“The history of the modern info-graph starts sometime in the 17th century, and was closely linked with the development of methods of statistical analysis (early graphs show simple distribution curves of statistical data.) But it wasn’t until the 18th century when data visualization really took off, and people started to develop methods that we still use today.”

“Information visualization for lay users seems to be a pervasive theme at the InfoVis conference this year. Matthew Ericson, Deputy Graphics Director at The New York Times, gave a keynote entitled: ‘Visualizing Data for the Masses: Information Graphics at The New York Times‘.

He explained how a 30-person team creates the impressive infographics and visualizations we see on the newspaper every week. Matt emphasized their role as journalists (instead of illustrators) and explained how they get from raw data to finished graphical pieces that make information understandable for more than a million readers.”

“Sim Daltonism is a color blindness simulator for Mac OS X. It filters in real-time the area around the mouse pointer and displays the result — as seen by a color blind person — in a floating palette.

Since there are many types of color blindness, Sim Daltonism allow you to choose the one you want to see.”

“Need to know the capital of Vanuatu? Interested to find out the major export of Madagascar? Itching to find out about the (homo)sexual tension on Columbus’ trips to The New World? Then we have just the book for you!

Atlas, Schmatlas is a 128 page hardback book chock-a-block with essential information (fact and fiction), maps, and illustrations about every country in the world.” (Thanks Chris Glass!)

One of Michael Wesch’s new videos: “This video explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information. This video was created as a conversation starter, and works especially well when brainstorming with people about the near future and the skills needed in order to harness, evaluate, and create information effectively.”

Noah Iliinsky: “My master’s thesis is a system for creating good diagrams. It starts with the basics of perception and cognition, and walks the reader through the process of making appropriate choices for their particular design problem.”

“It is my privilege and pleasure to announce that a book based on the this humble website is now in release and available for purchase by the general public…

As you might expect, the book features eclectic and rare book illustrations derived from many digital repositories, accompanied by some background commentary. It is not simply a regurgitation of what is here in the archives, although about two thirds of the images have appeared on the site previously.”

“Seadragon is an incubation project resulting from the acquisition of Seadragon Software in February. Its aim is nothing less than to change the way we use screens, from wall-sized displays to mobile devices, so that visual information can be smoothly browsed regardless of the amount of data involved or the bandwidth of the network.”

“This is a DIY [video] I did on how to make a one sheet zine. D-I-Y — a real American Hero! Remember kids, Folding is half the battle. You’ll need: One piece of paper, scissors and a Pen…” (And here’s a step-by-step on Flickr: Wanna make a neat, fun zine that only uses one sheet of paper? Of course you do.)

“If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.”

“Who was the real Charles M. Schulz? Was he the man who suffered anxiety attacks, remembered slights for decades and put every ounce of existential angst into his comic strip, ‘Peanuts’? Was he the grandfatherly cartoonist hailed as a towering figure in American popular culture, who revolutionized the comic strip and created not only a multimillion-dollar business, but a daily touchstone for fans worldwide? Or was he between the lines in ‘Peanuts’ itself, in the melancholy of Charlie Brown, the exuberance of Snoopy, the intellectualism of Linus, the directness of Lucy and the bafflement of Peppermint Patty?”

“Unveiling a solution is arguably the most harrowing aspect of the creative process. In our last post we talked about how we can work to better service our clients. In this one, I’ll share some of the best responses we have to questions that can often derail an otherwise effective solution.”

“Deadlines are a useful and ever-present factor in our work. To be a professional designer you’ve got to love and respect deadlines. But in order for you to have this proper, positive attachment to deadlines you must work to ensure that deadlines don’t become an obstacle to the quality of your work or a negative factor toward your reputation. Most of us are likely familiar with the origin of the term, but the modern aspect of deadlines in our work doesn’t need to be quite so sinister.”

“This web site provides access to a comprehehsive set of software packages easing the exploration, modification, comparison, and extension of data mining and information visualization algorithms. Diverse software packages were bundled into learning modules. Access to a large-scale data repository, extensive compute resources, and a growing set of references are provided as well. It is our hope that the community will adopt this resource to foster Information Visualization education and research.”

“The other day I got an e-mail from Carson Van Osten, a famous Disney artist who did many Disney Comic Books and created the famous “Comic Strip Artist’s Kit”. It was created to help beginning comic artists deal with perspective problems and other drawing difficulties. I scanned my old xeroxes a while ago. It’s probably the best thing I’ve ever seen about practical staging and drawing for storyboards or comic books.

Anyway Carson saw it on my blog and read what nice things people had said about it and it really meant a lot to him. And he offered to send me an original copy of the handout, which is 11 x 17. I’ll scan it big so you can really see it well and print it out on 11 x 17 paper if you want to. He was even nice enough to inscribe it to me and if you print it out big you can read it.

Here’s the history of the handout, in Carson’s own words…”