Netlag: infovisualization of the world made of
Netlag: infovisualization of the world made of exterior web cams over time. So as the day goes on, you can see Europe light up, then the eastern seaboard of the US, then the western US, and so on.
Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. ❤️
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
kottke.org posts about infoviz
Images of the dashed line in use (
Images of the dashed line in use (as hidden geometry, movement, paths, ephemeral material, etc.). “I’ve had trouble justifying my excitement about this intricate visual detail, so I thought it would be good to collect a bunch of examples from over fifty years of information design history, to show it as a powerful visual element in ubicomp situations.” (via migurski)
Five years since 9/11
Chart by Ben Schott (of Schott’s Original Miscellany) detailing the 5 years since 9/11.
How to do a click heatmap on
How to do a click heatmap on your site with JavaScript and Ruby. Includes source code. Very slick.
Slides for Michal Migurski’s talk on data
Slides for Michal Migurski’s talk on data visualization at UX Week 2006.
Want to draw you some diagrams, charts,
Want to draw you some diagrams, charts, or flowcharts? Try these nifty tools.
Script for producing sparklines (a la Edward Tufte) in Photoshop.
Script for producing sparklines (a la Edward Tufte) in Photoshop.
Independent infographic
The Independent has a great infographic on its cover today depicting which countries support the immediate ceasefire in the Middle East demanded by the UN and which do not:
That message would take up less space as words, but somehow the impact wouldn’t be quite the same. (thx, g)
Beautiful Evidence
Beautiful Evidence is both the title of Edward Tufte’s latest book and an accurate description of the document itself. Like few other mass market publications, BE is lovingly hand-crafted, a physical manifestation of the ideas expressed in its pages; the text and images therein could be about another subject entirely and you might still get the point: “Words, Numbers, Images - Together” (the title of the book’s fourth chapter).
Case in point. Pages 123 and 124 fold out into a spread depicting Charles Joseph Minard’s famous infographic of the disastrous 1812 invasion of Russia by France. But unlike most magazine and book fold-outs, the page that folds out is cut 1/2 inch narrower than the underlying page so that a) a bit of the page underneath peeks out, providing a visual cue for unfoldability, and b) there’s no difficulty when you go to refold the page with getting it caught in the book’s crease or otherwise undesirably bending/creasing it. The fold-out design is a small thing that the casual reader might not even notice, but it demonstrates the care that went into the production of the book (and perhaps the reason why Tufte took so long in writing/designing it).
The gang at 37signals noticed similar craftsmanship in the writing and presentation:
“What struck me is how you almost never have to hold something in your head while turning the page…he usually finishes his thought within the two pages you can see…and when you flip, it’s something new…that’s an excellent self-imposed constraint…’whatever i need to say, i’ll do it here.’” Jason replied, “Yes, I love that. I noticed that more on this book than others. The image and text is in one spread so when you turn you are turning your attention to a new idea. If you have too much to say than the space allowed then you are probably saying too much…it definitely makes it easier to design the book too…you can design each spread as if it was a standalone poster.”
What I’ve also noticed about Beautiful Evidence is the lack of reviews in mainstream publications; I can’t find a single newspaper or magazine that has published a review. Compare that to the releases of Gladwell’s Blink, Remnick’s Reporting, and Anderson’s The Long Tail, for which reviews started appearing almost everywhere before the books were even available. Those books were written for mass audiences and backed by large publishing companies with ample PR resources and plenty of review copies to go around. In contrast, Beautiful Evidence is self-published by Tufte, which means it’s beautiful, personal, and done just right, but also invisible to the mainstream press. Not that Beautiful Evidence is being ignored — the blogosphere is talking about it and the Amazon Sales Rank is currently about 600 (which doesn’t count online sales directly from edwardtufte.com) — but it deserves the consideration of the mainstream press.
This tshirt with infographics on it is
This tshirt with infographics on it is too nerdy even for me. That and I’ve been getting a ton of crap from everyone I know about how many Threadless tshirts I own.
FAS.research has produced a visualization of
FAS.research has produced a visualization of the 2006 World Cup final showing “the passes from every player to those three team-mates he passes to most frequently”. The graphic also shows the “flowbetweenness” of a player.
The proof is in the underpants: global
The proof is in the underpants: global warming is real. (via eyeteeth)
Interesting tour/visualization imagining 10 dimensions. (thx, james)
Interesting tour/visualization imagining 10 dimensions. (thx, james)
Classic Royksopp music video featuring dozens of wonderful infographics.
Classic Royksopp music video featuring dozens of wonderful infographics.
Social, political, economic, cultural, historical, and technological
Social, political, economic, cultural, historical, and technological timelines of the world from 1750 to 2100. Having all the timelines in one view is nice, but the zoomable interface is clunky.
Google Trend graph for “the” and “and”.
Google Trend graph for “the” and “and”. I would have expected them to be flatter.
Fun! See graphs for the popularity of
Fun! See graphs for the popularity of Google search results with Google Trends. Is the blog meme trend finally flattening out? And hey, I had a hand in shaping this one.
The Junk Charts blog searches for example
The Junk Charts blog searches for example of crappy graphs and charts in the media. (via do)
Demographic charts for New York City using
Demographic charts for New York City using data from 1790 to the present.
Rob at Cockeyed is building a photographic
Rob at Cockeyed is building a photographic height/weight grid, effectively a catalog of people’s body types. Description and call for entries here.
Connections infographic: celebrities, corporations, and brands
Infographic of the connections between “3 celebrities, 35 corporations, 40 subsidiaries and more than 300 brands”. For a closer look, check out the larger version.
The Baseball Visualization Tool was designed to
The Baseball Visualization Tool was designed to help managers answer the question: should the pitcher be pulled from the game? Handy charts and pie graphs give managers an at-a-glance view of how much trouble the current pitcher is in. I wonder what TBVT would have told Grady Little about Pedro at the end of Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS?
Neat information design on the menu for
Neat information design on the menu for Alinea. The size, positions, and darkness of the circles on the menu represent the sweetness/tartness, size, and flavor intensity of each course.
Update: Better photo of the menu here.
Visualization of frequently quoted passages from the
Visualization of frequently quoted passages from the Bible. “This visualization is an attempt to understand how people quote the Bible: which parts they choose to quote, & why.” More frequently quoted verses appear in a larger, darker font. (via ia)
Beautiful flight pattern visualizations over the US
Beautiful flight pattern visualizations over the US based on data from the FAA. (via ia)
Graph of suicides by location off the
Graph of suicides by location off the Golden Gate Bridge. This is a fascinating graph. More overall deaths on the SF half than the Marin half and way more on the bay side. A lot of people walked pretty far before jumping. And lightpost 69…it looks to be about halfway between the towers…lots of symbolism there for the jumpers.
I love the little sparkline graphs on
I love the little sparkline graphs on information aesthetics (right sidebar). That’s some information richness. Must check out the Sparkline PHP Graphing Library at some point.
Stay Connected