This class Paul introduced us to our diagrammatic part of the semester. As I finish off my travel app I look forward to seeing what’s in store for this section.
“The commonality between science and art is in trying to see profoundly – to develop strategies of seeing and showing.” – Edward Tufte
Data is present everywhere in our world, just glancing at a news site such as BBC we can see different ways data is display such as:
- Bus Timetables
- Company Forecasts, Profit and Loss
- Election Results
- Sales Figures
- Weather Reports
Paul Button produces stunningly proportionate and sophisticated data pieces in all unique forms. One of my favourite piece of his is the Apollo mission in which trails wrap around the earths orbit and the moon showing the route of Apollo. It is a stunningly symmetrical visual graph which has greatly inspired ideas in me to do similar with presenting my data.
David McCandless creates a variety of sophisticated and often chaotic data graphs in interesting and innovative ways.
Although I like his work, his chaotic nature which he presents his data with isn’t my style as I prefer more clean and proportionate ways of displaying data. Although, he is a good reference to look at and gain artistic inspiration from.
One designer Paul recommended stood out to me; James Round. I really enjoyed looking at some of his pieces including ‘The Many Moons of Jupiter’ collection which he displays his data proportionate and abstractly but at the same time he manages to create a visually detailed and pleasing piece.
Some more pieces displaying data I found interesting:
Possible approaches to my Infographic:
- Births and deaths in world – past and/or present
- Population figures specific to country
- Population in last 50, 100 years (future?)
- By religion
- By environment
- Climate change
- Disease / Illness
What have I learned?
I really enjoyed this session on displaying data as it has inspired the many ways I can display data and make it interesting from rising important sections of basic pie chart to more sophisticated trails circulating in outer space. The opportunities are endless. Although I haven’t figured out what I want to do yet it was fascinating to see all the different data designers and how they create their pieces. This class has showed me data where I didn’t know was possible and it has also made me more aware of the world of data. I will now do further research on data designers.