We are happy to announce that the April contributions selected for the Data + Design Project are now live. A special thanks to this month’s contributors:
1. Adrian Walsh - http://cadrianwalsh.com/
2. Peter Orntoft - http://www.peterorntoft.com/
3. Jared Fanning - http://www.jaredfanning.com/
4. Matthew Korbel-Bowers - http://korbelbowers.com/
Some background on the project:
As ardent supporters of the union between data and design, the project is a curated gallery that showcases how flexible and beautiful data visualizations can actually be. With the Visual News website getting over 1.1 million monthly visitors, 18,000 Facebook fans and 4,000 Twitter followers, we hope this can become a valuable resource for inspiration.
Each month, a few designers are invited to create a data visualization piece, using data about a subject which interests them. We will be assigning a featured visualization theme at the beginning of the month, then it is up to the designer to decide how complex or simple they want to make their graphic based on that theme. Each week we will post another designer’s creation for all to learn from and enjoy.
Data is everywhere, and we want to see the many ways data from everyday life can be interpreted. For more information about the Data + Design project, or if you are interested in participating, click here.
The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation have been tracking economic freedom around the world for over a decade, using the Index of Economic Freedom, and have created 10 benchmarks for which to gauge a countries economic success — from property rights to entrepreneurship — in 184 countries.
The map was rendered using SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) to allow for maximum compatibility with modern browsers and internet devices. This method was chosen with the increasing popularity of mobile browsing on tech gadgets like iPhones and iPads in mind (and necessary since Apple does not support Flash).
The map was created using D3.js. D3 is an advanced JavaScript library for creating visual representations of large datasets (data can be displayed graphically in a way that is quicker, more responsive and more interactive). D3 assists in the creation and manipulation of SVG documents, which means that the user experience becomes more dynamic. As the data changes and/or a user interacts with the page, the way the data is represented dynamically alters.
The flexibility of this technology allows the user to easily navigate through complex datasets, drilling down to the most relevant data points and filtering out anything not immediately relevant.
See the entire interactive on our site here, or view it on The Heritage Foundation site here.
via: The Heritage Foundation
(This is a guest post by Nathan Yau, who runs one of our favorite data visualization blogs, Flowing Data. Check out his amazing book, Visualize This.)
This seems like a straightforward question, but it’s proven to be a difficult one to answer. Even visualization researchers – people who think about the subject all day and every day – don’t have a clear definition of what visualization is. Is it synonymous with information graphics? Does visualization have to be computer generated? Does data have to be involved, or can it be abstract? The answers vary depending on who you ask.
To me, visualization is a medium. It’s not just an analysis tool nor just a way to prove a point more clearly through data.
Visualization is like books. There are different writing styles and categories, there are textbooks and there are novels, and they communicate ideas in different ways for varied purposes. And just like authors who use words to communicate, there are rules that you should always follow and others that are guidelines that you can bend and break.
For example, you should always specify what visual encodings, such as color and shape, represent; however, while three-dimensional plots are usually unhelpful, they can sometimes provide an easier connection between the abstract and physical world.
When you think of visualization as a medium rather than a monolithic tool, it’s something much more flexible that can be used for a lot of things. It’s also more exciting. You can tell stories with data through analysis, journalism, or art. Visualization can be fun or serious; it can be beautiful and emotional or barebones and to the point.
In the end, it’s still all about the data, and visualization lets you see what you might not find in a table. There are stories in the numbers, and visualization can help you find or tell them.
We’ve recently had the privilege of working with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) to design their 2011 Annual Report “Mobilizing The Road to Equality.” We had the opportunity to utilize infographic design throughout the annual report, which is one of the many ways that beautiful information design can be applied to effectively communicate a message.
We are also proud to announce that the 2011 HRC Annual Report recently won an AIGA50 award! You can check out the other projects in their gallery, and our individual entry here. We also want to congratulate Robert Villaflor, who we worked with closely at HRC, for winning another two AIGA50 awards for his work. The AIGA50 award is a juried exhibition that showcases 50 of the strongest examples of design produced in the DC region during the past two years. Their panel of judges, experts and leaders in design, evaluate work from print, narrative, and interactive media. The winners will be recognized on April 25, 2012 in an exhibition and reception in the Atrium of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Read on…
To show our appreciation for our clients and partners this holiday season, we put together a little project to allow them to share in our love for two important staples here at C5: caffeine consumption and data visualization. 150 of our clients, and 50 of our partners received a limited edition print of this interactive coffee poster, which provides a canvas to track consumption data over the course of a month. The instructions outline a few calculations to analyze personal consumption trends. Once monthly tracking is complete, the drinker can use their coffee (or a stronger version thereof) to ‘paint’ their data onto the poster to complete the visualization.
Read on…
