I first got turned on to / by their work when I spotted this awesome poster. It visualizes the many domains within design. Somewhat awesomely.

(Here’s a link to a massive hi-res version)

Simple Is Beautiful

Simple shapes, simple typography, simple colour characterises their work. I snaffled them up for a spread in Information Is Beautiful about the various creation stories across cultures – scientific and mythological.

Struck me there was something cool about trying to visualize such an unimaginably complex process with super-simple graphics.

Iconographtastic

Always With Honor create the best icons! You may have seen some of their work for publications like Monocole. So characterful. More here.

Infographtastic

They also had a strong influence on the look and feel of Good Magazine’s infographic Transparency section. Soft lines and cutsy icons make the data seem less harsh, less griddy. I like!

Colours In Culture

My favourite piece, somewhat selfishly, is the Colours In Culture image on the cover of Information Is Beautiful. It visualizes the meaning of colours across different cultures (Native American, Western, Chinese etc).

Bag yourself a poster

In fact, we’ve just litho-printed a gorgeous poster version of this image on 220 gsm, FSC-certified art paper.

The coolest thing though is that it’s a 6-colour process print. Gold and silver on the diagram have been printed – at great expense – in gold and silver ink. Not only does that look cool. But it also means we’ve been able to remove the legend from the design. Making the image even cleaner and simpler.

Order a copy from our store now.

The first print run is already almost sold out. We have just 25 copies left.

Visit AlwaysWithHonor.com for more beautiful work.

Sekret Firmy Magazine
Russian infography seems to be on the rise. Here are some great visuals from a publication apparently called ‘Sekret Firmy Magazine“. No idea what it’s about. But my eyes just don’t seem to care.

Update: Secret Firmy Magazine is the monthly business magazine of Kommersant, the Russian equivalent of the Wall Street Journal. (Thanks to Bruce Bennett for the info)

Damn Tourists!
Twinned with the Touristy Map Of The World is this amazing set of visualisations from Eric Fisher detailing concentrations of tourists in cities around the world, using geotagged photos. Blue are photos taken by locals. Red by tourists. Gorgeous concept and look. [via Burrito Justice]

If Crime Was Elevation
The peaks of San Francisco. Great concept converting crime figures into topology from coder Doug Mccune. Thanks to @calflyn.

How Much CO2??
Here’s a little interactive thing we did for GE’s EcoImagination initiative. A little window landscaping the relationship between driving and CO2 in America. Coded by the excellent Daniel Goldsworthy.

quickies

• Depth Charge – Not loving all the design elements but I scrolled right down to the end
• Visual Medical Records – Nice early idea
• Meet iPad’s competition – Another great viz from SectionDesign
• Marca World Cup Schedule – About a quillion people have sent me this.
  (Thanks Nuno Monteiro, Tom Broughton, Richard Stewart, Feisal, Onur Yirmibesolglu etc)

As ever, if you’ve spotted any goodies, send them over. Thanks! David.w

I’ve long been an admirer of London-based data artist, Stefanie Posavec. So, when I started working on the Information Is Beautiful book, she was the first person I sought out for collaboration. By happy coincidence she lived around the corner from me.

The result is the awesome (and controversial) Left vs Right concept map.

Now available as a limited edition poster!

Literary Organism

Stefanie’s personal work verges more into data art and is concerned with the unveiling of things unseen. ‘Literary Organism’ is an amazing visualisation of the structure of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road.

Here the lines divide into chapters, bloom into paragraphs, sprout sentences, and spread out into words. All are colour-coded according to the key themes.

The process involved intense mark-up of the original text.

And the creation of a series of awesome visualisations.

Take a look at them in high resolution. These small screens don’t really do the detail justice. [via Notcot]

Ok Go

I’m sure you’ve seen US rockband Ok Go’s amazing Mousetrap-esque video. Here, Stefanie teamed up with Microsoft research ecologist, Greg McInerny to create a visualisation design for the album cover. They worked from the text of the album namesake ‘The Influence of the Blue Ray Of the Sunlight and of the Blue Colour of The Sky‘ by General AJ Pleasonton.

Their works in progress sprang some nice side images based on the lyrical rhythm of the album.

Entangled Word Bank

Here Stefanie produced a visualisation of the evolution of the various editions of Darwin’s opus, The Origin Of Species. I loved the organic feel of the image, like specimens pressed under glass. And the number crunching of over a million words, again by Microsoft ecologist Greg McInerny (using statistical package ‘R’, nerds).

I actually wrote a piece about this in Wired UK. (Nepotism? Je?). So you can find out more there.

Each visual approach was generated from a different ‘seed’ of DNA code. This produced a entire species of organisms, from which the final one was chosen.

Lefts Vs Right

Stefanie did a beautiful job illustrating how political notions may percolate down from government, into society, families, individuals, beliefs and back around into institutions. This concept map has courted much controversy. Left vs Right is perhaps a old and limited way of perceiving the spectrum. But it’s mostly how it’s presented via the media – left wing vs. right wing, liberal vs. conservative, Labour vs Tory. And so maybe in our minds too…?

Get A Limited Edition poster

I love the Left vs Right. I think visualising concepts is one most exciting potentials of the information design movement. So I’m proud to announce that we’ve made a limited edition print of it.

We’ve got just 200 of the US version and 200 of the World version to sell – all numbered and signed by Stefanie Posavec and myself, David McCandless.

They’re printed on 300 gsm, FSC-certified art paper at A1 size (60 x 81 cm). (Translation: they’re gorgeous!).

You can find out more details on our Information Is Beautiful Big Cartel page. It has secure ordering.

25% of the profits will go to Ganet’s Adventure School, a children’s charity in Malawi.

You can also get some prints of Stefanie’s work here. Check out her site at itsbeenreal.co.uk

In Your Dreams
I really liked this visualization from Kailie Parrish. Not just for the stylish look. But for the subject matter. Stepping out of the info-, data-, stats-sphere into the deeply personal and a little bit magical-sphere. Nice! (I’d also love to see a version that was actually readable.)

[via DataVisualization.ch]

How Do I Get My Girlfriend To Shave?
Type a phrase into Google and it will attempt to auto-complete the phrase for you. An incidental feature but always hilariously revealing about the deep concerns of the group mind. I had a go at visualizing the query “How do I get my girlfriend / boyfriend to…” using the sweet tool Web Seer. See what you think.

How Safe Is Your Password?
A few visuals about the weakness of most peoples’ passwords have been doing the rounds. I like this one best as it adds an extra layer of sociological categorization. Due credit to Robin Richards.

As ever, if you find anything worthy of being breakfasted upon by hungry info-nerds, please pass it on.

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!

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)

The Great Circle

Spook! Many of the ancient ‘wonders of the world’ are apparently on the same latitude.

Precession

A key idea in the current Mayan 2012 end-of-the-world meme is that December 21st, 2012 coincides with the end of the Precession of the Equinox, a 26,000 galactic cycle. Hmmmmmm…

Mayan Interdimension Starmap

What would a Monday morning be without some Mayan mind mank?

Check out his Photostream on Flickr. Let me know if you find any other cool visualizers.

They’ve been quietly championing infographics and visual information in their ‘Transparency’ section for a few years now. Many of their images are America-centric. But a lot highlight global concerns. Here are some of my favourites.

The Pacific Plastic Gyre
They were all over the huge lump of plastic in the ocean story before anyone else.

No More Fish in the Sea
This is pretty – and makes me want to look at it

China
I also like these Visual FAQs on the superpower. Visual FAQs are the way to go.

Vampire Energy
Important information wrapped in a cheeky concept. Pretty strong visual incentive to turn off that Plasma.

Solar Power
Staring at the potential of solar power.

Here the Transparency section on their site. You can also see the full set on Flickr

Please let me know any good ones you find or any other great visualizers out there. Me likeee.