Best of the visualisation web… October 2012

At the end of each month I pull together a collection of links to some of the most relevant, interesting or thought-provoking web content I’ve come across during the previous month. If you follow me on Twitter you will see many of these items shared as soon as I find them.

Here’s the latest collection from October 2012:

The Guardian | Interactive slideshow about the ‘Rise of the Megacity’ | Interactive Slideshow

Views of the World | Some interesting cartograms showing the changing demographics of Germany | Article

Jerome Cukier | Jerome plots out the network of places in Games of Thrones across the series | Interactive Visualisation

Slate | ‘Why do people love to say that correlation does NOT imply causation?’ | Article

New York Times | Fantastic demonstration of how graphics can be used to support alternative viewpoints and political perspectives | Interactive Visualisation

MaRS Commons | Interview with Lisa Zhang, co-founder of Polychart | Interview

GigaPan | The hairball of hairballs! Huge network of the top 1,000 social media influencers in London | Interactive visualisation

mbostock’s blocks | A tidal wave of d3 samples and templates from the oracle himself, Mike Bostock | Collection

Visual.ly | The Case for Designing – and Writing – by Hand | Article

Infosthetics | Conflict History: All Human Conflicts on a Single Map | Interactive Visualisation

The Functional Art | Alberto compiles his recommended reading list for his MOOC in Infographics and Data visualisatoin | Collection

Boston Globe | Wonderful device created by the Globe to show the intensity, subjects and flow of the US VP election debates | Interactive Visualisation

Perceptual Edge | 2012 Perceptual Edge Dashboard Design Competition: We Have a Winner! | Contest

Michael Babwahsingh | Michael discusses ‘how best to harness the power of visual thinking to achieve real results [in business]?’ | Article

New York Times | Over the decades, how have US State voting patterns shifted? | Interactive Visualisation

The Guardian | Venezuelan election results mapped for every public vote since Chavez took power | Interactive Visualisation

NPR | Great story about a prominent band of blue Democratic voting in an otherwise sea of red Republican, told through visualisation | Article

YouTube | Royksopp’s ‘Remind Me’: the video built entirely out of visualisation, infographics and diagrams | Video

The Guardian | Timeline of the key events surrounding the Eurozone crisis | Interactive Timeline

FastCo Design | A cellphone company’s elegant solution to confusing bills | Article

FastCo Design | The Data-Viz Story Behind Joy Division’s Legendary Album Cover | Article

Bryan Christie Blog | Bryan discusses ink drawings and infographics and a desire to do an infographic in ink | Article

Google | Fascinating slideshow of Google’s data centres | Slideshow

Slate | The Beauty of the Airline Baggage Tag | Article

Flowing Data | Tracking Homicides in Washington, D.C | Interactive Visualisation

Visual Loop | 40 must-see vídeos about data visualization and infographics | Collection

The Why Axis | Bryan critiques the ‘Google Consumer Barometer’ – does it deliver insight through visualisation?’ | Critique

Marian Dörk | Introducing ‘Pivot Paths’, an interactive visualisation for exploring faceted information resources | Visualisation Tool

Noun Project | An oldie, but a goodie – Icons for everything | Collection

TPM | The Guardian US’ Interactive Editor Is Trying To Do Visual News Differently | Interview

This isn’t F***ing Dalston | “After numerous arguments with mini-cab drivers and estate agents about what is and isn’t Dalston, I decided to do some research…” | Visualisation

Sheila Pontis | Transition times of information design | Article

Tableau | Introducing Tableau Public Premium (the artist formerly known as Tableau Digital) | Article

Data Remixed | Ben discusses the scope and value of different scenarios where the decision may be interactive visualisations vs. small multiples | Article

FastCo Design | The Home Automation Panel That’s Infographic Art | Ambient Visualisation

Michael Babwahsingh | Michael discusses ‘what good service means, and doesn’t mean, in the context of career paths and human behaviour’ | Article

Just Creative | 30 fonts to last a life time | Collection

BBC | Wonderful scrollable infographic from the BBC about the 50th anniversary of James Bond | Interactive infographic

Memoto | Introducing Memoto, the lifelogging camera | Video/Article

Vis4.net | Making Pictographs? Choose Your Icons Wisely! | Article

Perceptual Edge | Control vs. the Illusion of Control: Which Works for You? | Article

The Guardian | New York’s carbon emissions visualised as giant spheres | Video

Eager Eyes | Robert’s VisWeek 2012 digest, Part 1 | Article

Infoworld | Fighting cancer with 3D big data visualization | Article

The Functional Art | Alberto discusses ‘Storytelling with infographics and visualization’ | Article

Harvard Business Review | We’ve heard it before but still… ‘Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century’ | Article

npolar | State of the Polar Bear – beautiful exploratory project to show the current population, habitat and threats to polar bears | Interactive visualisation

Google Books | Pretty much the full version of the foundation text ‘Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think’ by Stuart K. Card, Jock D. Mackinlay, Ben Shneiderman | Book

Google Maps | Showcase of Google Maps API ‘Data visualization is at the heart of the Google Maps API. Bring your maps to life with symbols, heatmaps, and more.’ | Interactive Visualisation

Ribmunk | ‘Reporter or artist’ – A survey & analysis of how different newspapers around the world work with infographics (in English and Danish) | Free Book/Article

Google Maps | Get a better view of natural geography with Google Maps | Article

National Infographic | Juan discusses the ‘Stylish Radial Chart’ – something many will agree and disagree with in equal measure I imagine | Visualisation

Urban Movements | Detecting Languages in London’s Twittersphere | Visualisation

Jerome Cukier | Materials from Jerome’s joint d3 tutorial at visWeek 2012 | Materials

YouTube | Microsoft Re-Designs the Ipod Packaging | Video

Felix Gonda | Immersive interactive view of the ‘Balance of Power’ in the congressional elections | Interactive Visualisation

Andrew Vande Moere | Evaluating the Effect of Style in Information Visualisation | Paper

Washington Post | Reflecting on the impact of the Frankenstorm Sandy | Infograhic

Twitter | Twitter’s political engagement map | Interactive Visualisation

FastCo Design | Infographic: The 2,000 Most Important Films Of All Time | Infograhic

Excel Charts | ‘Aesthetics be damned!’ | Article

Flowing Data | Browse elections data back to 1976 with Electionary app | Interactive Visualisation

Scientific American | A Defense of Artistic License in Illustrations of Scientific Concepts | Article


Presenting the top five most popular posts on Visualising Data during October:

Immersive web broadcast of the Red Bull Stratos mission – October 14th, 2012

Best of the visualisation web… September 2012 – October 29th, 2012

VisWeek updates by Jon Schwabish: Day 1 – October 16th, 2012

Ideology of the US Congress – October 29th, 2012

Check out ‘Parsons Journal for Information Mapping’ – October 23rd, 2012