Worked up Information is Beautiful entry



Well, in honour of my sketch being shortlisted for the first Information is Beautiful challenge (see last post), I felt I had to work the idea up properly. I really enjoyed working with the isometric perspective, which I haven't tried before.

I think in this case the pseudo-3D perspective does make it hard to see the exact relationship between the different resources. A 2D bar chart would have done this better, but the isometric perspective idea does show groupings on the periodic table as well as giving a general idea of resource levels remaining. I found that it was essential to label the elements on the table as well as at the end of the 'bars', so that you can get some definite sense of the bar length by comparing the two positions.

Comments

Camden Asay said…
Nice work. I agree that the perpective makes is harder to know clearly where everything lies, in terms of year and relating to each other, but it was ambitious to visualize it this way and it is well done.

If this was some kind of 3D, interactive model, where I can spin it around in see it from different angles.... well that would be even better. :)
9 December 2011 at 15:02
Will Stahl-Timmins said…
I like the idea of making a rotatable 3D one a LOT!

Back in the day I'd have picked up a trial copy of Swift 3D and made something up in Flash... I'm still unsure on how to do 3D stuff on the web now that Flash seems to be a bit out of fashion (thanks Apple... >.<) All I can say is: roll on, a commercial release of Adobe Edge, and the nice plug-ins that will hopefully follow!

For now, if anyone has any suggestions on something nice and easy for a simple designer like myself to use to make a 3D graphic, I might give it a go. I've used Google SketchUp for a couple of things, but I don't think it's ideal for something like this that needs a load of data inputted.
12 December 2011 at 14:54
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Available for hire

Image
I've recently been kept pretty busy with freelance work - mostly with people I've worked with at The BMJ or in my previous life as a postdoctoral researcher. It's been so successful recently that I've decided to reduce my hours at The BMJ to focus more on freelance work. So if you have a health-related dataset or research project that you think would benefit from visual presentation, do get in touch. I'm happy to make static or interactive graphics, from one-offs to big reports / guidelines.  My contact details are in my profile. My portfolio is also available here:  https://www.behance.net/will-s-t
Read more

Almost impossible cancer spaghetti

Image
NICE guidelines, produced by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, are detailed, and sometimes lengthy documents. They are an attempt to summarise all available evidence on a health topic, supplemented by expert opinion where evidence is not available. The BMJ has recently been publishing quite a few summaries of these NICE guidelines, aiming to provide doctors with more accessible, easy to use resources. I've been making a few infographics too - mostly static ones that people can tear out and stick on their consulting room wall, or print from the website. One of the first ones I worked on was a bit special. The NICE guidelines on referral of suspected cancer were updated earlier this year, and I was asked to take a look at the tabulated data and try and turn it into something more visually appealing. I was presented with this (on a Wednesday evening)  - a series of tables detailing the advice on what to do when children present with some key symptoms:
Read more

prostate symptom checker

Image
I've recently started a new job in London at the BMJ (formerly known as the British Medical Journal). It's a new role they've created for an interactive data graphics designer. I'll be making graphics, mostly in Processing to begin with, which will be collected in a free archive on the BMJ site. Since my first interactive has just gone online, I thought I'd put up a quick development post about it. Those of you familiar with the development posts on this blog will recognise the workflow I've been using - starting with pencil sketches and using these to discuss ideas with subject experts, then working up the graphic in Illustrator. However, as I'm doing more interactive graphics from now on, I've been learning to use Processing . This means that I've had to make changes to the workflow, adding in a quick and dirty functionality test so that I can iron out issues before committing myself to the design. I started this project as I do with many o
Read more