Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization

23 Mar 2007 Category: Features, Internet, Recommended, Technology, Top Page 10

Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization

The beauty of information aesthetics: Visual Poetry 06 by Boris Müller. "Boris Müller's newest 'visual theme' for a annual international German literature festival. 2006 the theme consisted of beautiful visualizations of the poetry texts themselves. Each word corresponded to a numerical code by adding the alphabetical values of its letters together. This number was mapped onto the position on a circle, and marked by a red dot. Gray lines connect the dots in the sequence the words appear in the poem. The diameter of the circle on which the dots are placed is decided by the length of the poem," Andrew explains.

Andrew Vande Moere digs deep in his information channels to gather the most interesting forms of data visualization. Yes, those common diagrams and charts that haunted you during your school days (for example, displaying the annual per capita income of Togo’s citizens in the most boring way). However, his blog infosthetics.com brings up the most beautiful outpourings of information aesthetics. For him this is a symbiosis between creative design and information visualization: form follows data and evolves in such unique graphs that you can call them art. Can you? PingMag talked to Andrew about infosthetics.

Written by Verena

Stamen are amongst Andrew’s all time favorites. This is an excerpt of time-based mappings of wireless networks in urban environments called Trace: as a participant walks through the city, wireless networks are sensed by the PDA. Each time a new network is encountered, a new vertical bar is drawn. As each new network is encountered, its marker moves along the color spectrum. The first network is always red and on the left hand side, the last one is always purple and on the right side, and networks along the way get new colors as they come within range. The height of each bar represents the combined strength of the wireless networks currently in range.

First, would you quickly sum up your background for us? I only figured out that you are from Belgium and worked as an assistant at the ETH Zurich…

Way back, I studied Architectural Engineering at the K.U.Leuven University in Belgium. Even during my studies, I was always interested in how computers could create electronic forms of architectural spaces, non-physical places in which people still could meet, work and play.

In contrast to most currently existing shared 3D worlds, such virtual architecture is not necessarily based on traditional considerations as climate protection, privacy or constructive needs. Instead of bricks as the smallest delineator, such places have only one material in common: digital data. I discovered an academic group at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, who succeeded in merging architectural insights with the creation of such purely electronic spaces, including intriguing data-driven worlds and large-scale abstract visualizations that were both useful and beautiful.

I was lucky enough to become a post-graduate student there, then a research assistant, and finally a PhD student. During my PhD, I developed several novel visualization techniques that were specifically designed to be used in immersive virtual reality environments, such as CAVEs. After my PhD, I moved to Australia and became an Assistant Professor in Design Computing at the University of Sydney. I am now exploring more broadly the borders between IT and design, especially in the context of data visualization.

Beautiful diagram, again from Stamen! This shows the user activities on Digg over an entire day. Made by Tom Carden, it displays the non-promoted stories only: only diggs upcoming stories are included. The scarring effect, where users digg one story after another in sequential order, seems to take place almost exclusively with very recently submitted stories, and seems to be about evenly distributed between long-time and new members of Digg.

For an introduction, would you explain shortly the difference between information architecture and information design?

Information architecture is an approach that focuses on organizing and categorizing data, conceptually as well visually, and is related to functionality, navigation, and interaction. It most often is referred to in the area of web design.

Information design is about the design of information graphics, and the design of visual displays of information. Think about the diagrams you can find in newspapers and magazines. However, different definitions exist.

The Map of Science by W. Bradford Paley: “The image was constructed by sorting roughly 800,000 scientific papers (shown as white dots) into 776 different scientific paradigms (red circular nodes) based on how often the papers were cited together by authors of other papers…” Research & Node Layout: Kevin Boyack and Dick Klavans; Data: Thompson ISI; Graphics & Typography: W. Bradford Paley; Commissioned by Katy Börner

In your infosthetics blog you were wondering about your own attraction to data visualization: “is it the attention to superficial decoration, a creative design approach to visualization, the desire to merge beauty & functionality, or a general lack of effective information communication?” What would you say about it right now?

To be honest, I really do not know the answer to this question. That is why I asked it to my readers. First of all, I especially appreciate the definition of information aesthetics (or esthetics according to him) from Bradford Paley, who states that information aesthetics works are based on an understanding of how human information processing capabilities can enhance esthetic appreciation. Such applications use aesthetic engagement to increase the information flow, and thus make the visualization, as a tool, more useful.


Close-up of the Map of Science. “…Links (curved lines) were made between the paradigms that shared common members, then treated as rubber bands, holding similar paradigms nearer one another when a physical simulation had every paradigm repel every other: thus the layout derives directly from the data. Larger paradigms have more papers. Labels list common words unique to each paradigm.”

Although I agree to this definition, I do not know the conclusive answer to your question. However, some of my research students are currently investigating this matter. For instance, Nick Cawthon is determining whether subjectively judged aesthetic visualizations are considered more useful, and have inherent qualities that might have been overlooked by traditional visualization evaluation studies.

Andrea Lau, another research student, is currently investigating the characteristics of information aesthetics in visualization, such as aesthetic quality, data treatment and interactive features, and is analyzing several info-aesthetics works in terms of intent, purpose and employed technique. Our first findings show that aesthetics clearly don’t consist of superficial decoration, and most info-aesthetic visualizations seem not very effective in augmenting the knowledge present inside the dataset.

Instead, information aesthetic visualizations rather seem to communicate messages that are based on the meaning represented by the data, and instead exploit visualization techniques as tools for slightly different goals than they originally were meant for.

Another Visual Poetry 05 literature visualization by Boris Müller. He says: “I was visually inspired by L-System algorithms. However, it did not make sense to use any recursive algorithms. But I picked up the idea that certain symbols in a text would control the growth of the tree. Specific letter-combinations would create a new branch, others would make it grow stronger. So the final tree-structure would be a direct result of the letter sequence in the text. Therefore, every poem is represented by its own, distinct tree.”

Of course, these visualizations are not superficial decoration - but still their mere looks are a beauty of its own. Is it an art form to you or more a scientific output?

If you mean “information aesthetic” infographics, then they should include both. Information aesthetic visualizations should appeal both the mind and soul. While they positively stimulate our senses, in terms of engagement, involvement, and imagination, they are also optimized for the specific task of conveying complex data-driven concepts in intuitive and easily comprehensible ways. It is not a surprise then, that the most successful infographics use creative design insights.

Chris Harrison’s Royal Society Archive Visualization. Andrew explains: “An extremely large timeline depicting the archive of papers published in the prestigious Royal Society’s scientific journal, from 1665 to 2005. The entire timeline has been segmented into 10 sections, each 20,000 x 2,000 pixels. this visualization displays papers chronologically, with paper titles radiating downward from the vertical midpoint at a 45 degree angle. The size varies linearly by the number of number of papers published during that year’s volume. The size of the author’s name reflects how prolific they were. Some patterns that can be observed: paper titles become shorter over time, and there is a notable decrease in the quantity of papers published per volume starting around 1761, which significantly rebounds in 1970.”

So in terms of these design insights: what determines a superb made info diagram for you? And what would a real bad one look like?

I find this a very difficult question. To determine whether a diagram is good or bad, one needs to determine for what context it was designed for. What is the goal of that diagram? Is it task-oriented, or does it aim to stimulate our emotions? Is it meant to communicate previously unknown insights hidden inside the data, or persuade a convincing message based on the same information?

For instance, some information graphics are excellent in conveying the exact amount, place, and circumstances involved in recent Iraq casualties. While others are excellent in provoking thoughts and opinions about the Iraq war in general. Both these infographics could be based on an identical dataset, but both are designed with different intentions, and therefore probably use ‘aesthetics’ for different purposes. And they might be both ‘superb’ within their context. [For example, one telling interactive infographic about Iraq casualities was published in the New York Times, or this artistic one from Shane Carroll called Panic in Detroit.]

Interactive Sankey Diagrams by Patrick Riehmann, Manfred Hanfler, and Bernd Froehlich of Bauhaus-University-Weimar, Germany. Andrew explains: “A novel data visualization system that allows users to interactively explore complex flow scenarios represented as Sankey diagrams. The system provides an overview of the flow graph and allows users to zoom in and explore details on demand. The system is applied to the energy flow in a city. Different forms of energy are distributed within the city and they are transformed into heat, electricity, or other forms of energy. These processes are visualized and can be interactively explored.

What are your all time infosthetics favourites?

With the danger of forgetting some very important projects, people interested in information aesthetics should definitely look at the works of Martin Wattenberg (e.g. Baby Name Voyager), Stamen.com (e.g. Digg Labs), Fernanda Viégas (e.g. Themail), Marcos Weskamp (e.g. Newsmap), Boris Müller (e.g. Visual Poetry), Golan Levin (e.g. The Secret Lives of Numbers), Bradford Paley (e.g. textarc), Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar (e.g. We Feel Fine), John Maeda, Edward Tufte, Ben Fry and plenty more. Having said that, I certainly also enjoy more analogue techniques (e.g. Week in Review). [Please scroll up and down the visualizations going with the article.]

The Dumpster by Golan Levin is an interactive online visualization that depicts the romantic breakups of teenagers, from their blogs. Using postings extracted from online blogs, people can surf through tens of thousands of specific romantic relationships in which one person has “dumped” another. Commissioned by Tate Online.

With all these fine visualization experts, I bet you have seen a lot of all kinds of graphic depictions. I wonder how far the degree of abstractness can actually go?

Abstractions can reach into alternative human senses, such as so-called non-visual visualizations. There are plenty of examples that use abstract data to stimulate sound, touch, smell, even taste. Just be amazed how Dan Maynes-Aminzade built a working computer interface people can lick and taste.

Developed at MIT, Fernanda Viégas’ PostHistory explores the accumulation of e-mail activities over a period. Fernanda explains: “Most of us deal with email on an everyday basis and some of us have been doing so for several years… In short, it is hard to get a sense of mere scale and patterns… The visualization aims at impressing on the user a sense of daily accumulation, of growth and scale dimensions not normally conveyed on current email applications… The goal is to create visualizations that allow us to look back at our actions in the digital world in order to grasp the scale, intensity and forms that our interactions take in this medium.”

On a data mapping abstraction level, anything that is created out of data, instead of some random algorithm, could be called visualization. This does not mean they are intuitive or even understandable at all. Some direct translations exist, such as the quite psychedelic depictions of statistical data tracking the US domestic production of shoes and slippers from 1960 to 1998 in 31 categories, created by Jason Salavon.

While technically a visualization, I rather consider them a critique of visualization as a medium of which people inherently expect to augment our understanding. There is often that danger expectation and perceiving meaning where there is none. Other people use data as inspiration of their artistic work, such as Christina Ray, for instance.

Martin Wattenberg’s creation of the NameVoyager, depicting the rankings of most popular baby names within the time frame between 1880 and 2005. By the way, he also worked on Golan Levin’s visualization The Secret Lives Of Numbers and now joins Fernanda Viégas at IBM Watson Research Center in Cambridge.

In one of your scientific papers you used the term persuasive visualization and you explained it with: “Information visualization that is able to increase awareness & motivate for human behavior modification.” Please explain that a bit!

I propose that visualization has the potential to reach beyond the classical goals of finding data patterns, making better informed decisions or communicating knowledge. In short, I am convinced that designers are ideally suited to present information in engaging ways, which are able to personally involve people and therefore make strong emotional connections with them. A prime example for future visualization research could be part of persuasive computing, which uses technology to make people aware of complex concepts, in the ultimate goal to encourage them to change their behavior.

In a basic form, the movie An Inconvenient Truth is an example of how information display is specifically designed for a non-expert audience, aiming to change people’s opinion and attitude, and hopefully everyone’s everyday behavior. More sophisticated applications could be developed in the healthcare domain, for instance to encourage people to change their eating patterns by informing them in an accurate, timely but always enjoyable way of the consequences of their food decisions.

Marcos Weskamp’s depiction of the newsmap. Andrew explains: “Newsmap is a live visualization of google news: a treemap algorithm fills the available screen space, as size denotes the importance of specific headlines, color distinguishes news categories, and brightness the story novelty.”

What I also found really interesting was your issue of real-world buildings serving as information visualizations: the formality of inhabitable designs. Have you been working on any related projects lately?

Unfortunately, I haven’t, but I guess it is only a matter of time before buildings truly are data-driven or data-based. I guess you refer to some conceptually intriguing buildings I consider built data visualizations, such as the Holland Pavilion by MVRDV at the World Expo 2000 in Hanover. From the outside as well as from the inside, it is truly a navigable information presentation of the stereotype interpretation of The Netherlands.

Another works from Stamen for Digg: the Digg Swarm draws a circle for stories as they’re dugg. Diggers swarm around stories, and make them grow. Brightly colored stories have more diggs.

But imagine even more drastic concepts. Currently, most data representations in architecture focus only on the façade, by way of large LED screens or maybe even by a matrix of shape-changing surfaces. However, research already exists that focuses on displays fully integrated in concrete and brick materials. The Hyperbody group in The Netherlands has designed human-scale structures that can alter their shape dynamically. [For example, have a look at their Muscle Tower II]. Once buildings can dynamically alter their form, space and functionality based on data streams - how would that change architecture? Will the old cyberspace concept finally be built in physical reality, closing the conceptual loop?

Interesting question, opening up a whole new world of data driven fluid architecture! Thank you so much, Andrew Vande Moere, for giving us insights in the realm of information aesthetics!

139 Comments

  1. beautiful stream letters, reminds me to audio equalizer.

    Posted by: 6247 on March 23rd, 2007 at 8:16 pm

  2. there’s a website for this topic: http://www.visualcomplexity.com

    Posted by: tim on March 23rd, 2007 at 8:21 pm

  3. [...] PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things” » Archive » Infosthetics: … ‘Andrew Vande Moere digs deep in his information channels to gather the most interesting forms of data visualization.’ (tags: information data design) [...]

    Posted by: Heraclitean Fire » Links on March 23rd, 2007 at 8:22 pm

  4. gorgeous work! it all has such a wonderful, natural feel. i really dig when artists can tap into that eternal geometry. very nice. like flowers and grass and clouds.

    Posted by: howsthatsound on March 23rd, 2007 at 11:02 pm

  5. I’m breathless! Those visual poems are incredible! I remember messing around with some of the same kind of art when I was younger. Now I regret not continuing it. I mean, how can you beat typography, maps, and charts all mixed together?

    …really, you can’t.

    Posted by: Græme on March 24th, 2007 at 12:30 am

  6. Amazing, amazing stuff…

    More of it…

    Posted by: Tomi on March 24th, 2007 at 4:20 am

  7. [...] More here: Verena [...]

    Posted by: Data Visualization Daily » Blog Archive » Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization on March 24th, 2007 at 10:48 am

  8. Brilliant. Information design at its finest.

    Posted by: aaron on March 24th, 2007 at 8:59 pm

  9. I am a CHINA student,I like science and design.Just Ifound your web and I was excited ,but I’m only an English beginner and in Janpanese I’m pool.I’m sorry.

    Posted by: Tiancai lin on March 24th, 2007 at 10:22 pm

  10. wow, those images are great. Very informative / interesting article.

    “Once buildings can dynamically alter their form, space and functionality based on data streams - how would that change architecture?”

    _< WOW!

    Thanks PingMag.

    Posted by: Skull Lab on March 25th, 2007 at 12:25 am

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    Posted by: Nerdcore - A Blog about very cool Stuff. Und so. on March 25th, 2007 at 8:25 am

  13. [...] PingMag’ında gördüm, “Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization“. Dataların görselleştirildiğinde ortaya çıkan [...]

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  14. nda…t

    Posted by: Alex on March 25th, 2007 at 9:59 pm

  15. Cool, I believe a lot of the visualizations / algorithms are coded through a program called Processing.

    Posted by: Eric on March 26th, 2007 at 1:26 am

  16. [...] Et moi qui pensait que je faisais de l’art numérique ahahhaha. Je viens d’en trouver du vrai et qui porte bien son nom. Voici Visual Poetry by Boris Muller. Trouvé via PingMag. [...]

    Posted by: Nouknouk » Art numérique, du vrai on March 26th, 2007 at 9:30 am

  17. [...] The Beauty of Data Visualization [...]

    Posted by: Sunday Evening Roundup at teabyrd.com on March 26th, 2007 at 12:24 pm

  18. Definitely one of the more surreal visual articles yet. nice PingMag

    Posted by: Rikki on March 26th, 2007 at 3:13 pm

  19. [...] Werbung. Kurzer Artikel. Weitergehts. The Beauty of [...]

    Posted by: Kurz Vor Neune » Blog Archive » Spread your legs on March 26th, 2007 at 11:47 pm

  20. We Feel Fine is so awesome.

    Posted by: Joseph on March 27th, 2007 at 3:49 pm

  21. Nice stuff

    Posted by: HDR Photography on March 28th, 2007 at 6:45 pm

  22. I like this interactive visualiseation too http://www.undiscovered-country.net

    Posted by: dave on March 29th, 2007 at 2:18 pm

  23. [...] Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization The guys at Stamen get a (well-deserved and huge) mention in this new interview with Andrew Vande Moere tags: infodesign inspiration design Visualization infographics [...]

    Posted by: noticed of late « Second Verse on March 29th, 2007 at 4:08 pm

  24. [...] read more | digg story [...]

    Posted by: 道 on March 31st, 2007 at 6:01 am

  25. [...] Of The Most Beautiful Data Visualizations Filed under: Uncategorized — recar @ 3:23 am List Of The Most Beautiful Data Visualizations This list brings up the most beautiful outpourings of information aesthetics. This is a symbiosis [...]

    Posted by: List Of The Most Beautiful Data Visualizations « News Coctail on March 31st, 2007 at 12:24 pm

  26. data is beautiful.

    Posted by: Wee Keat on March 31st, 2007 at 3:53 pm

  27. Have you checked out the amazing world stat and human development trend graphs at gapminder? http://tools.google.com/gapminder/

    Posted by: Nopanacea on March 31st, 2007 at 6:30 pm

  28. That sick!

    Posted by: Trevor on March 31st, 2007 at 7:18 pm

  29. [...] visualization: form follows data and evolves in such unique graphs that you can call them art.read more | digg [...]

    Posted by: Breaking News » List Of The Most Beautiful Data Visualizations on March 31st, 2007 at 8:11 pm

  30. some really nice ones, newsmap is the weakest, but even as the weakest it’s still good!

    Posted by: Live tv on March 31st, 2007 at 9:03 pm

  31. [...] visualization: form follows data and evolves in such unique graphs that you can call them art.read more | digg [...]

    Posted by: MyMac.ca » Blog Archive » List Of The Most Beautiful Data Visualizations on March 31st, 2007 at 10:39 pm

  32. my sis just named her baby based on Namevoyager

    Posted by: Harlow on March 31st, 2007 at 11:25 pm

  33. Infosthetics is one of my favorite blogs! Visual complexity is also very good. I composed an article featuring many infovis examples from both of these sites (and more):

    http://eric-blue.com/blog/2006/10/dataestheticsthepowerandbe.html

    Posted by: Eric Blue on March 31st, 2007 at 11:26 pm

  34. [...] Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization. [...]

    Posted by: As coisinhas interessantes de hoje… at It’s Equal but It’s Different on April 1st, 2007 at 1:37 am

  35. I have always been amazed by the visual forms of data and these shots are amazing. Thanks for the list.

    Posted by: Son Nguyen on April 1st, 2007 at 2:03 am

  36. [...] Juan G. Tornoe wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptAndrew Vande Moore digs deep in his information channels to gather the most interesting forms of data visualization. Yes, those common diagrams and charts that haunted you during your school days (for example, displaying the annual per … [...]

    Posted by: salon » Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization on April 1st, 2007 at 6:59 pm

  37. [...] Infosthetics - the beauty of data visualization 12 picks (tags: Visualizations) [...]

    Posted by: All in a days work… on April 1st, 2007 at 9:18 pm

  38. [...] Link to PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things” » Archive » Infost… [...]

    Posted by: NOSMeLD : Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization on April 1st, 2007 at 11:58 pm

  39. Looks like the lines on a lie detector or on the Richter scale

    Posted by: Amish on April 2nd, 2007 at 9:31 pm

  40. [...] PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things” » Archive » Infosthetics: … (tags: visualization design data infographics information art guiltypleasure) [...]

    Posted by: Akkam’s Razor on April 2nd, 2007 at 9:38 pm

  41. [...] PingMag » Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization - Andrew Vande Moere digs deep in his information channels to gather the most interesting forms of data visualization. [...]

    Posted by: holotone.net on April 3rd, 2007 at 9:32 am

  42. I am working on a open source newsmap (very much the same like marcos weskamp’s). Could please some one point me to some other developments in these field so that I can join? I can’t find anything like this on the net. Thanks.

    Posted by: Marjan on April 3rd, 2007 at 11:48 pm

  43. [...] manicone is online now. The coloring of manicone took more time than expected. The coloring made it necessary to consider theories and examples of artistic color compositions, physical mixing properties, technological limitations (calibrations) and infoesthetic basics (For a glimpse onto the problem of coloring and infoesthetics see e.g. this video lecture by tamara munzner (who was a visiting scientist of the TU math department in the mid nineties) or the review on pingmag. [...]

    Posted by: randform » Blog Archive » the color of color on April 5th, 2007 at 5:52 pm

  44. really intresting that vizuals

    Posted by: johnny on April 7th, 2007 at 9:47 pm

  45. [...] flows that allows you to explore changes. Problem is the application itself is in German. (via pingmag via metafilter) Planning — — — Share This [...]

    Posted by: cuz produces»Blog Archive » Urban energy on April 10th, 2007 at 5:29 am

  46. [...] "To determine whether a diagram is good or bad, one needs to determine for what context it was … PingMag (1, 2) interviews Andrew Vande Moere of infosthetics . A quick, informative read which includes pretty pictures of some MeFi faves. Powered by Gregarious (34) [...]

    Posted by: blinded me with (beautiful) science | LifeParticles on April 10th, 2007 at 5:56 am

  47. [...] A Flash-based demonstration of an “elastic” list to present complex data structures. More examples can be found on Well-Formed Data and in the article Infosthetics: Form Follows Data. [...]

    Posted by: Best of March 2007 | Smashing Magazine on April 12th, 2007 at 1:02 am

  48. 你们的作品真是棒级了.我喜欢.

    Posted by: yangduxun on April 13th, 2007 at 7:59 pm

  49. [...] think there’s a shortage of words in the English language, you’ve got to see “Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualzation“. It’s glorious. Related reading… Natalia Zelmanov’s most excellent [...]

    Posted by: Ambient suffering II « Torley Lives on April 14th, 2007 at 12:57 pm

  50. [...] Balkendiagramme, Tabellen und Histogramme demnächst Vergangenheit werden lassen. In seinem Beitrag Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization spricht Andrew Vande Moere, bekannt durch sein Weblog Infosthetics, über die Ästhetik der [...]

    Posted by: Datenvisualisierung: Ansätze und Dienste | Dr. Web Weblog on April 16th, 2007 at 7:03 am

  51. [...] “Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization” via pingmag.com [...]

    Posted by: Graduate Photography and Digital Imaging on April 16th, 2007 at 7:18 am

  52. [...] Tabellen und Histogramme demnächst Vergangenheit werden lassen. In seinem Beitrag Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization spricht Andrew Vande Moere, bekannt durch sein Weblog Infosthetics, über die Ästhetik der [...]

    Posted by: XiP // StuFF » Datenvisualisierung: Ansätze und Dienste on April 17th, 2007 at 11:26 am

  53. [...] Well-formed data | Elastic lists A Flash-based demonstration of an “elastic” list to present complex data structures. More examples can be found on Well-Formed Data and in the article Infosthetics: Form Follows Data. [...]

    Posted by: Webdesign (css, grafica e altro) » Blog Archive » Best of March 2007 on April 19th, 2007 at 1:38 am

  54. Wow these images are insane.

    Posted by: Motorcycle Guy on April 23rd, 2007 at 4:36 am

  55. [...] Here’s some more examples from Ping Magazine of how infographics or infosthetics can be used to create intriguing beauty out of raw statistics. [...]

    Posted by: toddvachon.com » Blog Archive » Infographics - Graphic Design Meets Information on April 29th, 2007 at 10:19 am

  56. Check this out:
    http://www.visualcomplexity.com/

    Posted by: artgirl on May 16th, 2007 at 5:57 am

  57. [...] elävää. Sen jälkeen voit siirtyä lukemaan Pingmagin maaliskuussa julkaisemaa artikkelia Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization, jossa tiedosta tehdään kaunista (Wired on toinen hyvä esimerkki toimivasta [...]

    Posted by: am Design » Arkisto » Artikkelikatsaus: Maaliskuu 2007 on June 10th, 2007 at 8:10 pm

  58. [...] También encontramos ejemplos prácticos aplicados en webs de éxito actuales…. Ver artículo completo [...]

    Posted by: Elisava - Postgrado en Diseño y Dirección de Arte DDdA - Escuela Superior de Diseño Elisava » Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization on June 11th, 2007 at 5:28 pm

  59. people are stranger

    Posted by: emurhfkq on June 21st, 2007 at 8:01 pm

  60. [...] PingMag “Design and Making Things”: Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization [...]

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  61. [...] his article Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization Andrew Vande Moere, well-known through his blog Infosthetics, discusses the aesthetics of data [...]

    Posted by: Data Visualization: Modern Approaches on August 2nd, 2007 at 6:24 am

  62. [...] his article Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization Andrew Vande Moere, well-known through his blog Infosthetics, discusses the aesthetics of data [...]

    Posted by: lost node » Blog Archive » Data Visualization: Modern Approaches on August 2nd, 2007 at 7:53 am

  63. [...] his article Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization Andrew Vande Moere, well-known through his blog Infosthetics, discusses the aesthetics of data [...]

    Posted by: Open Source Web Design » Data Visualization: Modern Approaches on August 2nd, 2007 at 5:05 pm

  64. Beautiful stuff! Thanks for your interesting article. I also did datavisualisation as part of my degree in graphic design. Take a look at http://www.felixheinen.de

    Posted by: Felix on August 3rd, 2007 at 7:48 pm

  65. [...] 小时候我们会很好奇的盯着录音机上那几个灯光条看上半天，但是和信息革命一样，信息设计（information design）也跟着日新月异，数字可视化也不再是简单的将数字用图形来表示出来，而是进入更深更广的领域，关于美学，商业，品牌，技术，哲学等等。前面文章中提到跨学科，我想information design也是一个较好的例子。 [...]

    Posted by: Anymails,可视化电子邮箱 · [ i D | 公 社 ] on August 3rd, 2007 at 11:57 pm

  66. [...] Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization Andrew Vande Moere, well-known through his blog Infosthetics, habla de la estética de visualización de datos y apparoaches moderno en este área. ¿Ideas de diseño creativas combinan la forma y contentan y generan gráficos fascinantes - esto es una nueva área en el arte de siguiente generación? [...]

    Posted by: Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization « Saliendo del pasado 2 on August 6th, 2007 at 3:51 am

  67. [...] his article Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization Andrew Vande Moere, well-known through his blog Infosthetics, discusses the aesthetics of data [...]

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  68. [...] citam e mostram, inclusive, o estudo Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization , com outros exemplos muitíssimo interessantes, como esse [...]

    Posted by: NOVOS DESENHOS PARA INFOGRÁFICOS : André Deak on August 9th, 2007 at 12:44 am

  69. [...] at Visual complexity”:http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/ and some great examples at Pingmag. Some [...]

    Posted by: I never knew » Blog Archive » Beautiful Data on August 13th, 2007 at 6:45 am

  70. Pigmag is a grat blog!! I have seen more post about it a I think is very interesting!!!

    Posted by: jdm on August 22nd, 2007 at 7:21 pm

  71. [...] visualization: form follows data and evolves in such unique graphs that you can call them art.read more | digg [...]

    Posted by: List Of The Most Beautiful Data Visualizations | Email Marketing Pro on August 30th, 2007 at 9:33 pm

  72. This is a wonderful blog!!! We can read interesting things!!

    Posted by: xavier on August 31st, 2007 at 9:09 pm

  73. [...] PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things” » Archive » Infosthetics: … A prime example for future visualization research could be part of persuasive computing, which uses technology to make people aware of complex concepts, in the ultimate goal to encourage them to change their behavior. [...]

    Posted by: Ben Brink’s Blog » Blog Archive » PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things” » Archive » Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization on September 7th, 2007 at 9:10 pm

  74. [...] http://pingmag.jp/2007/03/23/infosthetic…; [...]

    Posted by: dispatches from TJICistan » Blog Archive » data visualization on September 7th, 2007 at 10:04 pm

  75. people are stranger

    Posted by: gfbvbxv on September 13th, 2007 at 11:16 am

  76. [...] visualization: form follows data and evolves in such unique graphs that you can call them art.read more | digg [...]

    Posted by: List Of The Most Beautiful Data Visualizations - Авто новости - Самые свежие автомобильные новости on September 15th, 2007 at 10:24 pm

  77. [...] visualization: form follows data and evolves in such unique graphs that you can call them art.read more | digg [...]

    Posted by: iSport » Blog Archive » List Of The Most Beautiful Data Visualizations on September 17th, 2007 at 3:46 am

  78. [...] статье “Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization” Andrew Vande Moer (хорошо известен благодаря своему блогу [...]

    Posted by: Визуализация данных on September 18th, 2007 at 12:49 am

  79. [...] read more | digg story   [...]

    Posted by: List Of The Most Beautiful Data Visualizations | Top Digg News on September 26th, 2007 at 2:13 am

  80. [...] http://pingmag.jp/2007/03/23/infosthetics-form-follows-data/  [...]

    Posted by: Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization « Lu Terceiro on September 26th, 2007 at 2:35 am

  81. [...] read more | digg story [...]

    Posted by: List Of The Most Beautiful Data Visualizations « Top Tech News on October 6th, 2007 at 8:09 pm

  82. this is amazing

    Posted by: cao yue on October 11th, 2007 at 12:29 am

  83. [...] his article Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization Andrew Vande Moere, well-known through his blog Infosthetics, discusses the aesthetics of data [...]

    Posted by: Data visualization? « Guavus on October 11th, 2007 at 4:52 am

  84. [...] [...]

    Posted by: Delicious data visualization at neverwonderland on October 14th, 2007 at 5:00 pm

  85. Seen from an artist’s perspective all those data visualization diagrams make a cool looking abstract pieces.

    Posted by: Dawid Michalczyk on October 25th, 2007 at 6:10 am

  86. [...] PingMag - Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization [...]

    Posted by: Links - Visualization « LuisRei.com on October 31st, 2007 at 8:43 pm


  87. [URL=][/URL]

    Posted by: Neo on November 8th, 2007 at 5:46 pm

  88. Wow! this is a great article. Beautiful images. I love this type of stuff.
    I wrote an article on my site VitaminCM.com on Information Graphics. I like yours a lot more, but I’m glad to see other people like this stuff.

    Posted by: VitaminCM on November 18th, 2007 at 12:31 am

  89. Those graphics are very inspiring

    Posted by: Okinawa News on November 24th, 2007 at 5:25 am

  90. These images indeed look like abstract digital paintings. Especially when you don’t see the actual detail of written words, but simply perceive the overall visual impression.

    Posted by: abstract art on December 7th, 2007 at 7:53 pm

  91. Great post.
    My blog at http://simplecomplexity.net tries to cover the same type of stuff.
    keep up the good work

    Posted by: Nathan on December 19th, 2007 at 5:30 am

  92. [...] Ping Mag - Infosthetics Form Follows Data [...]

    Posted by: 2007 - The Year in Links Color Charge on December 28th, 2007 at 8:25 am

  93. Very impressive and although I develop visualisation of data in an entirely different way i am so pleased to have discovered yet another source of quality. keep it up…

    John

    My Blog at http://johncaswell.typepad.com/my_weblog/

    Posted by: John Caswell on January 3rd, 2008 at 1:31 am

  94. This looks great, I love the graphic!

    Posted by: Alexander Rose on January 6th, 2008 at 6:04 am

  95. [...] Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization Andrew Vande Moere以及他的著名博客 [...]

    Posted by: 数据可视化的现代方法 | 未知的味觉 on February 20th, 2008 at 1:16 am

  96. [...] Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization Andrew Vande Moere以及他的著名博客 [...]

    Posted by: Cheese, Wine and GTD » Blog Archive » 数据可视化的现代方法 on February 20th, 2008 at 1:24 am

  97. A really interesting article and some great examples of graphic visualisation! Keeps the inspiration up!

    Posted by: Jenna on March 1st, 2008 at 1:39 am

  98. [...] the forefront of combining creative design with visualising information. In his post to PingMag on Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization, Moere talks about Borris Muller’s work, Visual Poetry 06 which caught my eye. Built in [...]

    Posted by: Jenna’s blog » Visualise this! on March 1st, 2008 at 1:59 am

  99. Hello!
    I think this try.

    Posted by: Floroskop on March 18th, 2008 at 6:15 pm

  100. [...] Ping Mag [...]

    Posted by: Infosthetics… « Suzie-Annie on April 16th, 2008 at 3:18 pm

  101. [...] his article Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization Andrew Vande Moere, well-known through his blog Infosthetics, discusses the aesthetics of data [...]

    Posted by: Data Visualization: Modern Approaches « p.i.z.z.l.e.r on April 27th, 2008 at 5:02 am

  102. [...] at the expense of information. Some recent examples of data visuaIisation (especially those of the “extreme knitwear” variety) have more in common with generative art. The results are undeniably beautiful but [...]

    Posted by: Interactive Infographics II : The Computus Engine on May 23rd, 2008 at 7:31 pm

  103. gorgeous work! it all has such a wonderful, natural feel. i really dig when artists can tap into that eternal geometry. very nice. like flowers and grass and clouds.

    Posted by: Posiciona on June 12th, 2008 at 6:57 pm

  104. [...] PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things” » Archive » Infosthetics: … (tags: infographics inspiration visualisation design interview) [...]

    Posted by: godworst on June 18th, 2008 at 3:34 pm

  105. [...] Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization [...]

    Posted by: Mapping Science « Open Learning on June 21st, 2008 at 5:05 am

  106. Nice writing. You are on my RSS reader now so I can read more from you down the road.

    Posted by: Alan on August 24th, 2008 at 7:01 am

  107. [...] Link all’intervista su [...]

    Posted by: infostehtics: form follows data « una collezione di idee on August 28th, 2008 at 7:27 pm

  108. [...] in Electronic Art & Interaction Design in Australia. For more information please read this interview of Vande [...]

    Posted by: electrofringe » Andrew Vande Moere on August 30th, 2008 at 6:17 pm

  109. [...] in Electronic Art & Interaction Design in Australia. For more information please read this interview of Vande [...]

    Posted by: electrofringe » Information Aesthetics on August 30th, 2008 at 6:17 pm

  110. These images indeed look like abstract digital paintings. Especially when you don’t see the actual detail of written words, but simply perceive the overall visual impression

    Posted by: msn adresleri on September 4th, 2008 at 10:09 am

  111. [...] Infosthetics Data Visualization on Wikipedia 16 Awesome DataViz tools Flowing Data information aesthetics wordle Many Eyes Plodt - Twitter plotting Vizualizing Data by O’Reilly Modern Data Visualizations Approaches on Smashing Magazine The Best Tools for Viz Liquid Browsing Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization [...]

    Posted by: David Steele Overholt | Data Sensualization Research on October 19th, 2008 at 6:41 am

  112. [...] on http://infosthetics.com/ and present in class next week - Read article on infoaesthetics: http://pingmag.jp/2007/03/23/infosthetics-form-follows-data/ - Review Google Docs Visualizations: [...]

    Posted by: Week 8: Data Sets and Visualizations « FA 189 Social Web Design: Theory, Practice and Values on October 23rd, 2008 at 8:28 pm

  113. 文章好啊。我转载一下。是不是博主原产的啊。用不用注明出处.

    Posted by: 电器 on November 16th, 2008 at 8:37 am

  114. That’s my first joining to your site. These are really unique graphics. I guess, i will follow your all articles and graphics.

    Posted by: sunucu on February 3rd, 2009 at 12:29 am

  115. [...] sich eine große Anzahl Diagramme mit ungewöhnlichen Wegen, Daten darzustellen. Ein Blog weiter in pingmap findet man dann einen Artikel namens Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization. Von dort bin [...]

    Posted by: Visual poetry or the beauty of information visualization « Projekt Management Beratung on February 18th, 2009 at 4:06 pm

  116. your labor health

    Posted by: Tabela on February 23rd, 2009 at 10:01 pm

  117. [...] Infosthetics the beauty of data visualization - Pingmag [...]

    Posted by: Data visualization and infographics resources for design inspiration on March 8th, 2009 at 12:25 pm

  118. [...] Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization [...]

    Posted by: TED中国粉丝团 » TED周边 今日TED演讲 » 葛兰·李文：新媒体艺术的大胆尝试 on March 10th, 2009 at 10:39 pm

  119. [...] UPDATE 14.04.2007 — Ich hab einen schönen Bericht zum Thema Schönheit der Datenvisualisierung gefunden mit ein paar sehr interessanten [...]

    Posted by: Bessere Interaktion durch Usability Patterns | der hess on April 30th, 2009 at 9:51 pm

  120. [...] gewisse Ästhetik ist auch bei der Informationsvisualisierung vorhanden. Der Blogeintrag Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization von pingmag bringt diesen Sachverhalt sehr gut auf den Punkt. Spätestens aber wenn man die Gallery [...]

    Posted by: Algorithmen verpackte Ästhetik | der hess on April 30th, 2009 at 11:08 pm

  121. that’s really esthetic work…

    Posted by: mimari proje on May 6th, 2009 at 8:09 am

  122. Really fantastic…

    Posted by: Web Hosting on May 7th, 2009 at 11:22 am

  123. wonderful natural feel

    Posted by: vps on May 13th, 2009 at 5:22 pm

  124. [...] этой статье Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualizationAndrew Vande Moere, известный своим болгом Infosthetics, рассуждает [...]

    Posted by: Визуализация данных | Весь web 2.0 on May 26th, 2009 at 6:45 pm

  125. [...] I think and read about data visualization, it’s mostly about the aesthetics of the information and the way the user navigates through [...]

    Posted by: Rethinking Data Visualization « News21 ASU on June 4th, 2009 at 1:04 pm

  126. Very thanks for this post

    Posted by: joan on June 10th, 2009 at 1:08 am

  127. [...] http://pingmag.jp/2007/03/23/infosthetics-form-follows-data/ [...]

    Posted by: the_best_tools_for_visualization en inspiratie site at ting on June 11th, 2009 at 8:38 am

  128. good stuff

    Posted by: toby on June 26th, 2009 at 5:59 am

  129. [...] Balkendiagramme, Tabellen und Histogramme demnächst Vergangenheit werden lassen. In seinem Beitrag Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization spricht Andrew Vande Moere, bekannt durch sein Weblog Infosthetics, über die Ästhetik der [...]

    Posted by: Datenvisualisierung: Ansätze und Dienste | Dr. Web Magazin on June 26th, 2009 at 6:00 am

  130. thank you for your article..

    Posted by: beylikdüzü halı yıkama on July 3rd, 2009 at 10:16 pm

  131. [...] his article Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization Andrew Vande Moere, well-known through his blog Infosthetics, discusses the aesthetics of data [...]

    Posted by: Visualisation de données : quelles sont les différentes approches possible ? « ADNxtc – Architecture Design Network on July 11th, 2009 at 1:26 am

  132. hello.. thank you for this article.

    Posted by: porno on July 15th, 2009 at 2:23 pm

  133. Thanks admin, wonderful natural feel

    Posted by: YACHTS on August 19th, 2009 at 7:48 pm

  134. [...] du cultissime blog infosthetics sur l’esthétisme de la visualisation de données, pour un article de PingMag sur la beauté de cette nouvelle discipline de représentation de [...]

    Posted by: Critiques du Web² (1/4) : Quelles données libère-t-on ? | traffic-internet.net on September 16th, 2009 at 2:01 am

  135. [...] du cultissime blog infosthetics sur l’esthétisme de la visualisation de données, pour un article de PingMag sur la beauté de cette nouvelle discipline de représentation de [...]

    Posted by: Critiques du Web² (1/4) : Quelles données libère-t-on ? | Owni.fr on September 17th, 2009 at 12:28 am

  136. [...] du cultissime blog infosthetics sur l’esthétisme de la visualisation de données, pour un article de PingMag sur la beauté de cette nouvelle discipline de représentation de [...]

    Posted by: Gesdesites.com » Blog Archive » Critiques du Web² (1/4) : Quelles données libère-t-on ? on September 23rd, 2009 at 2:00 am

  137. [...] 在他的文章《Infosthetics: 数据可视化之美》中，Andrew Vande Moere通过他的知名blog《Infosthetics》探讨了数据可视化的审美及领域中的前沿应用。创意设计意图的组合形式、内涵以及迷人的案例。这是下一代的新艺术领域？ [...]

    Posted by: （一）数据可视化：现代方法 on September 25th, 2009 at 7:55 pm

  138. [...] his article Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization Andrew Vande Moere, well-known through his blog Infosthetics, discusses the aesthetics of data [...]

    Posted by: A blog about everything » Data Visualization: Modern Approaches on October 10th, 2009 at 5:46 am

  139. [...] du cultissime blog infosthetics sur l’esthétisme de la visualisation de données, pour un article de PingMag sur la beauté de cette nouvelle discipline de représentation de [...]

    Posted by: Critiques du Web² (1/4) : Quelles données libère-t-on ? | MKT planet - News Web Marketing - Nouvelles Technologies on October 12th, 2009 at 7:14 pm

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