“We create informational graphics that tell stories about subjects, time periods and events. Our purpose is to inform and entertain you with intense content embedded in an elegant design.”

“An interesting infographic trend: Square blocks of color are now being used to represent percentage-based statistics instead of the traditional pie chart.”

“In my seminars, I enjoy teaching analytics because the fun is in finding effective and memorable methods to help people understand the concepts. One of my favorites is an analysis of the Red-Shirt Phenomenon in Star Trek.

What? You don’t know about the Red Shirt Phenomenon? Well, as any die-hard Trekkie knows, if you are wearing a red shirt and beam to the planet with Captain Kirk, you’re gonna die. That’s the common thinking, but I decided to put this to the test. After all, I hadn’t seen any definitive proof; it’s just what people said. (Remind you of your current web analytics strategy?) So, let’s set our phasers on ’stun’ and see what we find… “

Jon Udell: “When I read this story about cancer care in the Sunday New York Times yesterday, I was struck by one particular information graphic which I thought was very nicely done. It turns out that Chris Gemignani was impressed too, and he decided to recreate the image using Excel.

“I’ve had trouble justifying my excitement about this intricate visual detail, so I thought it would be good to collect a bunch of examples from over fifty years of information design history, to show it as a powerful visual element in ubicomp situations.

Even though the dashed line has emerged from a designer’s shorthand and from the limitations of monotone printing techniques, it has a clear and simple visual magic, the ability to express something three- or four-dimensional in two dimensions.” (Thanks Stephen!)

Note: XPLANE founder Dave Gray is quoted in the post, which features an XPLANATiON worked on by yours truly!

“This test will ask you 10 questions to determine how well you understand the principles of good table and graph design.” Note: You better get 10 out of 10 on this! (Thanks Dynamic Diagrams!)

“I spent the weekend building a new style for Shaun Inman’s Mint 2 called Tufte Mint. The inspiration and namesake of the style was Edward Tufte’s The Visual Display of Quantitative Information—a fantastic book that chronicles the history and theory of data graphics.

Tufte Mint’s design is focused on maximizing data-ink and minimizing chartjunk and decoration. The graphs in particular have been designed in a style Tufte presents in his book. Keep reading for more info on the design and to grab the free download.”

“At a conference recently, I heard Dan Cederholm from SimpleBits talk about inspiration. He showed a bunch of different techniques he uses, including how he uses Photoshop’s mosaic filter on an image to blow up giant pixels representing the basic colors in the picture. He uses those as pallets for the design work he does. Very cool.

Inspiration can come from process, but it can also come from the most unexpected places. For example, when we were designing the data-over-time visualizations for Google Analytics, we were totally stuck with bar graphs. We’d iterated dozens of times, scoured the web for examples to steal, and had tried just about everything. The result felt muddy and chartjunked…”

“To my mind Graphis Diagrams has to be one of the seminal publications on diagrams. Less acedemic than Tufte, this book showcases a wealth of styles from the crazy to the intensely Swiss. Here are some of my favourite parts.” (Thanks Noah Brier!)

“Megan Jaegerman produced some of the best news graphics ever while working at The New York Times from 1990 to 1998. Her work is smart, finely detailed, elegant, witty, inventive, informative. A fierce researcher and reporter, she writes gracefully and precisely. Megan has the soul of a news reporter, who happens to use graphs, tables, and illustrations–as well as words–to explain the news. Her best work is the best work in news graphics.” (Thanks kottke.org!)

“Óscar Corvera, infographics artist from La Prensa Gráfica (El Salvador), sends this interesting document about the steps given to make one of his breaking news graphics and other following the facts, a great example of how an infographic artists can (should) work as a journalist. I’ll let him speak…”

“The current vogue for less-is-more minimalism, for ample white space, is traceable in part to Tufte, especially when it comes to a certain maker of MP3 players. In fact, when I ask him whom he’s never worked for but would like to, he leans in and says, “A-P-P-L-E! [But] they don’t need any help.”

The lovefest appears to be requited. In press photos of the iPhone, the device displays a New York Times Web front page on its screen. And that page contains a tiny ad for Beautiful Evidence, one that ran on the Times site for exactly one Sunday. Tufte thinks the cameo was a lucky break. I have no doubt that it’s an anonymous Apple designer’s thank-you note.”

“The graphic portrayal of quantitative information has deep roots. These roots reach into histories of thematic cartography, statistical graphics, and data visualization, which are intertwined with each other. They also connect with the rise of statistical thinking up through the 19th century, and developments in technology into the 20th century. From above ground, we can see the current fruit; we must look below to see its pedigree and germination. There certainly have been many new things in the world of visualization; but unless you know its history, everything might seem novel.”

“I’m currently working on something that involves sorting out lots of information into graphs and charts. I’m not going to mention what that is right now, in case it doesn’t transpire; but while doing it, I started thinking about how elements of my own life can be viewed as pie charts. So I explored that theme.”

“News, curiosities amd more information about news infographics” as compiled by Chiqui Esteban.