Urbanflow Aims To Turn Cities Into Playgrounds For Interactive Infographics

A really great idea that utilises the power of beautiful data visualisations to help people get to know the city around them. 

Ever find yourself wandering around a new city (or even one you’re familiar with), and approach one of those handy urban info-kiosks only to find that it’s completely inadequate to the task of telling you where you are, where you might want to go, and what is going on around you? Urbanscale has the same frustration, which is why they teamed up with designers at Nordkapp to design a set of updated public signage called Urbanflow that’s as connected and interactive as the smartphone in your pocket. Here’s their concept video:

(via FastCo Design)

Moritz Stefaner has created yet another amazing visualisation - This one he dubs the ‘Vizosphere’.

(image via Well Formed Data)

This map shows 1645 Twitter accounts related to the topic of information visualization. The accounts were determined as follows: For a subjective selection of “seed accounts”[1], the Twitter API was queried for followers and friends. In order to be included into the map, a user account needed to have at least 5 links (i.e. follow or being followed) to one of these accounts. The size of the network nodes indicates the number of followers within this network.

If you look very, very closely near the middle moving a little towards the top you should be able to see my Twitter handle ‘fallenblossom’. Yay, I made the grade! 

Click to view full-size version

Data Visualisation: A History of the World in 100 Seconds

A brilliant visualisation of the history of the world: “Many wikipedia articles have coordinates. Many have references to historic events. @godawful and @heychinaski cross referenced the two to create a dynamic visualization of Wikipedia’s view of world history. Watch as empires fall, wars break out and continents are discovered.” (Description provided by the creators)

(via @blprnt)

A recent article on Infosthetics has a look behind-the-scenes at Information is Beautiful and their detailed and rather lengthy design processes for their wonderful infographics. 

(Image via Infosthetics)

As they discuss:

It is truly exceptional that a talented visualization designer provides access to the dirty and tedious work that happens behind-the-screens. But the more and the sooner upcoming talent can understand visualization is a serious design activity as much as a scientific undertaking, the better the field will be able to proof its true value, and eventually escape its urge to mount the current viral media trap.

It’s refreshing to see that McCandless would take the time to explain his thought and design process to his audience, most designers certainly wouldn’t do it. But even more importantly it shows that infographics and visualisations of data are legitimate examples of design and are actually incredibly useful and don’t just have to be linkbait pieces. Unfortunately infographics have received a bad-rap online recently, with people getting more and more fed-up of the sheer number of ‘infographics’ out there, but with artists like David McCandless, Felton and The Guardian we see a wonderfully different view. A view that when data is presented beautifully, it is actually really useful and beneficial to us all.

Nicholas Felton is one of THE go to guys in the data visualisation industry. With his annual reports he has paved the way for many dataviz wannabes (including me!) and this year he does not disappoint, as he dedicates his annual report to his father, who died in September, and he explores a whole lifetime in a series of beautiful charts and graphs.

From where his father travelled, to his hobbies right down to the music he enjoyed Felton captures the very essence of his father’s life in a beautifully detailed manner.

Preorder the report for just $20

(Image via FastCo Design)

Strata Conference 2011 - Make Data Work

I unfortunately was not lucky enough to attend Strata Conf - Make Data Work, however O’Reilly, the conference organiser and the lovely people that they are, have put up footage on YouTube of the keynote presentations for everyone to enjoy. 

So, if like me, you missed out on what appears to be one awesome event, check out the videos on YouTube.

Infographic of the Day: Typefaces of the World

It may only be just before 9am here in the UK, but I have already seen my ‘infographic of the day’. This attractive chart, by Shelby White shows the typefaces most commonly used in design today, where they come from and the year it was made. Okay, so half the world is missing… but it’s a great example of simple, clean but beautiful information design nonetheless. Just waiting for a hi-res version to be released…

(via @smissmiss)

Infographic of the Day: The World of 100

Toby Ng‘s awesome poster series The World of 100 — is an experimental graphical representation of statistical information about the world, based on the allegorical scenario of reducing the world to a village of 100 people.

Via Brain Pickings

Infographic of the Day: The State of Wikipedia

Following on from their rather awesome ‘State of the Internet’ video last year JESS3, in connection with Wikipedia, have created this delightful animation to celebrate Wikipedia’s 10th anniversary.

View full video at the ‘State of Wikipedia’ website

DataVis of the Day: UFO Sightings - The Will Smith Effect Explained

I actually came across this graphic a couple of months ago whilst perusing the Behance infographic gallery and thought it was rather cool, but I’d forgotten to post it up. So here it is, in all its glory.

I just love the cross-reference between UFO sightings and the release of popular sci-fi films. Who’d have thought there would have been a distinct connection. Brilliant! Kudos for the topic choice!

By Dan Stratton on the Behance Network