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Archive for the ‘images’ Category

Monday Morning Eye Candy: Polar Ice Cap Melt Animation

Posted in images, visualization, tagged , , , , , , , , on 29 September 2008 |

Animation of the the 2008 arctic polar cap melt — apparently not quite as extreme as last year’s record-setter, but close. And the rate of melt in August was unprecedented.

yup

Click the image for the link to the animation

Source: NASA’s Godard Space Flight Center. Spotted via Maryland Weather.

I also like this graph that they did, showing the 2008 minimum against the historical average. They give it to you in map form and as a line graph. I might have improved the contrast in the map so that the outline of the median minimum stands out more, but that’s just me.

Nice map

Click the image to see full size version.

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Data Visualization: Infographics Open Your Eyes

Posted in design, images, visualization, tagged , , , , , on 9 September 2008 | 5 Comments »

Spotted recently in the NYTimes: “Lines and Bubbles and Bars, Oh My! New Ways to Sift Data“

Nice quote near the end on why infographics and visualization can help you when you are working with data:

Presenting results in a static spreadsheet or table may do the job. “But sometimes it’s like driving with your eyes closed,” he [Ben Schneiderman, dubbed in the article as "a pioneer in information visualization"] said. “With visualization, it might be possible to open your eyes and see something that will help you” — for instance, patterns, clusters, gaps or outliers in the data.

I had this exact experience the other day – I was working with some info on spending over the last several  years. It was a very simple table, but I was getting distracted by the individual numbers, unable to see if there was a pattern. So I popped it into a simple line graph and zap! I understood the trend instantly — it was downward, which in this particular case was very much to my liking.

Add to that the interactive and community aspects of the current data viz boom online, and then you can see how the Interwebs is doing for charts’n'graphs what it’s already done for music, video, news and most forms of textual information.

Aside: the article is mainly a profile of IBM’s Many Eyes dataviz app/community site. Which I keep meaning to check out more, but have yet to really dive in. Others in the same vein that I’ve heard tell of: Swivel, Track’n'graph.

And of course the NYT themselves are purveyors of fine interactive infographics. One of my fave examples of NYT brand infocandy:”The Ebb and Flow of Movies” – I revel in the swirly forms – all it needs is playback controls as well as the slider and it would be perfect.

Here’s a nice screen shot of the Ebb and Flow infographic in action – pretty stuff!

screen capture from NYTimes' interactive infographic on hollywood box office data

oooh, swirly swirly - and nice fall colours too

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GraphJam!

Posted in design, images, visualization, tagged , , , , , , , on 4 July 2008 | 5 Comments »

I love that data visualization fever has gripped the interwebs. A well-constructed graph or chart lets me instantly grasp an idea way faster than a textual explanation can, even if it’s really well written. A testament to the power of visual communication.

But as with any hyped trend, there’s the risk of oversupply — with data visualization, the main risk is an excess of shoddy or pointless infographics that actually hinder understanding. Like using Excel’s chart wizard without tweaking the god-awful presets.

And then there’s GraphJam (“pop culture for people in cubicles”). The site is a raging parody of data visualization’s current popularity — GraphJam treats inforgraphics as jokes. Here’s a typical example, complete with cute typo in the title:

I especially love that this graph actually made me look up the lyrics to the song. It would have been absolutely perfect if the label for the red line had read “Pink champagne on ice.”

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Creative Commons and images for government

Posted in images, tagged , , , on 14 April 2008 | 2 Comments »

Photo of Creative Commons logo projected on a screen

(source:foolswisdom)

At work I routinely get asked if we’ve got a photo bank – folks in our Department are always looking for ways to add imagery to their web pages or pamphlets or whatever other type of marketing or communications materials they are working on.

We don’t have a corporate photo bank, haven’t for years. Shrinking budgets and overextended resources are to blame. No money to acquire imagery, and no one to manage the licensing and whatnot.

Creative commons to the rescue?

CC licensed images could really help out us govt communicator types always struggling to add some visual interest to stuff thats frequently very dry. And without the cost or time involved to acquire the rights to traditional commercial photography.

I haven’t yet fully thought this through, but since we’re generally not about marketing in the service of making a buck, it would seem like CC licensed images would be a natual fit. And thanks to Creative Commons Canada, it’s really easy to search for CC content.

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Saved by the Commando of the Interwebs!

Posted in images on 3 April 2008 |

Don’t Worry Sir I’m From The Internet

(source: Klashbash – here’s the original ytmnd site)

I was stuck yesterday morning – I had forgotten that I was to speak at a directorate meeting about a topic that doesn’t really excite me – traffic stats for a little web site I manage. So I was pressed for time and I really didn’t have much to say.

So I did the natural thing. I told jokes.

Times being what they are, my little gig involved the obligatory slideware, Google and copy/paste.

I remembered cracking up the first time I saw that internet commando guy pic, so of course it was the first thing I thought of using. A couple of clicks of the mouse later and I had tracked it down and dropped it into my preso.

It worked – got some laughs, thereby distracting everyone from the woeful lack of substance to my talk.

It didn’t hit me until afterwards that perhaps some of the folks in the room who actually have a life offline might have thought that I created this image. Obviously I’m not that clever.

After the laughter had died down, I mentioned that I was happy to have found a way to work that pic into something work-related, but I never clearly said “this isn’t mine” nor did I provide a citation on screen. So this post is my way of saying to Klashbash, whoever you are — thank you and I’m sorry I didn’t give you proper credit. I hope you don’t mind. Your internet commando dude saved my butt.

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Industry Canada on Flickr

Posted in images, tagged , , , on 26 March 2008 | 2 Comments »

Industry Canada in Toronto

(source: rguerra on Flickr, posted on 13 Aug 2005)

Was curious to see what kind of footprint Industry Canada has on Flickr, so I went searching… and this is the best (of three in total!) Creative Commons shots that I could come up with. There are some other pix with more traditional copyrights attached to them (like this one of the building where I work), but nothing else that I can repost.

Actually, this photo is a puzzle – why would anyone find this interesting enough to first take a picture of and then go through the trouble of actually posting? As an example of typical government approach to displays? As a cautionary tale of how not to overburden your display with too much text? Then again, maybe this tells a story that doesn’t come through in 500 X 375 pixels…

Anyhow, the lack of an Industry Canada presence on Flickr makes me wonder if there’s any value in setting up a Flickr account where all the photos posted to the front page of the www.ic.gc.ca Web site also get posted, perhaps with pithy commentary. Might help to humanize what we do.

Aside: the photographer’s comment for this photo was the funniest search result that I got.

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The Canadian Design Resource

Posted in branding, design, images on 21 March 2008 |

www.canadiandesignresource.ca

(Source: www.canadiandesignresource.ca)

The other day, I was looking up some information on the late Allan Fleming, who was the designer behind such Canadian icons as the CN logo (pictured), and a colleague pointed me towards the Canadian Design Resource blog. Nice find!

The blog features the work of Canadian designers and examples of Canadian-inspired design. Spend a few minutes poking around; there’s lots of fascinating stuff. For instance, I learned that Helvetica Neue ain’t the right Helvetica for the federal government’s corporate identity. I mean, who knew?

Aside: I noticed also that one of the frequent contributors to this blog is Todd Falkowsky, Creative Director at Motherbrand and a prof at OCAD. I thought I recognized the name, and a few minutes poking around the internets confirmed that my memory does indeed serve. More significantly, his students think he’s great.

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Get Visual!

Posted in community, images, tagged , , , on 12 March 2008 | 1 Comment »

This blog is pretty drab ain’t it?

I’m gonna try to overcome that by using this formula:

Flickr + Creative Commons = Images (that are better than my posts LOL).

I’ve noticed how lotsa folks snag great shots from Flickr and post them on their blogs. But how to find decent shots without going crazy trying to sift through more than 2 billion images? (That mind-boggling number according to Flickr’s community manager Heather Champ — h/t Brian Oberkirch.)

So, a little poking around on the internets and I found this handy handy tutorial on how to do it.

Here’s the coles notes version of the tutorial: Go to the Creative Commons “Attribution license” search page on Flickr. You can snag photos under this CC license and use them at will — all you need to do is credit the source by linking back to their Flickr profile.

Nice work also by Flickr to enable the community to easily do this kind of thing.

Time to get visual:

Is a Flickr image good if its thumbnail isn’t?

(Photo: kevindooley)

Found this via an attribution license search on “get visual.” Interesing shot. Plus the photographer talks about Marshall McLuhan in his comments on the photo. Good enough for me!

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