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

My latest visual piece for The Guardian, The Billion Pound O Gram, is a British cousin of The Billion Dollar Gram. It reveals the scale of the budget deficit in the centre of the British economy. SPOILER: It’s a big one..

Link to the Guardian piece.

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.

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.

The Cloud

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.

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.

Getting Ridiculous

I guess it’s no surprise that there are a helluva lot of time travel plots centered around our tranche of time (1900-2100). But does it have to be this ridiculous?

Here’s a zoom in.

This concentration of temporal dislocation is why the final image for the book took four months, 34 drafts and the work of three designers.

So who wants to work with me on the Dr Who one? I’m serious. Email me.

Billions spent on this. Billions spent on that. What does it all look like? Hopefully The Billion Dollar Gram will help.

This image arose out of a frustration with the reporting of billion dollar amounts in the media. That is, they’re reported as self-evident facts, when, in fact, they’re mind-boggling and near incomprehensible without context. But they can start to be understood visually and relatively, IMHO.

(This is one of the first images I created for my book. So a lot of the figures are from 2006/07. I’ve also visually cheated slightly here and there to make everything fit)

I hoping this will be a “living image” that I’ll keep updating all the time. So if you find any interesting, juicy or eye-popping billions, please comment below (with a source). Let’s see how high we can make this image!

Movie Monster Comparison Chart

[via Geek Tyrant via FFffffound ]

A round-up and mash-up of data on fatal plane accidents. Cross-referencing the data (unscientifically) reveals the statistically most dangerous flights to take.

UPDATE 15th August: Visitors pointed out a serious error in this diagram relating to the number of fatal accidents by airline. I’ve fixed this now. Thanks to all who pointed it out.