It’s December 1. ‘Tis the season for giving, so guess what – it’s time for a FlowingData contest! Jodi has kindly offered two free Edward Tufte books for one lucky FlowingData reader. She’s getting ready to move and simply wants to find these books a good home. The two books up for grabs:
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The Visual Display of Quantitative Information — “Excellence in statistical graphics consists of complex ideas communicated with clarity, precision, and efficiency…”
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Visual Explanations — “Our thinking is filled with assessments of quantity, an approximate or exact sense of number, amount, size, scale…”
Both books are used, but I don’t think that matters. They still have the same pretty content as they did when they were new. You know – like a fine wine. There’s nothing better than a bottle of aged Tufte.
How to Win
Below is a graph that shows immigration to the United States by country of origin. Can you make a better graph using the same data source?
To the person who submits the best remake of the above immigration graph will win both Tufte books. Email me your entries to nathan [at] flowingdata DOT com with “Graph Contest” in the subject line by Friday, December 5, 8:00pm EST. Jodi and I will judge based on informativeness (is that even a word?), aesthetics, and creativity. I will announce the winner later next week as well as post everyone’s work like I’ve done in the past. The books can only be shipped to those with a U.S. mailing address, so any international entries will have to be for pride.
Good luck. We’re looking forward to seeing what you all come up with.
P.S. Don’t forget to thank Jodi for her generous donation!
UPDATE: I should’ve mentioned this. You can submit up to two entries, and I will greatly appreciate it if your entries are in image format e.g. JPG, GIF or in PDF format rather than an Excel spreadsheet. Although it’s not a requirement. Lastly, as you design your improved graphs, you might want to take a look at some of the data design tips I’ve posted.
Maybe I am blind but how can you make a graph on the swivel website ?? Any links ? I only see examples of charts that were created but no list of models, a HowTo …
I just downloaded the data and did 2 graphs with OpenOffice Calc. This took my less than 3 minutes. What is the idea behind a website that has less graph chart models than a stand-alone program on a pc ? If it’s about collaborative working on tables and charts swivel then Google or Zoho Spreadsheets will do it.
The Google Charts is limited in its edits, as you see here :
The OpenOffice chart module produces better results but they don’t survive well the export into the pdf format so that I was bale to publish them via Google Docs.
Nathan,
did you mean by “continent of origin”?
Not to quibble, but it strikes me as a little backwards that the person who submits the *best* visual representation will get the books; I’d have thought a person with less knowledge or experience with visual representation would be a better choice for such foundational masterpieces.
(And while I’d love to enter, I unfortunately have too much I need to accomplish today! Best of luck to those who enter, though!)
@ftr – there is a way… but i can’t find it right now. I can tell you this though – the best graph won’t be made in Swivel
@Steve – Good question (hint)
@Teri – I could give it to the worst, but that doesn’t seem all that right either. By the way, you have all of this week to enter, so don’t let that hold you back
I recently checked Visual Explanations out of my school’s library, and I would love to own it.
But, I just won the Good Magazine contest and now I feel greedy.
Whoops. Looks like I typed the word, “country” instead of “continent” or “region.” I’m no Sarah Palin, but everyone makes a mistake now and then. The title of the graph has been corrected on the Swivel website.
I look forward to seeing how the Flowing Data readers can improve the graph. May the best visualization win. :)
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Just wondering when we’re going to see some of the graphs that folks have submitted… Looking forward to checking them out.
@Ari G: tomorrow :)