Here Be Treasures

Turn Around Bright Eyes

Friday, August 28th, 2009 | infographics | No Comments

Who would have thunk that the humble flow chart could be crafted to reflect the lyrics of perhaps the most iconic 80s song?

Every now and then I fall apart…

Data-Mining Goes Personal

Friday, May 1st, 2009 | infographics | No Comments

I’ve come across some strange ideas in my time, and this is definitely one of the more outlandish. Joining the ranks of FlowingData’s Twittr-based self-data-mining analysis (phew) and Daytum’s personal dashboard project comes another personal stat data analysis project…

Bedpost.

Yes, using Bedpost.com you record what is possibly the most personal aspect of your life, your sexual encounters. Luckily, Bedpost offers zero social networking features other than partner logins. It’s private beta at the moment, so you’ll have to stick to logging your conquests in that secret code system you developed in the back of your diary.

Baby Name Brainstormer

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 | infographics, kids | No Comments

I promise you, this is the last of the infographics type posts for a while, but I had to link to this because it’s so cool. Baby Name Brainstorm does just that, it brainstorms the name of your baby with a name search engine that bounces around and provides ’sounds like’ and etymologies and alternates all in a bouncy interactive search engine. Check it out, it’s lots of fun.

The Odds of Dying…?

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 | curiosities, infographics | No Comments

Continuing yesterday’s theme is the infographics blog SimpleComplexity, whose name really sums up the goal of these graphics. Some of his visual goodies include the email wars, ‘Jules et Jim’ and the odds of dying.

The Best Statistical Graphic Ever Drawn

Monday, March 30th, 2009 | infographics | No Comments

Flowing Data is a website dedicated to infographics. They cover the latest and greatest productions, for example, the growth of facebook, legal drinking ages, or this social weather map. One of the best infographics I’ve ever seen was an Economist magazine republishing of Charles Joseph Minard’s graphic on Napoleon’s Russian campaign of 1812. The American statistician Edward Tufte calls  it “the best statistical graphic ever drawn”.

Red Riding Hood Re-Envisioned

Friday, March 27th, 2009 | infographics | No Comments

This is a video infographic re-telling of Red Riding Hood. If you are unsure what infographics are, I believe that they could be defined as conveying information by means of graphics. Sounds very straightforward, but humanity took one of its largest steps forward by writing (and perhaps even speaking) via pictographs. Written Chinese is still pictogramic in nature, though highly formalised.

I’ve often thought about the hours of work that have gone into communicating important messages though infographics, for example the airplane instruction leaflet that tries to prepare the passenger for every eventually in what is basically a one page comic, or the dance routine of the stewardesses and stewards, designed to convey the most important information and negate any language barrier. The possibilities of mis-reading such infographics provides endless mirth, but on the other hand companies like Apple have worked their hardest to make their OS and hardware as intuitive as possible through the medium of infographics.

Golden Parachutes & The Financial Crisis

Thursday, March 26th, 2009 | art, infographics | No Comments

Jess Bachman has made a really cool infographic detailing the golden parachutes that some of the US top bankers received in 2007 and 08. It’s a great way to impart the morally criminal activities that these bankers have gotten away with. This is just the latest in a series of visual guides to the financial crisis at mint.com beginning with The Crisis, The Bailout and The Unemployment Rate.

You can find further poster infographics at Bachman’s website: WallStats.com, including a superb giant poster detailing the US 2009 budget.