Infographics

• Good use of pie charts

  May 19, 2012 to Infographics  •  Kim Rees  •  Share on Twitter

  

  This Wall Street Journal graphic shows who's selling (or sold) a percentage of their Facebook stocks and who's holding steady.

  This graphic is the perfect example of why I'm a proponent of the pie chart. First, they stuck to two values per pie chart. That makes it easy to read. Next, they used the size of the pie to denote the number of shares. Finally, they used small multiples to easily compare both the shares owned by each entity as well as change in percentage of shares being sold.

  I'm sure bar charts would be fine too, but WSJ really used all aspects of the pie chart very effectively.

  [via Barry Ritholtz]

• Is the filibuster unconstitutional?

  May 18, 2012 to Infographics  •  Kim Rees  •  Share on Twitter

  

  Washington Post's Ezra Klein busts on the filibuster. Gone are the days of Mr. Smith when invoking the filibuster was seen to serve a greater purpose. The filibuster has its roots in Ancient Rome, and apparently even then it had its critics.

  This chart is a great example of providing a lot of information in a concise area. All of these data points are relevant to the topic and helps us inform our opinion about the matter.

  [via @hfairfield]

• ITP Spring Show: Iraq war and diabetes visualizations

  May 15, 2012 to Infographics  •  Kim Rees  •  Share on Twitter

  

  Yesterday I visited the ever popular NYU ITP bi-annual show which is a showcase of the students' experimental and ingenious interactive work.

  I stopped to talk to data visualization student and self-tracker, Doug Kanter, about his work. His first and smaller piece was about the war in Iraq. The image above depicts the number of wounded US soldiers by state (and territory) using the red stripes. The stars show the number of soldiers killed. I'm sure we could quibble about labels and where the bar chart starts, but to me, the tattered appearance of the flag created by data about war is very arresting.
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• Gay rights in the United States, by state

  May 9, 2012 to Infographics  •  Nathan Yau  •  Share on Twitter

  

  Gay rights vary across states and by region. The Guardian US interactive team does their research and shows this variance, covering several issues, from school to marriage. Segmented concentric circles make the foundation of the interactive where each circle is an issue, and each segment is a state. The states are organized by region, so it's easy to see where areas of the country stand.

  Be sure to scroll down for regional breakdowns by issue.

  Nice work from both a technical and storytelling standpoint.

• Titanic infographics from 1912

  May 4, 2012 to Infographics  •  Nathan Yau  •  Share on Twitter

  

  With the Titanic anniversary this year, Chiqui Esteban dug up graphics back from the time of the event. This one showing the time to cross the Atlantic is the best. "If only we could fly the Atlantic!"

• Under the Sea, Under the Sea

  April 9, 2012 to Infographics  •  Nathan Yau  •  Share on Twitter

  

  In usual xkcd fashion, Randall Munroe plots the depths of lakes and oceans, including "mysterious door which James Cameron built his sub to reach and open."

• Conducting Demystified

  April 6, 2012 to Infographics  •  Nathan Yau  •  Share on Twitter

  

  The New York Times, in collaboration with the New York University Movement Lab, explains music conducting in this beautifully produced video. It's part interview with Alan Gilbert, music director of the New York Philharmonic, and part rendering of motion capture data, which represents Gilbert's conducting.

  To capture the data, the Movement Lab installed high-speed motion capture cameras, and Gilbert put on one of those funny-looking suits with the sensor balls on them. He conducted, and they recorded his body and his hands.

  Fantasia will probably come to mind as you watch, specifically towards the end when only conducting trails and sensor spots are left to dance on the screen.

• Inception Explained in Animated Infographic

  March 23, 2012 to Infographics  •  Nathan Yau  •  Share on Twitter

  

  Designer Matt Dempsey explains the storyline of Inception in this fun experiment. There were a few flowcharts that came out when the movie did, including one from Christopher Nolan, but this one takes the cake. Just keep on scrolling down to move through levels, and people (the colored circles) disappear and reappear as people go in and out of dreams and limbo.

• Spotlight on movie profitability

  March 2, 2012 to Infographics  •  Nathan Yau  •  Share on Twitter

  

  Movies are a curious business. There a variety of forces that encourage people to pay for a movie ticket with an ever-increasing cost, one of those being the aggregate ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, but it's not uncommon for well-reviewed movies to profit small and poorly reviewed movies to profit big. Krisztina Szucs takes a look at this relationship between Rotten Tomatoes score and profit.
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• Difference between weather and climate explained

  March 1, 2012 to Infographics  •  Nathan Yau  •  Share on Twitter

  The difference:

  In this animated short, the relationship between trend and variation are explained with an excellent analogy to a man walking his dog. There is much more variation in the path that the dog takes as compared with the man, but they are both headed the same way. Similarly, weather can be highly variable and climate means long term trends.

  I heard that a kitten dies every time a news anchor debunks global warming with an unexpected day of snow.

  [Spark]

• Point guard fundamentals of Jeremy Lin

  February 19, 2012 to Infographics  •  Nathan Yau  •  Share on Twitter

  

  You knew this was coming, right? The New York Times describes the point guard fundamentals — dribble penetration, ball screen, and isolation — of Jeremy Lin in this animated Linfographic. For each play, the players of interest are outlined, and the frame shifts so that you can see where the players have been, relative to where they currently are. It's a simple concept executed well.

  I'm familiar with this stuff already, but I imagine this being pretty useful for people just tuning into the game, due to their sudden case of Linsanity. Today's game against Dallas is gonna be a hot ticket.

  [New York Times]

• Urine color chart

  February 17, 2012 to Infographics  •  Nathan Yau  •  Share on Twitter

  A Boy Scout is always prepared.

  

  See also: Bristol stool chart.

• Famous dances in television and cinema illustrated

  February 10, 2012 to Infographics  •  Nathan Yau  •  Share on Twitter

  

  In a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Dancing Plague of 1518, Niege Borges illustrates dances from a number of shows and movies in his project of the same name. All of them available in print, including the Elaine dance from Seinfeld, Little Miss Sunshine, and Singin' in the Rain. [Niege Borges]

• Most mentioned NFL players on SportsCenter

  February 5, 2012 to Infographics  •  Nathan Yau  •  Share on Twitter

  

  Like something from of a video game, this graphic from The New York Times shows the most mentioned NFL players and coaches this season. Players are scaled approximately by the number of mentions between August 1, 2011 to February 1, 2012 on ESPN's SportCenter and Sunday NFL Countdown. The giant on the left is Tim Tebow, with 1,450 mentions. Bar graphs on the bottom highlight mentions over time for players of interest.

  [New York Times]

• In perspective: One hour of video uploaded to YouTube per second

  January 24, 2012 to Infographics  •  Nathan Yau  •  Share on Twitter

  

  YouTube surpassed the one hour of video uploaded per second threshold recently. To put that rate into perspective, they launched a fun illustration-based site, One Hour Per Second. Big team effort headed by Punk & Butler, illustrations by Alex Eben Meyer, animation by Justin Young, and development by Use All Five.
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• Music listening trends and the news in 2011

  January 23, 2012 to Infographics  •  Nathan Yau  •  Share on Twitter

  

  Anyone who uses a social music service like Rdio or last.fm has probably noticed an album's sudden rise in popularity after certain events. For example, when Amy Winehouse died, her album received exponentially more plays than usual. Other times the increase in plays for a certain artist is simple, like the release of a new album. Last.fm takes a look at these patterns in 2011 through the lens of scrobbles, which is basically how last.fm users log what they're listening to.

  Download the data here [zip file] and have a go yourself.

  [Last.fm | Thanks, @dwtkns]

• SOPA opposition surges

  January 20, 2012 to Infographics  •  Nathan Yau  •  Share on Twitter

  

  ProPublica has been tracking members of Congress who oppose and support SOPA. You can view by party and chamber, and you can even sort by campaign contributions from movie, music, and television. Above shows the quick change from January 18 to 19.

  [ProPublica]

• New Hampshire results trackers

  January 10, 2012 to Infographics  •  Nathan Yau  •  Share on Twitter

  The New Hampshire results trackers are out in full force tonight. Ordered by my inclination to leave open in the background: Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, MSNBC, and CNN. Take your pick.

• xkcd: Cost of everything

  November 21, 2011 to Infographics  •  Nathan Yau  •  Share on Twitter

  

  Randall Munroe of xkcd charts the things that money pays for, from the item off the dollar menu all the way up to the total estimated economic productivity of the human race. Following the same scheme to show relative scales that he used for his radiation chart, you get a big picture, a zoom for another big picture, and so on.
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• Public opinion of the Occupy movement

  November 18, 2011 to Infographics  •  Nathan Yau  •  Share on Twitter

  

  To get a gauge of public opinion and the Occupy movement, The New York Times asked readers what they they thought, placing their comments on a two-axis grid ranging from strongly disagree/oppose to strongly agree/support.

  On the horizontal: "Do you agree or disagree with the main goals of the Occupy Wall Street movement?" On the vertical: "Do you support or oppose the methods of the protestors?" So comments on the top right are those who strongly agree with the goals of the movement and strongly approve of protestors' methods. You can also color the dots and grid spots based on a range of disagree to agree for statements such as "Income inequality has contributed to the country's problems."

  Then to bring it home, comments are listed on the bottom with a small grid showing where that person selected. Put it all together and it's way more useful than just open threads elsewhere.

  [New York Times]