New York-based designer Mike Deal has a great project going visualizing The Beatles.
I especially like this one. It tracks the keys of Beatles’ album tracks. You can see at a glance their poppier, more harmonic albums.
The project is an offshoot of an ongoing kaleidoscopic project at chartingthebeatles.com and on Flickr.
If it grabs you, head on over and take part. See you there!
The Visual Miscellaneum sold out in North America over Christmas. Woo! Thanks to all those who bought a copy.
Thanks to my publishers HarperCollins, I now hold what could be the last five copies of the first edition.
I’d like to sign them and give away to you, lovely readers. Before this site goes all Information Is Beautiful on your ass.
To enter the prize draw, just leave a comment below.
On Saturday 16th January I’ll pick five winners at random and contact them via email.
(BTW Apols for the lack of updates recently. I’ve been working on some cool new stuff to be released v. soon).
UPDATE: Thank you for all your entries and the lovely comments. I have been blushing continuously all week. Comments are closed now. But I’ll be picking winners on Monday 18th.
Would you consider pre-ordering my book? That way I can get it into more bookshops. And we can spread the good news about the amazing ALL-GRAPHIC FUTURE OF CIVILISATION THAT AWAITS US!
It’s out in the US 10th November. And in the UK on the 4th February.
Here’s a Visual Miscellaneum US pre-order link
I received my first copies this week – a joyful and agonising experience. Joyful because yay it’s my book! Agonising because, inevitably, I keep seeing things I want to change or tweak or improve.
Overall though, I think it’s pretty good. Ultimately, I wanted to explore a whole range of subjects as visually and beautifully as possible, with the minimum of text. I hope I managed it and I hope you enjoy it.
Here are some pictures to give you a sense of it.
(Sorry about the awful framing of some of these. I’m a designer, not a photographer yeah?)
Here’s that Visual Miscellaneum US pre-order link again.
Enjoy! And let me know what you think. Thanks! david.
(p.s. if you want review copies, please email
USA: Meredith.Rusu@harpercollins.com | UK & EUROPE: Katherine.Patrick@harpercollins.co.uk)
How To Get Replies Online Dating
Dating site OKCupid examined which words in an opening email to women increased or decreased the chances of a reply. Hilarious and revealing.
Christopher Niemann
This US illustrator does a nice line in hand-drawn infographics
(I also like his ‘I Confess’ range)
How many troops has each country sent to Afghanistan?
Ok I did this one. But I think it’s an important question. And quite surprising.
Susanna Hertrich: Reality Checking Device
A visual device for getting some perspective. Nice!
(sorry about the tiny screen shot – it’s the only one I could find) UPDATE: Here’s a big version (Thanks to Matthew Goldthwaite)
If you come across any visual delights, please send them through.
I’m trying to create a piece of interactive art. Can you help by drawing something? It should only take 5 minutes.
I’d like you to draw a picture of your soul. How you imagine it to look.
Nothing sinister intended. I’m curious about how different people perceive their ‘soul’.
If enough people do this, it could be really interesting. Because we’ll all be blind to other peoples’ drawings, there’s a chance here to spot patterns, commonalities and any interesting coincidences that might appear across all the souls.
Cooler, we may even be able to build a taxonomy of souls.
At the least, it should be a fascinating, crowd-sourced image…
(This idea was inspired by Waxy’s toyings with Mechanical Turk and The Sheep Market by Aaron Koblin.)
The Hierarchy of Digital Distractions
I notice these days that I can spend hours at my computer, in a cloud. A swampy blur of digital activity, smeared across various activities and media and software.
Emailing, writing, tweeting, designing, browsing, taking calls, Skyping, Facebooking, RSS Feeding – all blurred into a single technological trance.
I seem to switch randomly from one to the other. But actually is there a subtle hierarchy in this cloud? Do I prefer some distractions over others? I think so.
In this diagram, each level in this hierarchy trumps the next.
So, if you get a new msg on Facebook, but your landline rings, you’ll take the landline call. You might have a spasmodic moment of ‘uh? wadd I do’. But, usually, you’ll take the call.
Similarly, if you get a new SMS whilst opening a new online dating message, you’ll be hard pressed not to read that SMS. It’ll take a great force of will. You may attempt to do both simultaneously. But if you really observe yourself closely, one will take priority – even if it’s only by milliseconds. The SMS will win your attention.
And so on up the chart…
(I understand this post reveals much about my pitiful life. There’s no need to say that in the comments, thanks.)
But if I’ve missed any distractions, feel free to suggest them. I realise AIM and MS Messenger introduce a whole universe of distraction. I don’t go there. I have enough distractions.
Here’s a visualisation of time travel plots in various films and TV programs. I had a lot of fun doing this!
It was particularly cool to highlight potential plotlines for “meta movies” where time travellers from different plots could meet and paradox it out. Charlie Kauffman are you reading this??
(By the way, I allowed myself a +1 / -1 year fuzz around the paradoxes. So knives away nerds!)
This is a straight data visualisation, rather than information design. That is, it’s not particularly useful, nor useable, nor meaningful. The inspiration was the coolness of the idea, really. I was excited to see what shape all the plots would make, and whether it could be shaped into something beautiful.
What I really love about this image, though, is the idea that this information has never been seen before. Despite the fact that it exists, in some way,somewhere, wrapped in various plots, it’s never been given form. I have to say, it was a joy to untangle it all :)
Big thanks to talented designers Alice Cho and Dominic Busby for their invaulable contributions. And Jeremy MacLynn for essential art direction.
I’ve been playing with Google Insights. It’s a great toy. It measures ’search intensity’. The number of searches being made for a certain term.
Off the back of the recent timeline of global media scare stories, I got curious about what searches actually look like.
For example, the search “violent video games” reveals a very distinct pattern.
Why that distinct pattern? If you add the dates, it clarifies things:
Every April and November the issue flares up. Why?
April 20th is the anniversary of the Columbine Massacre. Though dimishing, the echoes of that event still reverberate through the group mind.
Not sure about the November peak? Maybe because Christmas video games are announced?
A little mash-up of drugs use figures and world happiness ratings.
What makes a successful online dating photo?
Dating site OKCupid uses data from their members to overturn myths about what makes a successful online dating profile photo. A fascinating & funny read.
Summary:
men – mysteriously looking away from camera, unsmiling, holding an animal
women – flirting into camera, outdoors, with a hint of cleavage
They also did another great data-piece about what to say in an opening message.
[via Waxy.org]
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