We’re hiring! Again!

Data Visualisation, Information Design, jobs Comments Off

Nov 252011

Want to be a part of the Information Is Beautiful team? Now’s your chance.

We’ve got loads of interesting book, web and film projects looming, including a new tome from David.

You’ll earn decent money, develop amazing prospects, and work with a fun and lovely team.

Designers – Are you an all-rounder with a perfectionist slant? Do you have a demonstrable interest in infographics and visualisations and all things beautiful? Junior & middleweight.

Researchers – Are you a fact-hound who’s nimble with a spreadsheet? Can you see the stories that numbers tell? Are you accurate, methodical, geeky, FAST?

Interns (design and research) – Do you love infographics and visualisations? Do you want to learn a thing or two while you help us out? (And actually get paid for your time.)

Flash & HTML5 ninjas (design and research) – Do you like to code data so it comes alive? Want to extend your skills into dynamic, unfolding, playful data visualisations? Thought so.

If you’re one or two or even four of these things, send your info to:
projects AT informationisbeautiful.net

What you need to send us:
- your CV
- portfolio and/or links to your work (for designers / ninjas)
- some quick reasons why you fit our bill
- the dates you’re available for work
- your location (we’re in London, so it’d help if you are too – though we have possibilities for remote work)

Help us spot your email. Make the subject line [Job title you're applying for] – [Your Name]

Applications close at midnight (GMT) on Friday, 9th December, 2011.

Tu Aime Le Datavision?

Data Journalism, Data Visualisation, David McCandless, InfoBeautiful, infodesign, infographic, infographics, Information Design, information graphics, Information Is Beautiful, McCandless, My Book, The Visual Miscellaneum, visual miscellaneum Comments Off

Nov 082011

The French edition of our book – Datavision – is out. Très excitant!

You can have a interactive leaf through some of the book’s pages here.

And then pop over to Amazon to snag a copy.

Apparently French kids are already calling it “archifrais” (“super-fresh!”).

Information Is Beautiful French version

Win A Copy

We’re so excited about this, we’re going to give a copy to five of you, our beautiful readers.

Just fill in this form to enter our little competition.

We’ll pick five entries at random from everyone who responds by 6pm GMT (1pm EST) on Monday, 14th November, 2011. (That’s next week.)

Millard Euro-O-Gram

Millard Euro-o-Gram
In the meantime, whet your Datavision appetites with this Francophilic Billion Euro-o-Gram we created recently for Le Monde.

It’s available in Francophonic format too. (sorry it looks a bit ropey – French words are longer – see a higher rez version here (browse to page 20)

DESIGN & RESEARCH: David McCandless
ADDITIONAL RESEARCH: Alex Lemon
ADDITIONAL DESIGN: Derek Gueo
SOURCES: Le Monde, BBC, Forbes and other media reports
DATA: bit.ly/bndollar2

What are the Wall St Protestors So Angry About?

Data Visualisation, dataviz, David McCandless, Economics, Government, InfoBeautiful, infographic, infographics, Information Design, information graphics, Information Is Beautiful, InfoVisualisation, McCandless, statistics, The Visual Miscellaneum, visual miscellaneum Comments Off

Oct 222011

Loads of people have emailed asking if we can improve the graphs on the What The Wall Street Protestors Are So Angry About megapost.

Sure!

Here’s our first stab. A visual about income equality in the USA.

More to follow.

(Check out our Debtris video too)

DESIGN: David McCandless | IDEA: Business Insider | SOURCE: CIA FactBook | DATA: http://bit.ly/wallstdata
RESEARCH: Alex Lemon | ADDITIONAL DESIGN: Piero Zagami

Taste Buds

Data Visualisation, David McCandless, Food, InfoBeautiful, infodesign, infographics, Information Design, information graphics, Information Is Beautiful, McCandless, The Visual Miscellaneum, visual miscellaneum Comments Off

Oct 032011

A visualization of complimentary flavours by David McCandless and Willow Tyrer.

All food tastes amazing, just sometimes not together.

So we roved around 1000 recipes for common flavour patterns and visualized the results.

A good way to build a meal, maybe, if you lack a chef’s intuitive buds. Less data visualization, more dinner visualization. An infoodgraphic, perhaps. Ok, we’ll stop now.

These were created back in 2009 for the Information Is Beautiful book. Willow, a swedish infographic designer, came up with an elegant, organic style. We thought it might be nice to release them into the wild.

Enjoy your meal.

Want to play with these in your kitchen? Buy a printable hi-res PDF from our store

Concept: David McCandless
Visualization design: Willow Tyrer
Research: Pearl Doughty-White
Source: BBC Food, Epicurious.com

Win $3000 in our first information design competition

Awards, Data Visualisation, dataviz, David McCandless, Environment, InfoBeautiful, infographia, infographics, Information Design, information graphics, Information Is Beautiful, McCandless, The Visual Miscellaneum Comments Off

Sep 232011

Information Is Beautiful Awards
Your design creativity could win you $3000. Even if you can’t design.

We’ve launched a series of monthly visualization competitions They’ll run alongside our shiny new annual Information is Beautiful Awards.

First challenge: visualize data on the world’s non-renewable resources. Specifically, how long they might last.

I had a page on this in my book. But I’ve never been entirely happy with it. Can you do better?

If so, you could bag $2,000 for a design. That’s chunky.

And don’t worry if you can’t design. If you’ve got a brain and a pencil but no design skillz, you can still submit a sketch of your idea. There’s $1,000 prize for such “napkin” entries.

Yeah. Everyone can make information beautiful.

Hierarchy of Digital Distractions @ MoMA

Data Visualisation, David McCandless, Facebook, Fun, infodesign, infographia, infographics, Information Design, information graphics, Information Is Beautiful, InfoVisualisation, McCandless, Social networks, The Visual Miscellaneum, Twitter, visual miscellaneum, visualisation Comments Off

Jul 262011

Very honoured that the Hierarchy of Digital Distractions features in the latest exhibition at the Museum Of Modern Art in New York.

“Talk To Me”, curated by the legendary Paola Antonelli, explores how innovations in communication design are transforming our lives. It features interactive objects, data visualizations, and brain-blending guerilla tech projects.

The Hierarchy Of Digital Distractions explores and visualizes the subtle, invisible structure I use to prioritize one digital distraction over another. Check out its page on MoMA and press some buttons. (if you tweet, use #ttmhierarchy).

limited edition prints

To celebrate, I’ve created a batch limited edition prints. Oh man – they’re gorgeous.

I thought it would be ironic to render such a technological-themed viz with the really old-school “risograph” print technique. It produces a really grainy, smudgy, soulful ‘old-school’ look. (Thanks to HatoPress in London for their awesomely detailed work).

Look at that!

(They’re also super eco-friendly: printed on recycled art paper with soy-based inks.)

You can order limited edition signed prints now in our store.

source: my tawdry life

Left vs Right v1.5

concept map, dataviz, David McCandless, Economics, Government, InfoBeautiful, infodesign, infographia, Information Design, Information Is Beautiful, InfoVisualisation, McCandless, Philosophy, The Visual Miscellaneum, visual miscellaneum Comments Off

Jul 222011

An update of our fabled Left vs Right concept map. Written and art-directed by David McCandless. Designed by Stefanie Posavec.

I’ve finally updated this image after lengthy (and sometimes heated) discussion with right wingers. The goal was to smooth out my biases, really. As a left-leaning journalistic type, I had subtly – and unconsciously – biased the diagram to make the Left seem better than than the Right. But taking in feedback – and no small-amount of fireballs in the comments – I’ve refined the wording and changed a few other subtle elements to hopefully rebalance the image.

If you’re curious and beady-eyed, I’ve set up a little spot-the-difference image. There are five differences.

The image is also on the Guardian Datablog today and printed in the paper. There, I’ve gone into a bit more detail about the process of making the image. Enjoy!

I love this diagram. And I’m really happy to offer you a fresh new gorgeous A2 print of it on FSC-certified Munken art paper. Check out the store. (All monies go back into the website, for paying our lovely contributors etc).

See the US version. See the Rest-of-the-World Version.

Writing & art-direction: David McCandless
Design: Stefanie Posavec
Sources: Encyclopedia Brittanica, Wikipedia, Conservative-Resources.com

Is The HPV Vaccine Safe? v 2.0

cancer, Data Visualisation, David McCandless, Health, infodesign, infographia, infographic, infographics, Information Design, information graphics, Information Is Beautiful, InfoVisualisation, McCandless, Science, The Visual Miscellaneum, visual miscellaneum, visualisation Comments Off

Jul 222011

Remember a couple years ago when there was a big kick-off about the safety of the HPV (Human Papillomavirus) Vaccine?

The virus causes 99.7% of all cases of cervical cancer – the second deadliest for women, after breast cancer.

But some concern sprang up around the safety of the jab. This was inflamed by the fact that it’s most effective when given to girls aged 12-13. Stories of girls fainting and other health scares snowballed the concern into full-on fear. Tabloids branded the jab “as deadly as the cancer”. Parents stone-walled the vaccine.

We did a graphic at the time to show the chances of a nasty or fatal outcome were miniscule (you had more chance being struck by lightning).

This week we noticed, via Dr Jen Gunter’s site, that detailed new data has appeared on the vaccine and its safety.

Inevitably, I’ve graphickised® the essence for easy injection into your mind.

As ever, all our data, sources and calculations: http://bit.ly/HPVsafety

Is the HPV vaccine safe? - Information is Beautiful - David McCandless

There’s that data link if you want to check our sources: http://bit.ly/HPVsafety

I’m refreshing and redesigning a selection of our diagrams over the next week. So stay tuned.

Design & research: David McCandless
Research: Miriam Quick
Via: Dr Gen Gunter
Data: http://bit.ly/HPVsafety
Sources: Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, MetaAnalysis by Lu et al (2011), Rambout et al (2007), SEER @ The National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society , Medeiros et al (2009).

The Sunscreen Smokescreen

Data Journalism, Data Visualisation, David McCandless, disease, Health, InfoBeautiful, infographia, infographic, Infographical Morsels, infographics, Information Design, information graphics, Information Is Beautiful, InfoVisualisation, McCandless, The Visual Miscellaneum, UVa, visual miscellaneum Comments Off

Jul 122011

It started with a question. It always does. This time, the question was simple: How much sunscreen should I wear?

I’m a pale geek who burns. I wanted to know the optimal. A simple question with a simple answer, right?

Wrong.

This simple question took me on a massive journey through the data, information myths and misinformation that surround our perception of sunscreen. I’m calling it the Sunscreen Smokescreen.

All our data, calculations and references here: http://www.bit.ly/sunscreensmoke

The Sunscreen SmokeScreen - Information Is Beautiful - David McCandless

See the Environmental Working Group’s assessment for health sunscreens: http://breakingnews.ewg.org/2011sunscreen/

All our data, calculations and references here:
http://www.bit.ly/sunscreensmoke

RESEARCH & DESIGN: David McCandless
RESEARCH: Miriam Quick
ADDITIONAL RESEARCH: James Key, Pearl Doughty-White
ADDITIONAL DESIGN: Piero Zagami, Derek Guo, Joe Swainson
SOURCES: The British Medical Journal, Cancer Research UK, World Health Organisation, PubMed, Norwegian Institute For Air Research, Health Canada, Skin Cancer Foundation, Nature, American Academy Of Dermatology, National Health Service, National Cancer Institute, Australian Institute of Health & Welfare, Journal Of Clinical Oncology, American Journal of Public Health, The Environmental Working Group, New York Times, Wikipedia.
DATA & RESEARCH: see it all here: http://www.bit.ly/sunscreensmoke

Great Infographics No. 13

Data Visualisation, dataviz, David McCandless, InfoBeautiful, infodesign, infographic, Infographical Morsels, infographics, Information Design, information graphics, Information Is Beautiful, InfoVisualisation, McCandless, The Visual Miscellaneum, visual miscellaneum Comments Off

Jun 172011

How Much Gas Is Left?
Natural gas – how much is left, who’s got it and how supplies oddly mirror certain geo-politic tensions. Another little interactive visual of ours.

Acting Out
Is recycling the new typecasting? This visualisation maps HBO’s usage of the same bunch of actors across their series. . Twin it with the Movie Star Career-O-Meter which visually plots the career trajectories of 2,700 actors and directors. Some rise. Some tank. It’s nice to watch.

Wednesday Night’s All Right for Loving
Match Roger Luke DuBois’ new road atlas of the US, created using the terms people use most frequently in dating profiles with a viz of the world’s luckiest data night (Tips! Be impressive before 10pm on a Thursday; Sundays are not sexy.)

Britistics
Soothingly nostalgic and fascinatingly simple, these infographics by Matthew Rowett encapsulate the state of the UK nation in 2011.

The Treatment Path Less Trod
In the Snake Oil: Supplements vein, medical researchers point out the useful, and sometimes simple, treatments overlooked by many. Not pretty. But interesting.

Also worth a look

One Bay Area Clever interactive transport maps from Stamen.
The ghost world of 11 million deaths – a A 3D game world mapped by player deaths
The entire universe Liked the ambition & colour of this cosmic viz from Omid Kashan

You’ll find more of this stuff on my Google blog of shared items: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/david.mccandless

Older Entries