This pseudo-map graphic from The New York Times shows how consumers in different countries spend their money. Squares represent selected countries and are sized and colored according to spending in 2007. As you might expect, the United States does some heavy spending on clothing and footwear.
Does the graphic remind you of anything? The Times put up a different pseudo-map in force-directed graph format for the olympic medals. What do you prefer – pseudo-map or traditional?
This stream of consciousness video (below) from Current is complete with animated infographics and some lovely narration. I have no idea why the video was made or if there was a story behind where the video came from. However, I do know that the narrator's voice is both reassuring and soothing, and I am ten times smarter after watching it.
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I haven't seen I.O.U.S.A. yet, but from the online bonus clips, it looks like it could be a good watch for you infographics junkies. The documentary examines the growing national debt and the consequences it will have on its citizens, so the source material sort of lends itself to plummeting time series charts with dramatic flare.
Here's one showing personal savings rate over time:
Deficits and social security over time:
Debt-to-GDP projections:
A $53 Trillion Federal Financial Hole:
Those are just the bonus clips. I'm sure there are plenty more in the actual documentary.
[Thanks, @samkim]
I'm not sure how old this Disney org chart is, but I'm guessing very. Ink and paint? What are those? In any case, it's amusing. Why are nurse, army coordinator, police, and morgue on there? The animation business is clearly more complex than I thought.
Who else has been enjoying the Olympics as much as I have? I think I might have developed an unhealthy obsession to the games these past few days with the 800 kajillion hours of NBC coverage.
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The Shirt Project, by Rich Watts and Louise Ma, takes the infographics out of the newspaper and puts them onto brightly colored tshirts. What a great idea. They put out a new shirt every couple of months and topics range from the New York steam explosion to a bit of pop culture celebrating the birthdays of Michael Jackson, Prince, and Madonna. Subscribe to tshirts the same way you subscribe to newspapers. For the low price of $20, you can be both stylish and educational.
Lee Byron, Amanda Cox and Matthew Ericson of the New York Times graphics department map Olympic medals starting from the first one hosted by the International Olympic Committee in 1896 up to the most recent one in Athens. It looks like someone has an affinity for the colliding ball effect. Not that that's bad or anything.
Bubbles for each country are arranged geographically (or by rank) and sized by the number of medals that country won. Each continent has its own color. Shift the timeline to look at a different year, and click on a bubble to get a medal breakdown. The one thing that's mysteriously missing is a play button to watch the map morph over time. I'm sure there's a good reason why, but it seems like a natural next step. Although, I guess I can just hold down the arrow keys.
In any case, good stuff.
Is it just me, or is anyone else seeing home court advantage playing a role in medal count?
[Thanks, Max]
I've been using Mozilla Firefox for years and have nothing but good things to say about the most recently released Firefox 3. Whenever I borrow someone else's computer, and all he has is Internet Explorer, I feel wrong and dirty.
When I think Internet Explorer, I think vulnerability, crashing, spyware, adware, sluggishness, and more crashing. I imagine running AdAware on my mom's laptop over and over again.
This calendar graphic on the Mozilla front page captures that idea nicely. While a bar graph, pie chart, or just the numbers alone would have shown the data just fine, the calendars put the numbers into perspective. The calendars give readers a way to relate to the data, which makes the story all that much more clear.
[via Cool Infographics]
The New York Times shows how presidential candidates have spent more than $900 million so far with this bubbly graphic by Lee Byron, Hannah Fairfield and Griff Palmer. The area of a circle represents the amount of money spent in any particular category. For example, the biggest chunk of funds ($337 million) was spent on media and consulting.
I know what a lot of you are thinking and are maybe even about to write something in the comments - "Bubbles suck at showing amount. Bars are much easier to read." Some might even be thinking about a pie chart in lieu of the bibbly bobbilies. Here's what I have to say: the bubbles are fun, so mission accomplished. That is all.
The Girl Effect - "the idea that adolescent girls are uniquely capable of raising the standard of living in the developing world" - is portrayed in this beautiful video using animated typography. I think the music plays a pretty big role in making this work too.
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In the time that it takes you to watch this movie, the US government will have spent $500,000 towards the war in Iraq. At least that's what this Atari-sounding clip says. Watch as millions of dollars are put into perspective - 84 brand new schools, a flag pin for every man, woman, and child in America, and a hummer plus 10 years of gas.
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Mark Coleran has hands down one of the best jobs in the world. He makes infographics for feature films. His résumé includes Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Lara Croft Tomb Raider, The Island, Harry Potter and Blade 2. The infographics don't have to show real data; they just have to look cool. Well, I'm sure that's not all there is to it, but I bet awesomeness is a leading requirement. Coleran fills it well.
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The Boston Globe lets readers explore home run data for the Boston Red Sox left fielder Manny Ramirez. The data is quite detailed and the graphic lets your split the data in several directions. Look at homers by ballpark, who was pitching, the pitch count, when Ramirez homered, and where the ball landed. Baseball fans will really appreciate this interactive graphic and non-baseball fans will probably find it interesting too.
At the bottom of each article on National Nine News (Australian MSN), there's a button to "Flock It!" which is like favorit-ing a news story.
The more people who flock a story, the higher up the flock list the story goes. In the sidebar of each story is an interactive graphic that shows readers flocking around the news and stories getting highlighted. The larger the bubble, the more people who have flocked it; story bubbles light up orange when someone flocks it. The site isn't showing any larger sizes, but a full screen version could be fun. Maybe a screensaver.
MSN seems to have have this whole news exploration thing going on lately. I like it.
[Thanks, Andrew]
Matthew Block and Jonathan Corum from The New York Times use a network graph to map diseases and the genes they have in common. Color indicates the type of disease, circles represent diseases, and gray squares are genes that the diseases have in common. The graphic has a nice magnifying glass zooming feature, so that you too can be a biologist.
NewsWare was launched yesterday on msnbc.com. It's a set of apps, games, and widgets to interact with the news. The three main points of interest are the Spectra (pictured above) and two games that resemble a couple of popular arcade games infused with news.
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In a deviation from the usual pie chart and standard tree map, this graphic from The New York Times resembles something of a stained glass window - a really pretty piece of work. Amanda Cox, with Matthew Bloch and Shan Carter, designed the interactive graphic that lets you explore how American consumers spend their money.
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Amanda Cox, of The New York Times, made another excellent graphic (and I wouldn't expect anything less). We see an entire story between Obama and Clinton - positions taken, counties won, and counties lost. Go ahead and take a look. Words bad. Picture good. Ooga. Booga.
[via Infographics News]
This graphic from The New York Times kind of caught me off guard. I guess we're starting to gain a bit more faith in the public's ability to understand visualization (yay). The graphic was created by the usual suspects -- Matthew Bloch, Shan Carter and Amanda Cox -- and as usual, great work.
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FlowingData explores how designers, statisticians, and computer scientists are using data to understand ourselves better — mainly through data visualization. More...
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