas which I appreciate.

I was attracted to his most recent visualization experiment, One Week of The Guardian: Wednesday. Each circle represents a different news category, arranged from the center outwards according to each category's total word count. His idea expands out to link the category rankings from one day to another to track a whole year's worth of news stories. This is a cool overall visualization. It reminds me a bit of the Digg Labs work, but with a rockn' retro color scheme.

Invisible Journeys

Oli Laurelle has created these interesting visuals to depict wireless networks along a journey. The image above shows a journey in time (starting at the 3 o'clock position and moving clockwise) from the Barcelona city center to the airport, by train. Each "pin" represents a unique WiFi source. I'm not exactly sure how to interpret these visuals as any sort of map or story, but they sure are fascinating pieces of art. (Found through Visual Complexity).

New York Talk Exchange

NYTE (New York Talk Exchange) is part of MIT's Senseable City Lab projects that look at how we describe and understand cities as technologies change. NYTE is a series of real time visualizations showing internet and telephone traffic flowing into and out of New York City. I particularly liked the World Inside New York visual showing what parts of the world New Yorkers were calling. It gives some interesting insight into the inhabitants of different neighbourhoods. The communications patterns draw attention to the relationship New York has with the rest of the world. It would be interesting to see these stats tracked over time.

The Shape of Family

I stumbled across the stunning information graphics of Christina Van Vleck today. I was particularly drawn to her Shape of Family project (shown above). It's a series of 5 graphics that depicts the family lines of herself and her 4 sets of grandparents. This is a nice, clean way of depicting a family tree. The circular shape takes lends itself to the expanding shape of the generations. Very nice.

River Glow

An important step in environmental change is to raise awareness. River Glow's raises awareness about water pollution by using a simple visual indicator to communicate water quality. Designed by The Living, River Glow is a floating system that monitors a river's pH level and gives off red or green light to indicate pollution levels. The system is energy self-sufficient, with energy supplied by one of a few experimental energy generating devices. The suspended light of River Glow has a certain artistic quality to it that reflects the beauty of the water it's trying to protect.

Current State Concept

Check out this Current State concept that I worked on for Kaleidoscope's The Greener Grass project. Current State is a conceptual mobile application used to monitor and control energy usage in your home. The concept was inspired by our discussions about energy consumption and how to teach people to take responsibility and control over their energy usage. The conceptual application allows users to set energy goals for themselves and then monitor how well they are meeting those goals. Current State also gives users remote control over powered devices within their home. Users can turn devices on or off, as well as setting up automatic timers to maximize their energy efficiency.

Cinema Redux

Cinema Redux explores the idea of viewing an entire movie in one image. The above picture is a section of images taken from the movie Taxi Driver at one second intervals. The larger resulting picture shows some interesting poetic editing elements and insight into the overall tone and flow of the movie. I'd love to see one for a really color intensive movie such as Hero. This project was created by Brandan Dawes using the ever more popular open source programing language, Processing. (Found through Andre Brocatus was here...)

Naming Names

Naming Names is an awesome interactive visualization created by Jonathan Corum and Farhana Hossain of The New York Times. The graphic examines how long the presidential candidates spoke at each debate leading up to the Iowa caucuses and who mentioned the other candidates by name during those debates. The bands around the outside represent each of the debates in order. The width of the ban shows the amount of words spoken in that debate. Scrolling over the politician's names isolates the arrows indicating who mentioned them during the debates. Clearly Mrs. Clinton was viewed as the biggest threat, as her name has by far the most arrows coming from both parties. (Found through the GOOD Magazine Blog).

Borders

Borders is an interesting approach to a world map. It features countries represented by blocks, sized and arranged to show bordering land or water masses. Although it's technically still a map, what it shows almost more of a political statement then a geographical one. This map was created by the inspiring young graphic artist and thinker Robin Howie.

BBC's British History Timeline

The BBC's British History Timeline is a (insert best British accent here...) gorgeous (...end accent) way to brush up on your British history. It's a simple but sophisticated interactive timeline that lets you explore significant events in British history from 862BC to today.

BookScape

BookScape is an interesting concept for a online library archive. It was created by Michael Chang of Yahoo's Design Innovation Team. The project focuses on creating an interface that allows access to digital versions of 2600 illustrated children's books. Images of the scanned books are arranged alphabetically. Dynamic resampling is used to efficiently show all the images at once in one zoomable space. Zooming out allows quick navigation of the entire collection. Zooming in gives you more finite navigation control. This project reminds me a bit of some of the thinking behind Microsoft's amazing Photosynth that I wrote about earlier this year.

Distellmap

Ben Fry is a fabulous designer/artist/computer scientist who focuses on visualizing data. This project, called Distellamap, (a spin-off of Dismap) highlights the beauty of code. The project features the code of 6 different Atari games overlaid with curves to show its 'go to' elements. The visualization emphasizes the flow of the code, showing it off as a complex piece of poetry. (Found most recently through Pica + Pixel).

Planet Earth - Directions for Use

'Planet Earth - Directions for Use' was Angie Rattay's entry for the Designboom 'Love Your Earth' graphic design competition. It is a series of four instructional pamphlets designed to resemble medical directions packed into a small prescription style box. Each manual focuses on a different part of the Earth; the atmosphere, the biosphere, the hydrosphere, and the lithosphere/pedosphere. Each set of 'directions' includes information about its relative part of the Earth and instructions on how readers can reduce their impact on that area. I would love a copy of this. It seems incredibly well thought out and executed.

Andrew Kuo

Dear Andrew Kuo, please be my friend. I've seen into your brain and decided that you are awesome.

New York based artist Andrew Kuo has made me once again second guess all of the negative things I've ever said about charts and graphs. Andrew creates the most intriguing editorial charts. They don't display actual quantifiable information, it's more like charting thoughts. For example take this chart commentary on a summer of concerts at McCarren Park Pool. It features graphs entitled 'How upset am I at missing the bands I missed' and 'My summer mood swings'. They display semi-useless information in a gorgeous and fascinating way. For more of Andrew Kuo's work, check out his blog or his contributions the The New York Times online. (Found through Cool Hunting).

Crazy Egg

There are lots of ways to gather and view statistics about your website. Crazy Egg has some great ways to track clicking patterns, which are all about the visualization. You can track clicks using Overlays, Confetti, or a Heatmap. All of which show you exactly were visitors clicked and with what intensity. I really like the Heatmap option (shown above). It visualizes clicks as if they are generating heat. The greater the number of clicks, the hotter the link appears.

Belkin N1 Vision

I found myself in Best Buy a few weeks ago staring at the Belkin N1 Vision and daydreaming about how I could sabotage my own wireless router to justify buying this one. My desire was not without reason. This router has a lot of great features including CD-less installation and a vertical orientation to reduce its footprint on your desk/floor/whatever. The really big improvement that they have made over other routers is adding a screen. The display shows all sorts of useful information such as upload and download speeds, current wireless users connected, and activity over the past 24 hours. This makes the router an valuable part of your internet setup and not just a box with blinking lights under your desk.

Pet Shop Boys Integral Video

The Pet Shop Boys worked with creative group The Rumpus Room to create the latest version of their Integral video. The song was written as a type of protest against ID cards in the UK. There are two really interesting things about this video. The first is that they are using 2D barcodes (or QR codes) to provide additional information. The barcodes can be read by enabled cellphones. Each QR code in the video contains a URL linking to relevant information. To download a QR code reader for your phone or to create one for your own URL, visit Kaywa.

The second really interesting thing about this video is that the Pet Shop Boys are encouraging people to make their own version of the Integral video. They have provided all the stop frames in a 1451 page downloadable pdf, as well as created a group on Youtube to post your video edit to.

Delicious DNA

Juliana Yamashita, of the Yahoo Design and Innovation Team, has a special interest in alternative ways of displaying data. One of her recent projects, called Delicious DNA, caught my attention. It graphically illustrates common tags of Del.icio.us users who are interested in Design. Patterns in the tags start to emerge highlighting trends and buzz words within the design community.

Worried about Alien Abduction?

Do you lie in bed at night fretting about how you will get back to Earth after your next alien abduction? Well fret no more. A solution is finally here. For a mere $12.99 you can purchase these Location Earth Dog Tags engraved with instructions on where to find Earth within the galaxy. The graphics are based on NASA's Pioneer 10 plaque which was intended to inform extraterrestrials about the spacecraft's origin. The language-free graphics feature the mathematical location of Earth in relation to several important pulsars (represented by the radial diagram) and Earth's location withing the solar system. The tags come with a complete money back guarantee should you ever be abducted and not safely returned to this, your home planet.

Bryan Christie Design

Bryan Christie Design specializes in scientific and architectural illustrations and diagrams. Their portfolio is very inspiring, especially the medical illustrations. You may recognize some of their work from recent covers of Wired or Business Week.

GOOD's Weights and Measures

I've recently become addicted to GOOD Magazine. One of the articles in their most recent issue looks at weights and measures. It features this astounding graphic depicting countries that have not adopted the metric system.