[Closed] Help with presenting data / infographics

picture of a farmer that increases in size based on number of farmers.

picture of a cow that increases in size based on number of cows.

each farm is a box/picture of a farm building (increasing in size based on size of farm?) and contains appropriately sized farmer and cow pictures.

wwaswas - off to the library with you to read some Edward Tufte.

Most people think infographic when actually a chart (not a pie chart!) would be suitable. Does it need to be an inforgraphic?

Often the best way to find out what you need is to look at what other people have done. Here's some useful resources:

[b]Books[/b]

Abrams, J. and Hall, P. (2006) Else/where: mapping new cartographies of networks and territories. University of Minnesota Design Institute: Minneapolis. 526/ELS

Baer, K. (2008) Information Design Workbook. RotoVision: Beverley. 741.6/BAE

British Library, Barber, P. and Harper, T. (2010) Magnificent maps: power, propaganda and art. British Library: London. 912.074/BAR

Fawcett-Tang, R. and Owen, W. (2002) Mapping: an illustrated guide to graphic navigational systems. RotoVision: Miles. 741.67/MAP

Harmon, K. A. (2009) The map as art: contemporary artists explore cartography. Princeton Architectural Press: New York. 760.0449912/HAR

Klanten, R. (2008) Data flow: visualising information in graphic design. Gestalten: Berlin. 741.6/DAT

Klanten, R. (2010) Data flow 2: visualising information in graphic design. Gestalten: Berlin. 741.6/DAT

Knight, C. and Glaser, J. (2009) Diagrams: innovative solutions for graphic designers. RotoVision: Miles. 741.6/KNI

McCandless, D. (2009) Information is beautiful. Collins: London. 032/MACC

Mogel, L. and Bhagat, A. (2008) An Atlas of Radical Cartography. Journal of Aesthetics and Protest: Los Angeles. 304.23/ALT

Sloman, P. (2009) Paper: tear, fold, rip, crease, cut. Black Dog: London. 709.051/PAP

Tufte, E. (1997) Visual explanations : images and quantities, evidence and narrative. Graphics Press: Chesire, Conn. 741.6/TUF

Tufte, E. (1983/2001) The visual display of quantitative information. Graphics Press: Chesire, Conn. 741.6/TUF

Tufte, E. (1990/1991) Envisioning information. Graphics Press: Chesire, Conn. 741.6/TUF

Tufte, E. (2006) Beautiful evidence. Graphics Press: Chesire, Conn. 741.6/TUF

Visocky O’Grady, J. and Visocky O’Grady, K. (2008) The information design handbook. RotoVision: Miles. 741.6/VIS

Vossoughian, N., Camp, D., Stroom Haags Centrum voor Beeldende Kunst (2008) Otto Neurath: The language of the global polis. NAI Publishers: Rotterdam. 711.4092/NEU

[b]Websites[/b]

http://infosthetics.com/ - fantastic for the latest notable visualisation produced all over the world

http://geographicalvisualisationresources.blogspot.com/ - Jon’s blog with infographics relating to geography

http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/ - some amazing visualisations

http://www.meryl.net/2008/01/22/175-data-and-information-visualization-examples-and-resources/ - 175 visualisations

http://eagereyes.org/ - reviews of visualisation

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/ - David McCandless’s site

http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/08/visualization-as-journalism.html - article about vis

http://www.coolinfographics.com/ - another infographics blog

http://dd.dynamicdiagrams.com/ - a design and diagrams blog

http://bigthink.com/blogs/strange-maps - strange maps blog

http://mapsthatmatter.blogspot.com/ - maps that matter blog

http://graphicfacilitation.blogs.com/pages/ideas_illustrated/ - info on graphic facilitation

http://trade-routes-resources.blogspot.com/ - a blog about historic trade routes

http://www.archivalmaps.com/index.htm - old maps

http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/historic_cities.html - more old maps

http://www.bl.uk/magnificentmaps/ - the legacy site for a map exhibition the British Library ran

http://www.kitchin.org/atlas/contents.html - an atlas of cyberspace produced by geographers

http://www.chrisharrison.net/projects/visualization.html - some very cool visualisations

http://www.wallstats.com/ - infographics you can buy

http://flowingdata.com/ - a datavis site

http://mapecos.org/ - Visualising pollution

http://www.research.ibm.com/visual/projects/history_flow/gallery.htm - visualising history

http://www.mysociety.org/2007/more-travel-maps/ - visualising travel

http://prefuse.org/gallery/ - more ideas

http://www.scimaps.org/ - geographical visualisations

http://www.theyrule.net/ - mapping corporate connections

http://www.topicscape.com/mindmaps/ - a site full of mind maps

http://worldprocessor.com/ - visualising the world

http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/epu/ - photographic visualisation

http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/index.jsp - visualising Britain

[b]Newspapers[/b]

http://mondediplo.com/ - Le Monde

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog - The Guardian

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/multimedia/index.html - The New York Times

[b]Producing/About Visualisations
[/b]
http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/ - input your data, get a visualisation

http://www.perceptualedge.com/examples.php - improving visualisation design

http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html - almost every type of visualisation method you could think of

http://www.wordle.net/ - producing word clouds

[b]Flickr Groups/Bookmarks
[/b]
http://www.flickr.com/groups/innovation-dataviz/ - collection of vis

http://www.flickr.com/groups/playspacenewcastle/ - participatory vis

http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?w=all&q=visualisation - more groups

http://www.delicious.com/tag/visualization - vis bookmarked on delicious

[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/mstoll/8153562839/in/set-72157631925147046 ]Isotype[/url]

For each farm, calculate how many cows one farmer can look after.

Then depict that number of cows for each farm. You will immediately see which farm is most efficient (the rhetorical intent of your diagram, I think?).

This way, you are doing some work for your reader, and showing not just the figures, but what they mean.

Or you could do it the other way, and show one cow, and how many farmers that cow needs to look after it on each farm. (I think I prefer this way of showing it for some reason.)

[i]Here's some useful resources:[/i]

The man asked for an idea for an infographic, not the reading list for an A level in data presentation 😉

Like this...

I haven't got any cows handy, so I used a space invader instead:

[url= http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8512/8488544653_ab003f9dee.jp g" target="_blank">http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8512/8488544653_ab003f9dee.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/34422701@N08/8488544653/ ]cows[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/34422701@N08/ ]SteveH2008[/url], on Flickr

or like this:

[url= http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8252/8489667144_6e4294be74.jp g" target="_blank">http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8252/8489667144_6e4294be74.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/34422701@N08/8489667144/ ]cows2[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/34422701@N08/ ]SteveH2008[/url], on Flickr

a cow graphic;

[img] [/img]

🙂 i knew this thread would be fun

What are you trying to demonstrate (aside from the distribution)? What's your spin/angle? Small farm good/big farm bad etc?

Thanks all so far, some interesting replies 😛

fuzzhead - I want to show the variation in distribution of cows to farmers (and then go on to ask why there is so much variation, should there be a standard model on number of cows to farmers etc).

I think Dorset Knob has it, can't see his pics from where I am, but i'm sure it shows the point you're trying to get across.

Especially with space invaders 😉

I've been working on these graphs all afternoon, so for a £5 I'll you use them. Much clearer than the space invaders nonsense.

[url= http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8087/8488745541_dffb3e402f.jp g" target="_blank">http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8087/8488745541_dffb3e402f.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/brf/8488745541/ ]Untitled[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/brf/ ]brf[/url], on Flickr

wwaswas - Member
Here's some useful resources:

The man asked for an idea for an infographic, not the reading list for an A level in data presentation

Second year undergrad project, [i]actually[/i]

Footflaps - what's that then?

picture of a farmer that increases in size based on number of farmers.

picture of a cow that increases in size based on number of cows.

Famously bad idea. Area and height serve to confuse the visual message. Go read your Otto Neurath,as well as some of captjon's stuff

Footflaps - what's that then?

It's occurrences of events (alarms on a telecoms network). Each trace is a different element, generating the alarms. The Y axis is arbitrary and the X axis is time. I was using it to look for correlations between events to see if they shed any light on the root cause.

I actually spent most of the afternoon working out how to get Excel to zoom in on an area when you double clicked on the graph and then zoom out when you right clicked. I'm amazed its not a standard feature as it's hardly a new feature...

http://m.netmagazine.com/features/seven-dirty-secrets-data-visualisation

[url= http://www.sruc.ac.uk/info/120197/research_farms/414/crichton_royal_farm ]Crichton [/url]
http://www.sruc.ac.uk/info/120061/animal_and_veterinary_sciences