I See What You Mean

The ever-astute Lorelei Brown hips us to the "astounding data visualization critiques" at Graphic Sociology . That's one for the blogroll.

For readers with an interest in the nuts and bolts, here's a look at how we operate -- literally. WORKING KIT FOR SYNOPTICAL CHARTS LLC iMac 24" (OS X) - Big Mac Acer Desktop (Windows Vista/Ubuntu Linux) - Quarter Pounder Dell Studio Laptop (Windows Vista) - Hamburger Macbook Pro (OS X) - Cheeseburger Macbook Air (OS X) - Filet o' Fish Macbook (OS X) - McRib (retired) Ubuntu Netbook (Ubuntu Netbook Remix) - Fries XP Netbook (XP Home) - Milkshake Software running: Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint (Win/Mac) Visio (Win) OmniGraffle Pro (Mac) NitroPDF Pro (Win) PDFPen Pro (Mac) Adobe Acrobat, Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop (Mac) Adobe InDesign, Framemaker (Win) Espresso (Mac) Free and/or open-source apps (installed on all platforms) OpenOffice GIMP Inkscape Dia Cyberduck (FTP/Mac) Filezilla (FTP/Win) We have a small flat aluminum case named To Go that holds our 3G USB modem, a 6ft length of Cat5, and a couple of USB drives with tools on them, including an Ubuntu boot disk o

Michael Cannell asks on the Fast Company blog (formerly mentioned here ): "Is Information Visualization the Next Frontier for Design?" I'm figuring that's a rhetorical question, since the subhed reads: "As design work shifts to infrastructure and problem solving, sexy infographics are part of the new skill set." Of course we at Synoptical Charts couldn't agree more. He goes on to discuss infoviz as a discipline and mentions its many applications and its immense potential: If we're going to live in a world driven by data, the thinking goes, we need a simple means of digesting it all. We are increasingly a visual society, and our understanding of the world is increasingly made possible by this new visual language.... Designers have historically excelled at finding insightful ways of looking at complex problems. Visualization will likely play a prominent role as design evolves beyond the consumer economy (selling $2,000 poufs and other high-end furnis