2 ms·

Information Is Beautiful

123 points by surprisetalk 9mo ago

esafak 9mo ago
From the heyday of infographics, when newspapers went online and explored its opportunities. edit: I did not mean to imply information design is dead.
- groby_b 9mo ago
  That's somewhat unfair to the site - they are very much still exploring how to visualize information understandably and aesthetically pleasing. Yes, they got started when infographics got really popular, but it's very much a site that's alive and continuing its work. And really, infographics are rooted in information design. Which in itself is much older than the web. Heck, the canonical popular book - Tufte's The Visual Display of Quantitative Information - is from 1982. I know it's not the most popular thing if you can just ask Claude for a quick visualization, but the space is both very rich in information LLMs blissfully ignore, and continues to be fertile ground for explaration.
igravious 9mo ago
The Book: https://www.amazon.ie/Information-Beautiful-New-David-McCandless/dp/0007492898 https://www.amazon.ie/Information-Beautiful-New-David-McCand... “A visual guide to how the world really works, through stunning infographics and data visualisations, thoroughly revised, recalculated and reimagined for this new edition. We are overwhelmed by information – from our phones, our televisions, our computers, our newspapers. This new edition of Information is Beautiful has been revised throughout with over 20 updates and 20 new visualisations. It offers shelter from the flood by visualising data in a new way that blends facts with their connections, their context and their relationships – making information meaningful, entertaining and beautiful. This is information like you have never seen it before – easy to flick through but also engaging enough to study – information that comes to life in your hands and your eyes.” I remember it well (used to see it for sale in the gift shop at design galleries and the like), I coveted it but never bought it :( Perhaps I should treat myself now that I'm not so impoverished :)
- tobylane 9mo ago
  I was given that book as a teenager, and only read it yesterday. It was an interesting look at an unintentional frozen point in history.
IshKebab 9mo ago
I used to browse r/dataisbeautiful. Kind of infuriating. Way over half the visualisations were objectively terrible and misleading. The worst was that trend of dividing countries into totally arbitrary equal-population areas.
- zX41ZdbW 9mo ago
  I once tried to post an interesting visualization to r/dataisbeautiful and received hundreds of upvotes, but then it was wiped for an unknown reason. Then I contacted the mods, both on Reddit and over email, to no avail. It was a very frustrating experience, don't recommend anyone to try.
croisillon 9mo ago
"community based on morals", how things change in 15 years https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/left-vs-right-us/ https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/left-vs-ri...
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- daveguy 9mo ago
  Not to mention flat out bs on the other side regarding "equality" being best over "freedom from power abuse and inequality." This "information" was misinformation 15 years ago. Not so beautiful.
  - actionfromafar 9mo ago
    Free Ghislaine, right? https://svetimfm.github.io/epstein-files-visualizations/network.html https://svetimfm.github.io/epstein-files-visualizations/netw...
    - daveguy 9mo ago
      Not sure what you're trying to say and I'm not going to click your random link. I was saying that in addition to the now-hilarious claim that US Right communities are based on morals, the US Left description was also incorrect from the beginning. Only in the US Right's propaganda addled minds did the Left in the US ever put equality ("a level playing field") over "freedom from power abuse". Not sure what that has to do with Ghislaine. Or why you seem to imply that I think Ghislaine should be anywhere other than a supermax. So I guess you were promoting your own views there, because mine are the opposite of your stated position of "free Ghislaine".
mekod 9mo ago
You straight p hit me in the heart. You're a real hacker.
LeoPanthera 9mo ago
My Mac claims this site's SSL certificate is not trusted. Chrome will load it. Safari will not.
yencabulator 9mo ago
This infographic looks like it's lying: https://infobeautiful4.s3.amazonaws.com/2022/03/IIB-Ukraine3years-01.png https://infobeautiful4.s3.amazonaws.com/2022/03/IIB-Ukraine3... from https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/ukraine-russian-war-infographics-data-visuals/ https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/ukraine-ru... Afghanistan gets 15 shapes for 15,000 dead, Russia gets 1 for 9,750,000 dead? Actually including Russian deaths would make that look very different.

123 points by surprisetalk 9mo ago

From the heyday of infographics, when newspapers went online and explored its opportunities. edit: I did not mean to imply information design is dead.

groby_b 9mo ago
That's somewhat unfair to the site - they are very much still exploring how to visualize information understandably and aesthetically pleasing. Yes, they got started when infographics got really popular, but it's very much a site that's alive and continuing its work. And really, infographics are rooted in information design. Which in itself is much older than the web. Heck, the canonical popular book - Tufte's The Visual Display of Quantitative Information - is from 1982. I know it's not the most popular thing if you can just ask Claude for a quick visualization, but the space is both very rich in information LLMs blissfully ignore, and continues to be fertile ground for explaration.

igravious 9mo ago

The Book: https://www.amazon.ie/Information-Beautiful-New-David-McCandless/dp/0007492898 https://www.amazon.ie/Information-Beautiful-New-David-McCand... “A visual guide to how the world really works, through stunning infographics and data visualisations, thoroughly revised, recalculated and reimagined for this new edition. We are overwhelmed by information – from our phones, our televisions, our computers, our newspapers. This new edition of Information is Beautiful has been revised throughout with over 20 updates and 20 new visualisations. It offers shelter from the flood by visualising data in a new way that blends facts with their connections, their context and their relationships – making information meaningful, entertaining and beautiful. This is information like you have never seen it before – easy to flick through but also engaging enough to study – information that comes to life in your hands and your eyes.” I remember it well (used to see it for sale in the gift shop at design galleries and the like), I coveted it but never bought it :( Perhaps I should treat myself now that I'm not so impoverished :)

tobylane 9mo ago
I was given that book as a teenager, and only read it yesterday. It was an interesting look at an unintentional frozen point in history.

IshKebab 9mo ago

I used to browse r/dataisbeautiful. Kind of infuriating. Way over half the visualisations were objectively terrible and misleading. The worst was that trend of dividing countries into totally arbitrary equal-population areas.

zX41ZdbW 9mo ago
I once tried to post an interesting visualization to r/dataisbeautiful and received hundreds of upvotes, but then it was wiped for an unknown reason. Then I contacted the mods, both on Reddit and over email, to no avail. It was a very frustrating experience, don't recommend anyone to try.

croisillon 9mo ago

"community based on morals", how things change in 15 years https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/left-vs-right-us/ https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/left-vs-ri...

deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
daveguy 9mo ago
Not to mention flat out bs on the other side regarding "equality" being best over "freedom from power abuse and inequality." This "information" was misinformation 15 years ago. Not so beautiful.
- actionfromafar 9mo ago
  Free Ghislaine, right? https://svetimfm.github.io/epstein-files-visualizations/network.html https://svetimfm.github.io/epstein-files-visualizations/netw...
  - daveguy 9mo ago
    Not sure what you're trying to say and I'm not going to click your random link. I was saying that in addition to the now-hilarious claim that US Right communities are based on morals, the US Left description was also incorrect from the beginning. Only in the US Right's propaganda addled minds did the Left in the US ever put equality ("a level playing field") over "freedom from power abuse". Not sure what that has to do with Ghislaine. Or why you seem to imply that I think Ghislaine should be anywhere other than a supermax. So I guess you were promoting your own views there, because mine are the opposite of your stated position of "free Ghislaine".

mekod 9mo ago

You straight p hit me in the heart. You're a real hacker.

LeoPanthera 9mo ago

My Mac claims this site's SSL certificate is not trusted. Chrome will load it. Safari will not.

yencabulator 9mo ago

This infographic looks like it's lying: https://infobeautiful4.s3.amazonaws.com/2022/03/IIB-Ukraine3years-01.png https://infobeautiful4.s3.amazonaws.com/2022/03/IIB-Ukraine3... from https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/ukraine-russian-war-infographics-data-visuals/ https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/ukraine-ru... Afghanistan gets 15 shapes for 15,000 dead, Russia gets 1 for 9,750,000 dead? Actually including Russian deaths would make that look very different.