EXP: November 2009 Archives

Weekend Visualizations To Be Thankful For

By Craig Kanarick on November 30, 2009 9:13 AM | No Comments

As it was the most digital, this past holiday weekend most likely generated more data about our habits than any other in history. Two great new online visualizations portray this with beautiful and clear stories about the typical Thanksgiving activities--shopping and cooking.

I first saw eBay's Black Friday map on TechCrunch and was immediately impressed with how hypnotic and psychedelic it was. The pulsating graphics illustrate interesting patterns of our eBay shopping habits on Black Friday, the supposedly biggest shopping day of the year.

The New York Times published What's Cooking on Thanksgiving, a typically clean, clear and wonderfully produced map of allrecipes.com search terms, showing overt regional patterns in our holiday food preferences, or at least our desire to research recipes about those foods.

Physical Digital Physical Mushrooms

By Craig Kanarick on November 29, 2009 11:57 PM | No Comments

From the super smart Dr. Nicholas Nova (Pasta&Vinegar) in Geneva, we have a great example of physical inspiring digital inspiring physical. What it lacks in reactivity, it makes up for in cuteness.

Sustainable: Baking For Good

By Craig Kanarick on November 29, 2009 11:53 PM | No Comments

A new online bakery started by New York-based Emily Dubner, Baking for Good donates 15% of each purchase to a cause chosen by the customer. By tying charity to a guilty pleasure, Baking for Good allows customers to feel better about consuming scrumptious snacks and desserts, while simultaneously providing a simple system for giving back. This additional sense of social justice far outweighs most dietary concerns, making this a delicious digital destination.

The nicely designed website also helps for a great overall experience.

[ Thanks->PSFK->made this for you ]

Realtime: This site is being upgraded

By Craig Kanarick on November 29, 2009 12:59 AM | No Comments

If you are here and notice that it looks different than the last time you were here, that is because I upgraded the blogging software. Unfortunately, that downgraded the visuals for a while until I figure this out. My apologies.

-- cmk

This Is Plot Jewelery

By cool hunting on November 18, 2009 4:00 PM | No Comments

The brainchild of a strategist and an art director, This Is Plot illustrates the subtle beauty of economic data. Each necklace is handcrafted by the London office of advertising giant Wieden+Kennedy, and is comprised of the traded commodities gold, silver, oil and lead. Celebrating the "stories of exact facts," each necklace plots the price of its representative commodity over the span of thirty years, beautifully marking its highs and lows.

The clever necklaces are seemingly the first to plot data as well as the first collection for Wieden+Kennedy, who are plotting another series soon. Prices vary depending on material, range from £94-240 and can be purchased from This Is Plot.

The Power of Visualization

By Craig Kanarick on November 18, 2009 3:13 PM | No Comments

A topical focus of EXP, data visualization is a powerful tool that allows for easily conveying the incredible stories hidden within a set of data.

One clear illustration of this is Anscombe's quartet. Created in 1973, the quartet is four sets of data with identical statistical properties but wildly different visualizations.

Each of the images at the right is from a set of such numbers and below it, a mathematical description. In English, their basic statistical

measures and averages are the same but the shape of the data isn't. Just like the average size of two 6-foot people is 6-foot, so is the average height of two men, one being 3 feet tall and other being 9.

For much more, immerse yourself in the work of Ed Tufte. His first and possibly most famous book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, remains a bible of data visualization and informational graphic design illustrating this example and countless others.

The Secret Life of Walmart's Deli Pizza Box

By Craig Kanarick on November 16, 2009 3:57 PM | No Comments

Say what you will about Walmart's business practices, but it is undeniable that the organization is making incredible strides towards a sustainable company.

Just watch this video below about how their deli pizza box is created. This video comes from their annual Sustainability Milestones meeting held just last week. On their site, you can see over 25 videos about recent efforts.

Sustainable Nau Pop-Up Shop

By Craig Kanarick on November 12, 2009 9:41 AM | No Comments

If you haven't heard of Nau by now (sorry), you really should. The company is a shining example of the new breed of socially responsible company. This west-coast clothing manufacturer is seriously devoted to sustainability -- not only are the clothes all made from renewable products or recycled synthetics, but the entire company was created with sustainability in mind, as explained in their inspiring Business DNA statement. Just take the first sentence as a summary of what they stand for:

The Corporation shall endeavor to conduct all aspects of its business in an environmentally and socially responsible manner, including the promotion of peaceful conflict resolution, the fair and humane management of factory working conditions, the equitable treatment of its employees, the implementation of a sustainable process of product creation, waste minimization and recycling, and philanthropy...

Today, the company is opening a temporary pop-up store in New York called Here/Nau/Now, located in Soho. To reinforce its corporate values, everything in the store aside from the apparel is repurposed items scooped up from the streets of New York, including the branches that comprise the ceilings of the dressing rooms, the coffee-stained curtains, the cardboard and metal displays and more.

You can read some great quotes from their CEO, Gordon Seabury, in this nice article from Fast Company.

The Fun Theory

By Craig Kanarick on November 10, 2009 1:44 PM | No Comments

The Fun Theory is a new project from Volkswagen that integrates digital technology into every day physical experiences with the expressed goal of making sustainable behavior (walking up stairs, throwing away trash, etc) into fun activities. The theory is that if walking up stairs was more fun, more people would do it, and I agree. How great would it be if every staircase was a piano?

They are also using Open Innovation practices to extend the project by awarding a cash prize called the Fun Theory Award to people who submit similar ideas to the one illustrated below...

[ Thanks, Alex ]

20 Years Later, Tim Berners-Lee Wants to Reinvent Data

By Craig Kanarick on November 9, 2009 12:34 PM | No Comments

Time Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, has a new passion. His new mission is Linked Data. He wants people to post data on the internet in the same way and with the same enthusiasm that people post articles, documents and pictures. His assertion, and I agree, is that if people shared data the same way they share other information on the web, we'd be able to learn about and solve all sorts of problems we don't even recognize. Watch it and believe. After all, the British Government recently appointed him as the person responsible for opening up England's data to the web. Watch his TED talk below for a passionate and exciting presentation about the subject.

The Jobless Rate for People Like You

By Craig Kanarick on November 9, 2009 12:22 PM | No Comments

While it could use more interactivity and some more color, the latest data visualization from the New York Times, about the jobless rate, is a simple clean and effective use of interactive graphics to tell a depressing and interesting story.

Live Ships Map

By Craig Kanarick on November 9, 2009 12:01 PM | No Comments

MarineTraffic.com is a new website based on Google Maps and some open data that allows people to monitor real time ship traffic around the world. Because of some data constraints, the information is mostly about ships on the European and North American coastlines, but a full range of ships are in the system.

The project is hosted by the Department of Project and Systems Design Engineering at the University of the Aegean in Greece. Rolling over a ship icon reveals information such as the heading and history of the vehicle.

The site refreshes itself automatically every minute or so (depending on what part of the world you are monitoring), making the entire experience fun to just use as a screensaver.

Digital Graffiti Wall

By Craig Kanarick on November 6, 2009 11:41 AM | No Comments

Last week I wrote about a great integration of digital and physical technologies to allow people to simulate painting called Digital Painting. Today a reader tipped me off to another digital painting example called the Digital Graffiti Wall. It is created by Canadian consulting firm Tangible Interaction, a company that claims to create "full-on sensory experiences people can interact with in the everyday physical world."

While the other version used roller brushes with LEDs, this version uses spraypaint cans as the physical controller and can support up to 10 users simultaneously. It is rentable, portable, and outdoor safe, so think about this for your next birthday party!

Welcome Cool Hunting Readers

By Craig Kanarick on November 6, 2009 11:40 AM | No Comments

Today Cool Hunting announced that they will be exclusively syndicating articles from EXP. Thanks, CH!

The Press Agrees

By Craig Kanarick on November 2, 2009 11:23 AM | No Comments

Last week two major press outlets covered two of the topics found here on EXP, which is always a good thing. First, Adweek talked about the rise of real-time marketing.

CNN has also jumped on the bandwagon with a nice article about data visualization.

November 2009 Archives