Information graphics

The Value of Visual Thinking

"Being able to think visually, break down complex ideas and synthesize them into something meaningful is my forte. It's a skill that has landed me in the company of the smart and capable folks I currently work with. More importantly, I took whatever abilities I had and I gave them over to my ecosystem. In any social system, you always come to the table offering something of value rather than seeking it." (David Armano)

Posted on October 14, 2009 | Permalink

What is Global and What is Local?

A Theoretical Discussion Around Globalization - "This article develops a new sociological understanding of the difference between global and local relating to the phenomena of globalization. Globalization itself is redefined as one of society's self-description insofar as, following Niklas Luhmann's theory, society is conceived as a cognitive system that can only handle information (about the world, about itself) only through its own specific operation (communication), so that globalization affects society solely when the later communicates about the former." (Jean-Sébastien Guy - Parsons Journal of Information Mapping I.2)

Posted on July 10, 2009 | Permalink

History of Graphic Design

"This site was first launched in 1999 to accompany my lectures on the History of Graphic Design. I devised this unique format of presenting the information by topics because I saw that students were overwhelmed by the scope of the topic or most texts I also saw that they learned more when the discussions included direct links to what is happening in design today. It seems to work well for visual artists who are not interested in a degree in art history." (Nancy Stock-Allen) - courtesy of AP

Posted on July 10, 2009 | Permalink

A Scientific Approach to Infographics

"If you've been reading this blog regularly for awhile, you know that I occasionally bemoan the sad state of most information graphics. Most of the folks who produce infographics lack guidelines based on solid research. In their attempt to inform, describe, or instruct, most of the infographics that I've seen fail-many miserably. I'm thrilled to announce, however, that a new book is now available that takes a great step toward providing the guidelines that are needed for the production of effective infographics." (Stephen Few - Visual Business Intelligence)

Posted on June 30, 2009 | Permalink

The Visual Repertoire of Obama's Run for the White House

"An analysis of the visual diversity of the 2008 Presidential Elections in America, for the Parsons Journal for Information Mapping, New York (USA)." (Gerlinde Schuller - Information Design Studio)

Posted on January 19, 2009 | Permalink

The Theory Underlying Concept Maps and How to Construct and Use Them

"Concept maps are graphical tools for organizing and representing knowledge. They include concepts, usually enclosed in circles or boxes of some type, and relationships between concepts indicated by a connecting line linking two concepts. Words on the line, referred to as linking words or linking phrases, specify the relationship between the two concepts. We define concept as a perceived regularity in events or objects, or records of events or objects, designated by a label. The label for most concepts is a word, although sometimes we use symbols such as + or %, and sometimes more than one word is used. Propositions are statements about some object or event in the universe, either naturally occurring or constructed. Propositions contain two or more concepts connected using linking words or phrases to form a meaningful statement. Sometimes these are called semantic units, or units of meaning. Figure 1 shows an example of a concept map that describes the structure of concept maps and illustrates the above characteristics." (Cmap Tools - Publications)

Posted on December 03, 2008 | Permalink

Infographics: Being and Doing (Part II)

"Despite the difficulty in creating a design framework, it would be useful to have one, in order to understand the overall picture of the infographic design process." (Venkatesh Rajamanickam - uiGarden)

Posted on December 07, 2007 | Permalink

Megan Jaegerman's brilliant news graphics

"Megan Jaegerman produced some of the best news graphics ever while working at The New York Times from 1990 to 1998. Her work is smart, finely detailed, elegant, witty, inventive, informative. A fierce researcher and reporter, she writes gracefully and precisely. Megan has the soul of a news reporter, who happens to use graphs, tables, and illustrations--as well as words--to explain the news. Her best work is the best work in news graphics." (Edward Tufte) - courtesy of jasonkottke

Posted on July 20, 2007 | Permalink

Infographics, design, and visual journalism

"Welcome to my website about infographics, newspaper design and visual journalism. In the English version you will find only the Infographics in the Internet Era document, some articles, examples of my students' projects, upcoming presentations, my portfolio and my contact information." (Alberto Cairo)

Posted on May 23, 2007 | Permalink

Information graphics: Challenges of representation

Maps, diagrams, schemes, pictures and others visuals to communicate a message. (The Culture Archive)

Posted on May 18, 2007 | Permalink

Presentational Visualization 

Towards an Imagery-based Approach of Computer-generated Presentation Visuals - "Computer projection is certainly the worst thing to happen to presentation skills since the invention of the overhead projector." (Till Voswinckel) - courtesy of alessandrosegalini

Posted on March 16, 2006 | Permalink

Visual Explanations and Information Graphics

"Infographics are traditionally viewed as visual elements such as charts, maps, or diagrams that aid comprehension of a given text-based content. However, visual representation of information can be more than just the manner in which we are able to record what has been discovered by other means. They have the potential to become the process by which we can discern new meaning and discover new knowledge." (acrStudio - Visual Organization and Information Design) - courtesy of venkatrajamanickam

Posted on November 28, 2005 | Permalink

Infographic 

"Think of the expression of an idea as a map to its meaning." - (Alessandro Segalini)

Posted on November 11, 2005 | Permalink

Visual Complexity: A visual exploration on mapping networks

"(...) a unified resource space for anyone interested in the visualization of complex networks. The project's main goal is to leverage a critical understanding of different visualization methods, across a series of discipline s, as diverse as Biology, Social Networks or the World Wide Web." (Manuel Lima)

Posted on October 27, 2005 | Permalink

InfoGraphics Seminar Handout 

"I prepared this document as a handout to my October 2005 seminars on Infographic Design to the Visual Communications students at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, and the Industrial Design Centre, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay." (Venkatesh Rajamanickam: venkatra at gmail dot com)

Posted on October 08, 2005 | Permalink

Revealicious

"(...) a set graphic visualisations for your del.icio.us account that allow you to browse, search and select tags, as well as viewing posts matching them." (Ivy)

Posted on September 05, 2005 | Permalink

Sailing to the Future: Infographics in the Internet Era

"This 50-pages document was created for the Multimedia Bootcamp 2005 in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It contains a brief introduction to infographics, its history and rules, and a discussion of several real cases of elmundo.es online special and breaking-news presentations." (Alberto Cairo) - courtesy of elearningpost

Posted on May 11, 2005 | Permalink

The Feynman-Tufte Principle

A visual display of data should be simple enough to fit on the side of a van - "(...) information displays should be documentary, comparative, causal and explanatory, quantified, multivariate, exploratory, and skeptical." (Michael Shermer - Scientific American) - courtesy of kottke

Posted on March 31, 2005 | Permalink

Apple's Tipping Point: Macs For The Masses

"The graphic illustrates extreme patience and foresight from Apple to bring users to the platform by innovating increasingly towards the mass market over time without sacrificing the middle or high-end markets. In the end, the iPod continues to be the vehicle that drives Apple's ultimate goal: Switching. In many cases the biggest hesitation to switch was price. With the Mac mini this concern is now moot. We could very well be witnessing the early fruits of a five to ten year business strategy from Apple that has been in the works since the first iPod. If it works -- Apple will go down in history as a company that patiently built its brand equity through high-quality products and design -- and then, when the time was right and audience the largest, brought their superior computing experience to the masses." (Paul Nixon - Nixlog)

Posted on January 14, 2005 | Permalink

What the Hell is the Fibonacci Series?

"In the 12th century, Leonardo Fibonacci discovered a simple numerical series that is the foundation for an incredible mathematical relationship behind phi." (Textism) - courtesy of antenna

Posted on December 14, 2004 | Permalink

Information, lessons and tutorials for technical illustration students

"This page is designed to provide helpful information, samples, lessons and tutorials for university level technical illustration students and professional technical illustrators." (Kevin Hulsey) - courtesy of xblog

Posted on November 24, 2004 | Permalink

AREVA: TV commercial

"A nuclear power company named Areva has released a new TV commercial done in that 'info graphics' style. Available online." (AREVA) - courtesy of dirk brandts

Posted on November 02, 2004 | Permalink

Mr. Vignelli's Map

"This week marks the 100th anniversary of the New York subway system, and what better time to recognize the beautiful achievement represented by Massimo Vignelli's subway map of 1972." (Michael Bierut - Design Observer)

Posted on October 29, 2004 | Permalink

Stick Figure Warning Signs

"For the longest time, whenever I saw one of those 'don't stick your head into the rotating blade' warning signs with an illustration of a stick-figure person doing exactly that, I've wanted to make a web gallery of them. (...) they're a visual form of anticryptography, the science of conveying information without assuming any prior knowledge." - (Toren K. Smith) - courtesy of antenna

Posted on October 28, 2004 | Permalink

Data Presentation: Tapping the Power of Visual Perception

"Why do people respond to some forms of presentation better than others? This installment of our series sheds light on how physical aspects of vision influence the way we process information -- and ultimately, decision-making itself." (Stephen Few - Intelligent Enterprise Magazine)

Posted on October 13, 2004 | Permalink

Rock & Roll Timeline

"(...) the Visual Timeline - an interactive, animated compendium of rock and popular music history. Discover unexpected connections between artists. Track the growth of a musical movement. Zoom in on the day the Beatles invaded America, or out to a bird's-eye view of the blues' sweeping influence. It's all here." (Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum) - courtesy of thom quine

Posted on October 07, 2004 | Permalink

New pages from Beautiful Evidence: Causal arrows and linking lines—Feynman diagrams, epidemiological diagrams

"Here is a draft of what might well be the 4 concluding pages to the chapter in 'Beautiful Evidence' on causal arrows and linking lines. A few other parts of the chapter were posted earlier (on the Barr art chart, on evolutionary trees and cladistic diagrams). After this new material is reviewed by Kindly Contributors, then perhaps the full 16-page chapter will at last be ready to post." (Edward Tufte) - courtesy of xblog

Posted on August 05, 2004 | Permalink

A subway map of cancer pathways

"Cancer arises from the stepwise accumulation of genetic changes that confer upon an incipient neoplastic cell the properties of unlimited, self-sufficient growth and resistance to normal homeostatic regulatory mechanisms. Advances in human genetics and molecular and cellular biology have identified a collection of cell phenotypes — the main destinations in the subway map — that are required for malignant transformation. Specific molecular pathways (subway lines) are responsible for programming these behaviours." (William C. Hahn and Robert A. Weinberg - Nature)

Posted on July 11, 2004 | Permalink

Understanding visual communication

"They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Indeed, some pictures are better at conveying some things than words. Still, not all pictures are created equal, and the power of visual communication is sometimes misunderstood, if not misused. Pictures are no panacea; some words may well convey concepts better than a thousand pictures, too." (Jean-luc Doumont - STC Belgium)

Posted on March 08, 2004 | Permalink

Subway systems of the world, presented on the same scale

Wire patterns of various subway systems. (fake is the new real) - courtesy of vuk cosic

Posted on March 05, 2004 | Permalink

To Think Bigger Thoughts

"Why The Human Cognome Project Requires Visual Language Tools" - Talk given by Robert Horn at the Converging Technologies for Human Performance (Nano, Bio, Info, Cogno) Conference, 2003 (Robert Horn)

Posted on March 03, 2004 | Permalink

Röyksopp: Remind me

Before Tom Chi and KC did the world's first HCI rap 'We Got It', MTV did information graphics. (astralwerks)

Posted on February 26, 2004 | Permalink

The Vision of George Rorick

"Architect of six different news services for print and broadcast graphics, George has spent his career fine-tuning the craft of visual reporting, discovering talented people and starting business from scratch. Oh ... and he invented the USA Today weather map. Find out what makes him tick and what he's done for the field of visual journalism." (Poynter online) - courtesy of interactive narratives

Posted on February 24, 2004 | Permalink

Mars Exploration Rover 2003

"Maas Digital founder Dan Maas created this dramatic, scientifically accurate computer animation to illustrate NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission." (Maas Digital)

Posted on January 23, 2004 | Permalink

Re-Visions of Minard

"I use 're-vision' in the sense of both 'to revise' and 'to see again', possibly from a new perspective. (...) There is a great deal more to tell of Charles Joseph Minard." (Gallery of Data Visualization)

Posted on January 14, 2004 | Permalink

Infographics: Exploring Visual Information Design

"Visual information has the difficult task of revealing the vital essence of a situation without needless complexity. Needless is an important word in this context. The danger is over simplification will sacrifice insight into the situation. There is a dynamic tension between simplicity and insight which must be dealt with to qualify as more than graphical data." (Design Crux)

Posted on January 14, 2004 | Permalink

History of the Tube Map

"The striking symbol that is recognised across the globe was the brainchild of Underground electrical draughtsman, Harry Beck, who produced this imaginative yet stunningly simple design back in 1933." (London Underground)

Posted on January 06, 2004 | Permalink

Biomedical Illustrations

"Head anatomy, with internal carotid angiogram. Photoshop, shown aprox. 20% of actual resolution." (Patrick J. Lynch)

Posted on October 22, 2003 | Permalink

Barbara Tversky: Some Ways Graphics Communicate

Lecture Notes: "Why do animations fail? Animations are conceived as a series of discrete steps. Studies show very few animations are better than static graphs." (Peter J. Bogaards)

Posted on September 19, 2003 | Permalink

Understanding Healthcare

Some sample spreads from the new book by Richard Saul Wurman (2004) - "RSW has created this visual guide book to the most compelling issue of the 21st century." (R.S. Wurman)

Posted on September 15, 2003 | Permalink

Interactive Narratives

"Interactive narratives are informational and storytelling experiences designed and produced for the web. They leverage great design, visual journalism and rich-media content." (About Interactive Narratives) - courtesy of elearningpost

Posted on September 04, 2003 | Permalink

Automating the Design of Visual Instructions

"Visual instructions are a common part of our daily lives. Maps, training manuals, textbooks, architectural plans, scientific papers, and street signs all use visual diagrams to communicate instructions. Yet, even the simplest visualizations typically take hours or days to design by hand, and therefore it is not currently possible to adapt and personalize instructions to the task, person, and situation for which they are eventually used. In contrast, while current computer-generated visualizations can be generated very quickly, these systems disregard many of the cognitive design principles that guide human designers. As a result current computer-generated visualizations can be very difficult to use." (Maneesh Agrawala) - courtesy of yuri engelhardt

Posted on August 11, 2003 | Permalink

The Real Underground

"In 1933, Harry Beck designed the London Underground Map. But ... Was Design's gain Geography's loss?" (London's Transport Museum) - courtesy of dirk knemeyer

Posted on August 04, 2003 | Permalink

Motion Graphics

"(...) here's a few of the short films I've made." (Nigel Holmes) - courtesy of elearningpost

Posted on June 10, 2003 | Permalink

Generating Explanatory Captions for Information Graphics

"This paper presents three strategies for generating explanatory captions to accompany information graphics based on: (1) a representation of the structure of the graphical presentation (2) a framework for identifying the perceptual complexity of graphical elements, and (3) the structure of the data expressed in the graphic." (Vibhu O. Mittal et al. - Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburg)

Posted on March 07, 2003 | Permalink

A Meta-Taxonomy for Diagram Research

"What is the common ground for a science of diagrams?" (Alan F. Blackwell and Yuri Engelhardt)

Posted on September 16, 2002 | Permalink

InfoGraphics Lab

"Integration of GIS and graphic design tools and techniques for geographic data access, analysis and cartographic presentation are the primary focus of the InfoGraphics Lab's research." (Dept. of Geography - University of Oregon)

Posted on August 15, 2002 | Permalink

Design of Signage System

"Symbols usually refer to the graphic motif and logo to the way the name is written, but in some cases they are difficult to separate/distinguish." (Ravi Poovaiah - International Design Centre at IIT Bombay)

Posted on August 13, 2002 | Permalink

Inform Graphic Design

Combining creativity and information for effective communications. (informativity)

Posted on August 04, 2002 | Permalink

You Are Here: Maps 101

"Maps are one of the most basic (and informative) infographics." (Lee McCormack - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on July 23, 2002 | Permalink

ChartsMapsDiagrams

An Information Graphics Portfolio (Rose Zgodzinski)

Posted on June 13, 2002 | Permalink

Visual Journalism

A Guide for New Media Professionals (Christopher R. Harris & Paul Martin Lester)

Posted on March 06, 2002 | Permalink

The Visual Language of Number

An online exhibition (University of Portsmouth - Images in Practice)

Posted on February 14, 2002 | Permalink

Visual Journalism

An Eye on the Graphic News - (About Visual Journalism)

Posted on November 05, 2001 | Permalink

3D Map of Manhattan

Damage report from the city of New York (CNN)

Posted on October 11, 2001 | Permalink

NixLog

Visual insights into the brutal terrorist acts against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001 (Paul Nixon)

Posted on September 14, 2001 | Permalink

Information Graphics - The Isotype Institute

"(...) the sort of images that the young Otto Neurath collected" (The Visual Telling of Stories Archive)

Posted on August 22, 2001 | Permalink

The History of Unix

"(..) a little diagram of Unix history" (Éric Lévenéz)

Posted on August 24, 2000 | Permalink

Bright Ideas

"The modern history of statistical graphics has been driven by many important ideas. (...) how to improve graphical communication." (Michael Friendly - Gallery of Data Visualisation)

Posted on July 21, 2000 | Permalink

Cartographic Communication

"Maps are perhaps as fundamental to society as language and the written word." (Kenneth E. Foote& Shannon Crum - The Geographer's Craft Project)

Posted on July 20, 2000 | Permalink

VisCog.net

"(...) links to researchers and resources in the field of visual cognition." (Maintained by Daniel Simons)

Posted on July 17, 2000 | Permalink

Archimedes Palimpsest

"(...) how Archimedes used inaccurate diagrams accurately" (Physics Today on the Web - courtesy of Pat Hayes)

Posted on July 14, 2000 | Permalink

Visual and Online Journalism

"Everything you need to know to be a better journalist" (The Poynter Institute)

Posted on July 05, 2000 | Permalink

Alan M. MacEachren

Research on the representation of geographic information (Author of How Maps Work)

Posted on July 05, 2000 | Permalink

Symbols

An encyclopedia of Western signs and ideograms (A Melody ISProduction)

Posted on July 01, 2000 | Permalink

The Argumentation Mapping Project

(Robert E. Horn - Project on People, Computers, and Design & Center for the Study of Language and Information / Stanford University)

Posted on May 18, 2000 | Permalink

Graphics and Web Design Based on Edward Tufte's Principles

(University of Washington/Computing and Networking)

Posted on May 12, 2000 | Permalink