Map O’ The Day #39 – Inside The Muppets!

This version of MOTD, was created by Lawson Parker, another student @ UNC Chapel Hill, under the teachings of world famous Info graphic creator, Alberto Cairo. He has listed her sources at the bottom left of the map.

Muppets: Who Are They. What Are They. How They Work.

Map O' The Day #38 - Where Is Your Vino Coming From?

This installation of MOTD, was created by Shayna Ayers, a student @ UNC Chapel Hill, under the teachings of world famous Info graphic creator, Alberto Cairo. She has listed her sources at the bottom left of the map.

The map, which captures a wide array of elements pertaining to vino, takes the user through a tour of the Italian wine producing regions. She presents information regarding pure production quantity by region, production by region in regards to quality, (see the map for meaning), recommendations, food pairings, and general facts about vino.

I thought the colors in this were fantastic, with a solid balance of photography, text, and charts/maps. One principle that I think she’s applied with great force is selection. By that I mean, it’s apparent she spent quite a bit of time on the categories or types of information that would assist a user in gaining a fuller understanding of Italian wines. The only thing that might have added further perspective would be displaying global consumption per region, to gain an understanding of $$$’s and notoriety for each region among the consuming global masses.

Map O' The Day #37 - The Genealogy of Pop/Rock Music

Some of you may have seen this map already, but its’ a favorite of mine. Authored by Reebee Garofalo, The Genealogy of Pop/Rock Music chart has been praised by many scholars and music fans alike.

Covering the time period from 1955 to 1978, more than 700 artists and 30 styles of music are mapped in currents flowing from left-to-right. For each performer, the length of time that he/she remained a major hit maker is provided. The overlapping streams allow you to compare the longevity and influence of multiple artists for the same time period. The birth and genealogy of each stylistic category is presented, along with an estimation of its share of total record sales.

Genealogy of Pop/Rock Music is referenced in Edward Tufte's, Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative (Graphics Press): "With intense richness of detail, this nostalgic and engaging chart fascinates many viewers (...) Also the illustration presents a somewhat divergent perspective on popular music: songs are not merely singles - unique, one-time, de novo happenings - rather, music and music-makers share a pattern, a context, a history."

Map O’ The Day #36 – Literary Organism

Today’s MOTD is a truly unique representation of Jack Kerouac’s, On The Road, by Stefanie Posavec, which is entitled “Literary Organism”. A quick glance at the map, and you’ll understand that Posavec’s title is appropriate. She has executed a brilliant deconstruction of Kerouac’s famous novel, by breaking down the entire book into it’s literary elements, such as, basic structure, word count, character presence, and, my favorite, the type of event/behavior engaged in by the main characters.

As the theme for this week is multivariate analysis, this map remains a perfect example of a wide range of the subject’s elements being built into the structure and display of the information.

A quick note on something that I found interesting about this graphic was how closely the representation mirrors a structure and form that you might expect to find in nature. I couldn’t stop coming back to the idea that a beautiful novel, even when broken apart to it’s barest forms, still retains a form that’s compelling and appealing.

Map O' The Day #35 - Foreclosures

This infographic was published in the New York Times, who created it from sources at First American CoreLogic, LoanPerformance, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Census Bureau, and provides an excellent look at a poor situation, namely, the foreclosure situation in America.

Much like yesterday’s MOTD, this graphic utilizes multivariate analysis, using both height, color and location in order to show the %’s of subprime mortgage foreclosures in metropolitan areas, as well as the subprime mortgage foreclosures overall.

A key difference in this infographic from yesterday’s is that simple multivariate analysis in a central map wasn’t enough. Rather, the NYT employed a systems of maps to further contextualize the data. If you draw your attention to the bottom right, there are two additional maps depicting the construction boom as well as job loss, which allows a user to draw correlations among data sets.

This is a great example of what Maga Design refers to when discussing a “system of maps” that helps create insights while driving towards outcomes.

Map O' The Day #34 - The World of Science Fiction

The first Map O’ The Day in the new year is #34 – The World of Science Fiction.

This graphic, from Stephanie Fox, via i09.com, lays out a portion of the science fiction community. She uses a coloring system to show which medium the character(s) originated from, (TV, Book, Comics, and Video Games.)

She furthers the impact by using color to determine it’s creative origin: Marvel, DC, Image or Other. But she wasn’t finished with two variables describing creator and medium, because as she draws connections in the science fiction world, she uses different lines styles to show the frequency and type of encounter between connected parties.

This map, while not that visually appealing, demonstrates a principle that Maga Design firmly employs, that of multivariate analysis, meaning, a collection of procedures which involve observation and analysis of more than one statistical variable at a time. It’s apparent that Fox understands that presenting multiple informative elements about a subject can contribute towards creating insights.