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I'm Lauren Rae Orsini, a graduate student, journalist, infographic designer, anime convention reporter, and documentarian. Welcome.
Infographic eye candy roundup
Filed Under Design and Infographics
Visualization via Information is Beautiful. Click on the image to see the full infographic.
Lately I’ve been working on some visualizations for the Investigative Reporting Workshop, a project affiliated with university. It’s my first design project for a client instead of just for a grade, so it’s been an exciting (and sometimes nerve wracking) endeavor.
In order to improve and find inspiration for my own designs, I have been haunting the internet for infographics. As a result, I have found some mindblowing infographic design sites. If you get as excited about good design as I do, I’ve prepared a list of web sites I found inspiring and a visualization that stood out to me on each:
1. Information is Beautiful. This is the portfolio site of David McCandless, a writer and designer from London. He repeatedly validates his site title by taking huge and newsworthy sets of data– about everything from h1N1 to the number of global emissions by country– and turning them into clear, innovative designs. What I like best about McCandless’ design style is his use of bold color and unusual, abstract shapes to convey data. I think any of his pieces would look just as good hanging on my wall as in a news publication.
Best for: Fine art fans.
Infographic to check out first: The Billion Pound O Gram.
2. Flowing Data. This site covers a broader range of visualizations from numerous publications and designers. Aside from showing off some nice infographics, Flowing Data acts more like an aggregate to gather roundups of good visuals and visual related articles from different corners of the web. It als0 provides tutorials and suggestions for aspiring infographic designers which I definitely want to start attempting this weekend. As a beginning designer, I’ve especially found the site forums to be helpful.
Best for: Beginners.
Infographic to check out first: Land Mass and Population by Country.
3. Simple Complexity. This site deals most consistently with the most enormous sets of data by far. Sponsored by InnovaTech, Inc., the site often features infographics that deal with data on a global level.I think this site has the widest range of chart variety, varying from a “natural language” visualization of Alan Ginsberg’s “Howl” (complete with a scale of how many times each word is used in the poem) to a heat map of the human body (showing where people like to be touched.) From a visualization of unemployment rates (via American Observer!) to a visual of Roomba motion while cleaning, this site spans the gamut from hard news to funny features.
Best for: The person who wants everything.
Infographic to check out first: The Boom of Social Sites.
4. Kelso’s Corner. This is the personal blog of Nathanial Vaughn Kelso, a graphic designer at The Washington Post. He blogs about a mix of his own graphics, inspiring or less than perfect graphics he finds elsewhere and some really handy tutorials. As a cartographer, many of Kelso’s visualizations focus on geographic elements. I’ve found his blog to be a great sneak peek at what one designer is doing behind the scenes at the Post.
Best for: Fans of The Washington Post.
Infographic to check out first: Tag Cloud: in their own words.
5. Swiss Miss. This is actually a general design blog that only posts infographics every week or so. However, those visualizations are worth the wait. (And if you’re impatient, just search the archives of the tag “data visualization” to see them all.) I’ve find that the infographics featured here put design first and readability second, so it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to try and emulate them. But who’s going to say that they are not a designer’s joy to behold?
Best for: Design buffs.
Infographic to check out first: Who lives here?
If you think I’ve neglected to mention a fantastic site, tell me about it in the comments. I’d love to hear!
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I’ve just spent the last hour or so going though these various websites! I can’t stop going though the archived posts for more delightful infographics. I can’t wait to see what you put to gether for your job too! BTW congrats on your first design job! I’m sure there will be many more!