Nonsensical Infographics

by Chad Hagen

Nate and Shay's map of Half Dome's Regular Northwest Face

A couple of summers ago, my friends Nate and Shay climbed the Northwest Face of Half Dome. They used a climber's map, or topo, as their guide. I love the way they combined a photo slideshow with a climber's topo. Interact with the topo on their website:

Climber topos are remarkable to begin with because they condense information on thousands of feet of vertical terrain to a single pocket sized page.

Information is Beautiful

Data visualizations to please the eye:

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net

Crocheted Coral Reef

Geogreeting

(click on image to create your own)

Radiohead's House of Cards

Rendered using data points, not cameras.

• Manipulate the data
  
• Download and create your own visualization
  
• View other visualizations
  
• Making Of
  

Visualization Lab

DIY:
1.) Go to vizlab.nytimes.com
2.) Click on visualize button to visualize Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address.
3.) Select a word tree data visualization
4.) Search for "war" and press enter
5.) Publish
6.) Share and embed
7.) Read the full speech

Time-Space Storytelling

Published in 1869, Charles Minard's eloquent graphic story is peculiarly relevant in an age of geotagging our own personal data.

Minard's graph of Napoleon's Russian Campaign of 1812:

Through a sort of flow chart imposed on a map, Minard tells a story of time and space, gracefully documenting multiple variables:

• The army's location in Russia
  
• The direction and path the army traveled
  
• Where units spun off and rejoined
  
• The declining size of the army
  
• The low temperatures during the retreat (retreat shown in black)
• The dates

Look what happened when the army crossed the Berezina river. In France, the word "berezina" is synonymous with the word "disastre". For another data "berezina", check out this horrifying government PPT slide - they could use a few tips from Minard.

Iraq: Indications and Warnings of Civil Conflict

This is a PPT slide produced by United States Central Command.

Peace=Unorganized spontaneous mass civil conflict

Chaos=Low level violence motivated by sectarian differences

The persuasive power of badly cluttered design.