Information

The World is Going to End. Let’s Have a Drink.

The world is a wonderful and scary place at times, and the folks over at Information is Beautiful want to show you that. This morning while doing a bit of research on data visualization, I came across 2 infographic pieces that have nothing to do with each other directly, but made me want to post both of them.

The first deals with the distant future and the fact that everything is going to die. Yes it looks way into the future of planet earth, all the way up to the point where it is consumed by the sun and dies. The second makes you feel all better by providing you with drink recipes broken down by proportion, so you can drown your sorrows as you reflect on the inevitability of earths ultimate demise. Now I’m not going to lie, some of the drinks recipes seem a bit off to me, and there are some classics that are missing. None the less, I’ll be printing this out for future reference. click on the image to view larger.

The Conversation Prism, How Social Networks are Used.

The infographic below is part of an ongoing study in the digital ethnography of social media. The information comes from Brian Solis, and was brought to visualization by JESS3. This is the fourth rendition of the chart and it will continue to evolve as social media and the web change. What’s great about this is it shows the dominant and emerging social networks and organizes them by daily use. If you are the lest bit curious about how and why your social networks are being used, this is worth a look.

Informotion, Animated Infographics from Gestalten

When it comes to making infographics, there really is a set of fundamental principals you should follow to make them work. This is even more true when they are going to be animated. The science of infographics goes beyond collating information, and organizing it with nice illustrations and icons.

Gestalten is quite aware of this, and they will soon be releasing “Informotion, Animated Infographics” here in the US. Edited by Tim Finke, Sebastian Manger, Stefan Fichtel, this book looks like an essential for anyone that animates information, or creates motion graphics. The 208 page book is filled with color illustrations, and information on design. Each book contains a unique log-in code for accessing a wide selection of animated information graphics as well as their making-of videos online. The interplay between the detailed descriptions in the print edition and the diverse motion material makes Informotion an essential reference for students and newcomers as well as a trusty guide for design and media professionals.

Informotion is the first book to document the fundamentals needed to create compelling animated infographics and to explain them with numerous examples. It focuses on key aspects of visualizing data, current forms of information graphics, and future possibilities for moving images. The publication also outlines the factors that improve the viewer’s ability to absorb information.

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Informotion is the first reference book devoted to the fundamentals of creating compelling animated infographics. It explains key aspects of how to effectively visualize data, outlines factors that improve the viewer’s ability to absorb information, and explores both current tools and future possibilities for crafting moving images.

Each book contains a unique log-in code for accessing a wide selection of animated information graphics as well as their making-of videos online. The interplay between the detailed descriptions in the print edition—including a preface by co-editor Stefan Fichtel, who runs his own infographics studio with clients such as Porsche and National Geographic—and the diverse motion material makes Informotion an essential reference for anyone interested in working successfully with these burgeoning visual formats.