Skip to main content

Meta-information design

How much do I appreciate an infographic that organizes and explains infographics? Well, OK, that was a rhetorical question, but the answer is: A WHOLE LOT.

Check out this Periodic Table of Visualization Methods (part of an online course called Visual Literacy that was created by a consortium of European universities).

Hover your cursor over any cell in the table and you see a handy example of that particular format.

Oh my, the coolness.

Comments

  1. Holy mother of fun... Thanks!

    Some years ago I helped on a conference that convened scientists and visual communicators to see how (a) the VizC's could help non-scientists understand science and (b) the VizC's could help scientists understand science even more. It was cool.

    The organizer wasn't a big fan of Tufte, but whatever. My takeaway was that Tufte doesn't have all the answers. But he sure as crap has plenty of the evaluatory tools.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Right - more like a set of Best Practices.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I want to be Jorge Camoes when I grow up.

Portuguese infoviz enthusiast Jorge Camoes has spent the last year and a half writing informed, insightful blog posts on the field, complete with examples and citations. To his credit, he approaches everything -- even the revered work of Edward Tufte and Stephen Few -- with loving skepticism. I'm gratified, too, that he seems to agree with me on one central point: Snazzy tools alone don't get you good data visualization. It all comes down to putting serious thought into the project before you plot the first data point. In future posts we'll discuss more of Jorge's ideas. Bem feito, o Sr. Camoes!

Everybody loves visual information — especially Abraham Lincoln.

Infographics are clearly having a cultural moment. They have become pervasive in newspapers, magazines, blog posts, and viral tweets; they appear on television and in advertising, in political campaigns and at art openings. As a Google search term, “infographic” has increased nearly twenty-fold in the last five years. Yet infographics have been popular, in one form or another, for centuries. The source of their power isn’t computers or the Internet, but the brain’s natural visual intelligence. Gareth Cook , the editor of Best American Infographics 2013 , has put together a short but true summary of the history of information graphics. (Many of you who see this blog may know most of it already.) His striking lede recounts how much Abraham Lincoln valued his "slave map," shown above. Lincoln's reliance on the shades of gray throughout the Confederacy made an enormous difference in his Civil War decision-making. Fortunately it's rare that most people have to make l

Listing information design's most pressing issues

At his blog, Michael Babwahsingh says a number of smart things about the current status and ultimate value of information design. Number 8 is an excellent sample of his sensible macro approach: 8. Commercialization For several years now, the infoviz/dataviz trend has become infused in popular culture; the influence of the information design aesthetic is everywhere, from movie sequences to music videos to  art exhibits . Although the intent is often  tongue-in-cheek , and may even indirectly promote information design, there is still a risk of diluting, muddling, or flat-out mocking a field that has yet to really define and take ownership of itself. News features and special issues on information design are becoming more common, particularly in the graphic design world, but the tendency is towards visual appeal and surface-level scans over deep investigation (examples include Grafik magazine’s April 2010 issue,  Eye Magazine’s Winter 2010 issue , and Fast Company’s  Co.Design  blog