Animated Wind Patterns across the U.S.

Hint.fm does a daily map charting the wind patterns across the U.S. 

Take a look!

International Picture Language

This BOOK is a great example of a very easy to use, early example use of semiotics in everyday life.

Otto Neurath created this book as presented as part of the Imaginary Museum 

Kurt Perschkes Red-ball-project

This is a great public art project by Kurt Perschkes. I love how inherantly interactive it is and how approachable it is for all the people that see it. What does it say about the environments it is placed in? How do people benefit from this? What do people do with it?

History Pin

History Pin of Reading, UK. The community contributed to this interactive google map of the town and its history. 

Reading Museum tells stories of the local historic and natural environment as well as displaying and caring for objects from around the world. Reading was at the centre of early developments in photography and was one of the first places to be recorded by photography. William Henry Fox Talbot, a pioneer of photography, set up one of the world’s first commercial photographic studios in Reading in 1844. The Museum's photo collections include the archives of the Reading Chronicle and Huntley & Palmers biscuit factory. A selection of our images have been uploaded here - see our website for more information.

The Surprising Complex Art of Urban Wayfinding

Here is a great article on Urban Wayfinding Excerpt: " Enter the urban wayfinding expert. This field – also known as environmental graphic design – fits a unique niche somewhere in between two- and three-dimensional design, between building and landscape architecture, between the small scale (street signs) and really large systems (whole cities). “Architectural signage and wayfinding isn’t about building a nicely designed sign,” says Sue Labouvie, one such expert whom we tapped to explain the science of helping us find our way in the city. “It’s about the information content and the analysis of the space or place that you’re trying to move people through, and coming up with a strategy of how you make this big complex thing simple and understandable to the user.” How do you clarify to people what a city is about, how they should move through it and where they can find all the really important stuff? Or, put another way: How does a city do this, all on its own, so that I don’t have to ask a knowledgeable-seeming stranger on the street for directions?" The Atlantic Cities

Better Metro North

This designer found the Metro North train schedule too difficult to navigate. So...he redesigned it!

BetterMetroNorth.com

Guerilla Public Service_ Freeway signs

A great project by Guerilla Public Service in California. If urban wayfinding doesn't work why not fix it yourself!?

Read more here

Guerrilla Wayfinding in Raleigh

Read Full article here

YASIV product mapping

http://www.yasiv.com/

Yasiv is a “visual recommendation service” that illustrates the relationships between items in Amazon’s marketplace. Type the name of any given book, CD, or film into the search box. Yasiv will chart the connections to items other customers have purchased.

Artist: Farhad Moshiri

Plenty of Colour featured a great installation by Farhad Moshiri

His installation ‘Life is Beautiful’ showcases a beautiful cursive treatment of the titular expression. Step closer and we realize the typeface is created by hundreds of knives with colourful handles stabbed into the wall atPalazzo Grassi, Italy. I love the juxtaposition of such a romantic type treatment and phrase created out of a violent, dramatic material. So many layers of meaning in this piece…


This is a great example of innovative visualization and alternative ways of communicating information.

Chart Junk

Chartjunk refers to all visual elements in charts and graphs that are not necessary to comprehend the information represented on the graph, or that distract the viewer from this information.


The term was coined by Edward Tufte in his 1983 book The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. He states: 


"The interior decoration of graphics generates a lot of ink that does not tell the viewer anything new. The purpose of decoration varies — to make the graphic appear more scientific and precise, to enliven the display, to give the designer an opportunity to exercise artistic skills. Regardless of its cause, it is all non-data-ink or redundant data-ink, and it is often chartjunk." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartjunk


Here is an article from Business Week about Tufte and his contributions to Information Design.


Remember these tips for avoiding information overload: From the Information design Handbook

- Don't Decorate, design: Keep the design simple so the user feels comfortable. Achieve clarity through minimalism by avoiding anything that does not serve as a function. 

- Provide Options: Structure information in ways that allow the reader to attain multiple levels of understanding, from overview to expert. 

- Use Structure to create meaning: Awareness of the emotional and cognitive effects of information overload should influence decisions. Use tools, like Millers Magic number to make information more digestible

Tucker Nichols

Tucker Nichols is the founder of Anonymous Postcard, a mail-based suggestion box for the world. His work is too the point and innovative.

Tucker Nichols