EXP: data visualization Archives

The Average Color of the NY Sky. Right Now.

By Craig Kanarick on June 22, 2011 4:34 PM | No Comments

This lovely little site charts the average color of the New York City skyline in real time, updated every five minutes. Created by designer Mike Bodge from his East Village apartment, the system takes a photo of NoHo and computes the average color of the sky and adds it to the site.

The past few days are currently archived there, so if you visit the site, be sure to scroll. It is all over the blogosphere, so the site might be a little slow, but Mike just tweeted that he's working on it.

107 Cocktails in 3 Minutes

By Craig Kanarick on June 17, 2011 3:08 PM | No Comments

I saw this attractive article in New York Magazine about cocktails featuring the colorful photography of Danny Kim and it made me quite thirsty. So, I took his images and GIF'd them. I hope you like it.

Gogo Inflight WiFi Coverage Map Fail

By Craig Kanarick on May 23, 2011 1:50 PM | No Comments

Could this data visualization be any less helpful? Apparently this map was in an Delta in-flight magazine recently. The map seems to indicate that Gogo service covers the entire country, and then some. At the bottom, however, it has a giant disclaimer saying the map is an approximation, meaning the entire thing is useless. So, what information are we left with? Gogo might be everywhere, but it also might not be?

And why only part of Alaska? Just to prove they are aware they aren't everywhere?

Thanks, Floating Sheep.

Japanese Earthquake Interactive Data Visualization

By Craig Kanarick on March 14, 2011 11:45 AM | No Comments

In what is sure to be a large number of interesting ways of viewing the latest tragedy in Japan, New Scientist has published an interactive data visualization of the history of earthquakes in Japan. Like the damage itself, the images speak for themselves.

The 2010 Feltron Annual Report

By Craig Kanarick on February 8, 2011 11:09 PM | No Comments

Design wizard Nicholas Felton has released his 2010 Feltron Annual Report, and as always it is great. Not so much about Nicholas directly, it is more a reconstruction of his father's life based on artifacts.

If only every news story was as well designed and information rich.

Interactive NBA Slam Dunk Contest History

By Craig Kanarick on February 2, 2011 8:05 PM | No Comments

The Knicks game is on and in the early not-so-exciting moments, I am turning to this really great new data visualization on Hoopism, Every NBA Slam Dunk Contest Video Visualization.

The graphics and information design aren't my favorite but this is a great example of the content being so compelling that is hardly matters. This is particularly well timed to go with the recent Bleacher Report article and voting site, Top 160 Dunks in NBA Slam Dunk Contest History With Clips.

Two Awesome Bus Shelter Ads

By Craig Kanarick on January 26, 2011 4:04 PM | No Comments

In a previous post about interactive billboards, I wrote about some really nice installations in bus shelters. So far this year, I've come across two more that are worth mentioning.

The first is a bus shelter located in my home town, Minneapolis. Home to severely snowy and cold winters, local agency Collie + McVoy transformed a bus shelter into a giant toaster oven, complete with heating coils, to promote Caribou Coffee. I'm surprised there aren't homeless people living in it by now.

While this one got me excited, a much more interesting project is the one that Yahoo! has hosted in San Francisco. Called Bus Stop Derby, it is being promoted as a citywide challenge. 20 different bus stops have had 72" touch screens installed with four different games for passengers to play while they are waiting. The games can be played solo or against someone in another bus stop. Scores from each bus stop are tabulated in real time and at the end of the promotion, the winning neighborhood will win a concert with OK Go in that neighborhood.

Fed Ex's "Our Changing World" Data Visualization

By Craig Kanarick on January 19, 2011 12:10 PM | No Comments

FedEx must have spent a lot of money and time on this beautiful data visualization that allows users to explore the world through a variety of lenses. The experience is essentially a morphing map that scales countries to a particular size based on different data sources. The image above is a map of the world with the countries scaled to represent the number of new businesses (i.e. entrepreneurs) per capita. There are 21 different categories of information, each one having 3 different views with data from unique sources. My favorite? Beer imported per capita -- watch Africa disappear...

Who isn't getting into the interactive data mining game these days?

BBC Newsnight: Information Graphics

By Craig Kanarick on January 10, 2011 3:22 PM | No Comments

From a few months ago, BBC takes a look at the power of data visualization and hosts a dialog between David McCandless and Neville Brody. The video is 11 minutes long and spends a lot of time focused on the potential misuse of graphics, perhaps to increase some of the drama. It really isn't needed, as the discussion between the two designers is fascinating. Brody comes off as a crotchety old man, all bitter about where design has gone. McCandless seems thrown by the negativity and has a difficult time defending the field of infographics. Granted, his work isn't the most efficient or effective in terms of information design so it didn't surprise me that he couldn't defend his work, but I was more disappointed that he couldn't stand up a little bit more to Brody.

7 Billion People in Kinetic Typography

By Craig Kanarick on January 7, 2011 3:34 PM | No Comments

Check out this well done animated typography explanation of the population situation. 7 Billion is an year-long documentary series by National Geographic and based on this video alone, I certainly want to see it.

The Joy of Stats

By Craig Kanarick on January 7, 2011 3:09 PM | No Comments

Finally, we Americans can watch the amazing BBC show, The Joy of Stats. Hosted by guru Hans Roling, this hourlong documentary/editorial on statistics and graphics is compelling for anyone, even kids.

AIGANY / Data Visualization: Methods and Madness

By Craig Kanarick on January 7, 2011 11:54 AM | No Comments

Just as I start to "dig out" from the end-of-year madness, it starts to blizzard here in New York again. So I thought it would be an appropriate time to start posting on EXP again, especially when I saw a note about this upcoming lecture next Wednesday featuring friend and design hero, Lisa Strausfeld.

The AIGA site has a little fun with this one, using a numbered list of instructions as a description of the event. This is the first of three lectures in a series about data visualization and I'm sure all three of them will be great. New Yorkers, I'll see you there.

Isarithmic History of the Two-Party Vote

By Craig Kanarick on November 22, 2010 12:21 PM | No Comments

This is an amazing video showing the ebbs and flows of the voting public over the past 200+ years. The artist used county-level data and you can really see the spread of voting patterns.

This is a great example of how data visualization is good at telling stories.

StockMapper

By Craig Kanarick on October 6, 2010 11:44 PM | No Comments

I am sort of shocked that it has taken me so long to find out about StockMapper, an incredible interactive data visualization "concept" from TWO-N.

The elegant and useful site is essentially a heatmap for the major stock exchanges. It is incredibly rich, allowing the user to filter and sort the data with tons of variations. I can't think of a better way to look at stock market information.

I particularly like the visualization of the Dow Jones Industrial Average information shown here.

The Beauty of Data Visualization

By Craig Kanarick on September 3, 2010 1:15 AM | No Comments

David McCandless is a British writer, designer and author who sometimes calls himself a "data journalist." His blog, Information is Beautiful and his recent book, The Visual Miscellaneum are brilliant surveys of data visualization. This past July, he gave a fun talk at TED about the subject and explained infographics' potential role in helping people with information overload. If you haven't seen it, watch it. It is really fantastic.

The New York Times: All The News That's Fit to Post by Gestalten TV

By Craig Kanarick on July 20, 2010 5:44 PM | No Comments

Watch this great video by German gestalten.tv that gives an inside look at the NY Times Graphics team, makers of some of the most inspiring interactive graphics on the web.

Die Gestalten: "The New York Times: All The News That's Fit to Post"

Visualizing the FIFA World Cup in HTML5

By Craig Kanarick on June 22, 2010 11:59 AM | No Comments

Now that FIFA World Cup frenzy is upon us, there are a slew of sites out there trying to visualize various aspects of the tournament. The New York Times does their usual top-notch job of creating useful interactive data visualizations, so be sure to check them out. Another one that I like is this very simple HTML5-based interactive experience called Visualizing the World Cup.

Robert Ivan, a web developer in NJ, took a similar project designed for the NHL and modified it to display the teams that have reached the finals of the World Cup since 1930.

Inamo Restaurant in London

By Craig Kanarick on June 17, 2010 11:29 PM | No Comments

Two of my best friends are traveling in London right now and I wonder if they are going to eat at Inamo Restaurant. Customers at this digital dining extravaganza order from an interactive menu projected onto the table from above. Images of food are projected onto empty plates to give the diner a preview of their meal. That's not all the table does either. It allows diners to pick the decor on the table, place their order, watch a live streaming video from the kitchen or play games.

NYT: An Early Triumph in Information Design

By Craig Kanarick on May 28, 2010 11:46 AM | No Comments

From the "I thought this was a good idea" department, the New York Times today, in writing about a new exhibit in London, recognizes the incredible growth in information design. The exhibit in the new Galleries of Modern London in the Museum of London features the seminal maps of philanthropist and social reformer Charles Booth created from 1886 through 1903. The maps, called The Descriptive Maps of London Poverty, color each street to indicate the income of its residents. If it weren't for pioneers like Booth, information design wouldn't be anywhere near what it is today.

Oli Scarff/Getty Images

The Real "LOST": CNN's Iraq and Afghanistan War Casualties

By Craig Kanarick on May 24, 2010 9:37 AM | No Comments

In honor of the upcoming Memorial Day, CNN has created an emotionally impactful data visualization called Casualties all about the deaths and injuries sustained in Iraq and Afghanistan in the recent wars. This interactive graphic does more than any words-only article could ever do to illustrate just how widespread the damage has been to the participating countries, in particular to our youth.

With stories like this, CNN shows how news stories will be reported in the coming years. Excellent job, CNN.

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