The Art of Data Visualization: How to Tell Complex Stories Through Smart Design

in Creativity, Design, Media, Technology | May 15th, 2013

The vol­ume of data in our age is so vast that whole new research fields have blos­somed to devel­op bet­ter and more effi­cient ways of pre­sent­ing and orga­niz­ing infor­ma­tion. One such field is data visu­al­iza­tion, which can be trans­lat­ed in plain Eng­lish as visu­al rep­re­sen­ta­tions of infor­ma­tion.

The PBS “Off Book” series turned its atten­tion to data visu­al­iza­tion in a short video fea­tur­ing Edward Tufte, a sta­tis­ti­cian and pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus at Yale, along with three young design­ers on the fron­tiers of data visu­al­iza­tion. Titled “The Art of Data Visu­al­iza­tion,” the video does a good job of demon­strat­ing how good design—from sci­en­tif­ic visu­al­iza­tion to pop infographics—is more impor­tant than ever.

In much the same way that Mar­shall McLuhan spoke about prin­ci­ples of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Tufte talks in the video about what makes for ele­gant and effec­tive design. One of his main points: Look after truth and good­ness, and beau­ty will look after her­self.

What does Tufte mean by this? That design is only as good as the infor­ma­tion at its core.

OffBookSCSHT1

For those of us who aren’t design­ers, it’s refresh­ing to con­sid­er the ele­ments of good visu­al sto­ry-telling. And that’s what the best design is, accord­ing to the experts in this video. Every data set, or big bunch of infor­ma­tion, has its own core con­cept, just as every sto­ry has a main char­ac­ter. The designer’s job is to find the hero in the data and then tell the visu­al sto­ry.

So much of the infor­ma­tion we encounter every day is hard to con­cep­tu­al­ize. It’s so big and com­pli­cat­ed that a visu­al ren­der­ing rep­re­sents it the best. That’s because human brains are wired to take in a lot of infor­ma­tion at once. Good design­ers know that deci­sion-mak­ing isn’t lin­ear. It’s a super-fast process of rec­og­niz­ing pat­terns and mak­ing sense of them.

OffBookSCSHT2

Infor­ma­tion may be more abun­dant but it isn’t new, and nei­ther is data visu­al­iza­tion. In the video, Tufte talks about stone maps carved by ear­ly humans and how those ancient graph­ics form the tem­plate for Google maps.

What comes across in PBS’s video is that data visu­al­iza­tion is an art, and the sim­pler the bet­ter. Tufte seems to argue that good data guides the design­er to do good work, which leads to the ques­tion: Is the medi­um no longer, as McLuhan famous­ly com­ment­ed, the mes­sage?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

In Under Three Min­utes, Hans Rosling Visu­al­izes the Incred­i­ble Progress of the “Devel­op­ing World”

An Ani­mat­ed Visu­al­iza­tion of Every Observed Mete­orite That Has Hit Earth Since 861 AD

Watch a Cool and Creepy Visu­al­iza­tion of U.S. Births & Deaths in Real-Time

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Vis­it her web­site. Fol­low her on Twit­ter @mskaterix

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Frank Lloyd Wright Reflects on Creativity, Nature and Religion in Rare 1957 Audio

in Architecture, Art, Creativity, Religion | May 14th, 2013

Frank Lloyd Wright was one of the most admired and influ­en­tial archi­tects of the 20th cen­tu­ry. He was a flam­boy­ant, unabashed­ly arro­gant man who viewed him­self from an ear­ly age as a genius. Oth­ers tend­ed to agree. In 1991, The Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Archi­tects named Wright the great­est Amer­i­can archi­tect of all time.

Wright believed that the adage “form fol­lows func­tion” was some­thing of a mis­state­ment. “Form and func­tion should be one,” he said, “joined in a spir­i­tu­al union.” A sense of spir­i­tu­al union ran all through Wright’s work. He iden­ti­fied God with Nature (which he spelled with a cap­i­tal “N”) and strove to design build­ings that were in har­mo­ny with their nat­ur­al sur­round­ings. “No house should ever be on a hill or on any­thing,” Wright wrote in his 1932 auto­bi­og­ra­phy. “It should be of the hill. Belong­ing to it. Hill and house should live togeth­er each the hap­pi­er for the oth­er.”

Wright spoke about life and the cre­ativ­i­ty of man in mys­ti­cal terms. In this rare record­ing from June 18, 1957, a 90-year-old Wright describes his phi­los­o­phy. “Man is a phase of Nature,” he says, “and only as he is relat­ed to Nature does he mat­ter, does he have any account what­ev­er above the dust.”

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Gas Sta­tion Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

Falling­wa­ter, One of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Finest Cre­ations, Ani­mat­ed

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The History of Typography Told in Five Animated Minutes

in Creativity, Design, Video - Arts & Culture | May 6th, 2013

Caslon, Baskerville, Hel­veti­ca… these names have graced many a pull down menu, but what do they sig­ni­fy, exact­ly?

Graph­ic design­er Ben Bar­rett-For­rest spent 140 hours ani­mat­ing the 291 paper let­ters on dis­play in the His­to­ry of Typog­ra­phy, an intro­duc­tion to the ways in which lan­guage has been expressed visu­al­ly over time.

From Guten­berg’s inky, monk-inspired Black­lis­ter font to the ever-con­tro­ver­sial Com­ic Sans, Bar­rett-For­rest employs stop motion to spell out the quan­tifi­able rea­sons that cer­tain ser­ifs and stroke types are easy on the eye. Let’s not tell the cre­ators of Lla­ma Font or Mr. Twig­gy, but leg­i­bil­i­ty is the moth­er of sur­vival in this are­na.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Font Based on Sig­mund Freud’s Hand­writ­ing Com­ing Cour­tesy of Suc­cess­ful Kick­starter Cam­paign

A Short Ani­mat­ed His­to­ry of the GIF

Ayun Hal­l­i­day has devot­ed the last 15 years to  pro­duc­ing The East Vil­lage Inky, an entire­ly hand­writ­ten zine whose aging read­ers com­plain that they can no long make out the tiny print.

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The Craft and Philosophy of Building Wooden Boats by Hand

in Creativity, Life, Philosophy | May 6th, 2013

Andy Stew­art builds boats with his own hands for life-affirm­ing rea­sons. It’s a way to make inan­i­mate objects come alive, to breathe new life into our world. But Stew­art also enjoys the chal­lenge of it all. The sea, he tells us, is the “final arbi­tra­tor” of your work. Quite deci­sive­ly, it tells you whether a boat has been craft­ed with pre­ci­sion, whether every piece of wood con­tributes to the larg­er hull/whole. If your boat can stand the rig­or­ous tests of nature and time, you know you’ve mas­tered your craft. The short doc­u­men­tary above, Shaped on all Six Sides, was direct­ed by Kat Gar­diner.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Art of Mak­ing a Fla­men­co Gui­tar: 299 Hours of Blood, Sweat & Tears Expe­ri­enced in 3 Min­utes

The Joy of Mak­ing Artis­tic Home­made Gui­tars

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A Short Animated History of the GIF

in Art, Creativity, Design, Web/Tech | April 29th, 2013

In 1987, Com­puserve begat­teth Image For­mat 87A.

Image For­mat 87A begat­teth Graph­ics Inter­change For­mat or GIF (rhymes with a cer­tain brand of peanut but­ter, the video his­to­ry above help­ful­ly points out).

The pro­lif­er­a­tions of free online GIF gen­er­a­tors begat­teth the count­less annoy­ing, smarmy, bone­head­ed ani­mat­ed loops you’ve seen junk­ing up emails, pro­file pic­tures, and MySpace pages.

Of course, some of them are also pret­ty cool, which is why they’re being cel­e­brat­ed with a fes­ti­val at the Brook­lyn Acad­e­my of Music. No tick­ets nec­es­sary. Mov­ing the Still: A GIF Fes­ti­val will be screen­ing through June on the out­door elec­tron­ic bill­board meant to pro­mote upcom­ing and cur­rent attrac­tions. Con­ceiv­ably, view­ers with wheels and time to spare could take it in on an end­less loop of their own, by cir­cling up Flat­bush to Lafayette, then mov­ing up when the light changes, bat­tling traf­fic from the near­by Bar­clays Cen­ter on the return leg.

What do we stand to see in this fes­ti­val? The video his­to­ry leads us to believe that any­thing is pos­si­ble, though cer­tain things—accidental hap­pen­ings, laser cats, col­or­ful barf­ing (…wait, col­or­ful barfing?)—have a built in appeal.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Gallery of Stan­ley Kubrick Cin­ema­graphs: Icon­ic Moments Briefly Ani­mat­ed

Kids (and Less Savvy Mar­keters) Imag­ine the Inter­net in 1995

Ayun Hal­l­i­day grav­i­tates toward the paper GIFs known as flip books. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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David Lynch Explains How Meditation Enhances Our Creativity

in Creativity, Film, Psychology | April 25th, 2013

David Lynch med­i­tates, and he med­i­tates hard. Begin­ning his prac­tice in earnest after it helped him solve a cre­ative prob­lem dur­ing the pro­duc­tion of his break­out 1977 film Eraser­head, he has con­tin­ued med­i­tat­ing assid­u­ous­ly ever since, going so far as to found the David Lynch Foun­da­tion for Con­scious­ness-Based Edu­ca­tion and Peace and pub­lish a pro-med­i­ta­tion book called Catch­ing the Big Fish.

It might seem non­sen­si­cal to hear an artist of the grotesque like Lynch speak rap­tur­ous­ly about voy­ag­ing into his own con­scious­ness, let alone in his frac­tured all-Amer­i­can, askew-Jim­my-Stew­art man­ner, but he does med­i­tate for a prac­ti­cal rea­son: it gives him ideas. Only by med­i­tat­ing, he says, can he dive down and catch the “big fish” he uses as ingre­di­ents in his inim­itable film, music, and visu­al art. You can hear more of his thoughts on med­i­ta­tion, con­scious­ness, and cre­ativ­i­ty in his nine-minute speech above.

If you’d like to hear more, the video just above offers a near­ly two-hour pre­sen­ta­tion at UC Berke­ley with Lynch as its star. You’ll also hear from out­spo­ken quan­tum physi­cist John Hagelin and Fred Travis, direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Brain, Con­scious­ness and Cog­ni­tion Mahar­ishi Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­age­ment. Some of what they say might make good sense to you: after all, we could all use a method to clear our minds so we can cre­ate what we need to cre­ate. Some of what they say might strike you as total non­sense. But if you feel tempt­ed to dis­miss all as too bizarre for seri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion, you might med­i­tate, as it were, on oth­er things Lynchi­an: back­wards-talk­ing dwarves, sev­ered ears on sub­ur­ban lawns, alien babies, women liv­ing in radi­a­tors, sit­com fam­i­lies in rab­bit suits. He’s cer­tain­ly pitched us weird­er con­cepts than med­i­ta­tion.

For some sec­u­lar intro­duc­tions to med­i­ta­tion, you may wish to try UCLA’s free guid­ed med­i­ta­tion ses­sions or check out the Med­i­ta­tion 101 ani­mat­ed beginner’s guide above. If you’re not too put off by the occa­sion­al Bud­dhist ref­er­ence, I would also high­ly rec­om­mend the Insight Med­i­ta­tion Center’s free six-part intro­duc­tion to mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion.

Relat­ed con­tent:

David Lynch Talks Med­i­ta­tion with Paul McCart­ney

Mihaly Czik­szent­mi­ha­lyi Explains Why the Source of Hap­pi­ness Lies in Cre­ativ­i­ty and Flow, Not Mon­ey

David Lynch’s Sur­re­al Com­mer­cials

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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A Crash Course on Creativity and Other Stanford MOOCs to Launch in April: Enroll Today

in Creativity, MOOCs, Stanford | March 27th, 2013

Tina Seel­ig serves as the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Stan­ford Tech­nol­o­gy Ven­tures Pro­gram, a cen­ter that teach­es stu­dents entre­pre­neur­ial skills need­ed to solve major world prob­lems. She is also the author of the 2012 book, inGe­nius: A Crash Course on Cre­ativ­i­ty, that oper­ates on the assump­tion that we’re not born being cre­ative and know­ing how to solve dif­fi­cult prob­lems. It’s some­thing that we can cul­ti­vate and learn (as John Cleese has also told us before). If you’re intrigued by this idea, and if you want to rev up your own “Inno­va­tion Engine,” you can take Seel­ig’s new course, also called A Crash Course on Cre­ativ­i­ty, start­ing on April 22. It’s one of five Stan­ford MOOCs (Mas­sive Open Online Cours­es) that will launch in April on the Ven­ture Lab plat­form. Oth­er cours­es now open for enroll­ment include:

Most Ven­ture Lab cours­es grant a “State­ment of Accom­plish­ment” signed by instruc­tors to any stu­dent who suc­cess­ful­ly com­pletes a course.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

300 Free MOOCs from Great Uni­ver­si­ties (Many Offer­ing Cer­tifi­cates)

John Cleese, Mon­ty Python Icon, on How to Be Cre­ative

Mal­colm McLaren: The Quest for Authen­tic Cre­ativ­i­ty

Mihaly Czik­szent­mi­ha­lyi on Cre­ativ­i­ty, Flow and the Source of Hap­pi­ness

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Dennis Hopper Reads From Rainer Maria Rilke’s Timeless Guide to Creativity, Letters to a Young Poet

in Books, Creativity, Literature, Poetry, Writing | March 26th, 2013

For almost a cen­tu­ry, writ­ers and oth­er cre­ative peo­ple have found inspi­ra­tion and a pro­found sense of val­i­da­tion in the Bohemi­an-Aus­tri­an poet Rain­er Maria Rilke’s posthu­mous­ly pub­lished Let­ters to a Young Poet. Many a sen­si­tive soul has felt as if Rilke’s let­ters, writ­ten to a young man who had asked him for advice on whether to become a poet, were addressed direct­ly to him or her. One of those peo­ple was the actor Den­nis Hop­per.

“Rilke’s Let­ters to a Young Poet is a great book,” Hop­per says in this short film from 2007. “For me the let­ters are a cre­do of cre­ativ­i­ty and a source of inspi­ra­tion. After read­ing Rilke it became clear to me that I had no choice in the mat­ter. I had to cre­ate.” The ten-minute film, Must I Write?, was direct­ed by Her­mann Vaske and pho­tographed by Rain Li. Hop­per reads the first of the book’s ten let­ters, in which Rilke tells the young man to stop seek­ing approval from oth­ers:

You are look­ing out­ward, and that above all you should not do now. Nobody can help and coun­sel you, nobody. There is only one sin­gle way. Go into your­self. Search for the rea­son that bids you write; find out whether it is spread­ing out its roots in the deep­est places in your heart, acknowl­edge to your­self whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write. This above all–ask your­self in the stillest hour of your night: must I write? Delve into your­self for a deep answer. And if this should be affir­ma­tive, if you may meet this earnest ques­tion with a strong and sim­ple “I must,” then build your life accord­ing to this neces­si­ty; your life even into its most indif­fer­ent and slight­est hour must be a sign of this urge and a tes­ti­mo­ny to it.

Hop­per is read­ing from the 1934 trans­la­tion by M.D. Hert­er Nor­ton. There are a few minor slips, in which Hop­per devi­ates slight­ly from the text. Most seri­ous­ly, he inverts the mean­ing of a pas­sage near the end by adding (at the 7:23 mark) the word “not” to Rilke’s phrase, “Per­haps it will turn out that you are called to be an artist.” That pas­sage, one of the most mem­o­rable in the book, reads:

A work of art is good if it has sprung from neces­si­ty. In this nature of its ori­gin lies the judge­ment of it: there is no oth­er. There­fore, my dear sir, I know no oth­er advice for you save this: to go into your­self and test the deeps in which your life takes rise; at its source you will find the answer to the ques­tion whether you must cre­ate. Accept it, just as it sounds, with­out inquir­ing into it. Per­haps it will turn out that you are called to be an artist. Then take that des­tiny upon your­self and bear it, its bur­den and its great­ness, with­out ever ask­ing what rec­om­pense might come from out­side. For the cre­ator must be a world for him­self and find every­thing in him­self and in Nature to whom he has attached him­self.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Den­nis Hop­per Reads Rud­yard Kipling on the John­ny Cash Show

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