Plans

So lately I’ve been thinking about just what I want Designing The News to be and I had a Jerry Maguire moment - an epiphany. There are alot of data visualisation blogs out there that consistently post great examples of data visualisation, and for me putting together last weeks post wasn’t fun. If felt like a chore. I have alot of respect for these authors who take the time to put together a quality article, but I’ve decided I’m not going to do that any more.

DTN’s primary focus now is to create original infographics and data visualisations. If you like seeing great examples of data visualisation then you should follow @designingnews on twitter for regular updates on fantastic data related stuff I find around the web, but I will no longer be posting these on the blog. I find twitter updates to be passive, and great for this sort of content.

So there you go. Hope you enjoy original content as much as I do. :)

Announcing the next visualisation project

For those who haven’t heard already HUG United have launched their second open project, USA by Designers, for designers to create artwork around the subject “USA”. Have had this on my radar for the last couple of weeks and since wrapping up the last of my freelance jobs just a couple of hours ago I’ve decided to enter the contest.

Designers, illustrators, photographers, design studios, collectives/crews, agencies, students, visual artists… you are welcome to submit an innovative, creative, exciting, personal and experimental artwork inspired by the theme: “WHAT DOES USA MEAN TO YOU?”
We are expecting diversity and freestyle: all styles of outstanding visual media are welcome. Selected works will be featured through online exhibit and book (more information soon).

With the fantastic data resource Data.Gov I’m sure there’ll be some interesting stuff to make some really cool visuals from. Stay tuned.

And another…

Also, for those who haven’t seen the work of the amazingly talented Mike Deal, his data visualisations for the Charting The Beatles project are great examples of clean, colourful data visualisation and his series of posters have inspired me to create something too. More to come. Lots more.

Post Details Posted January 23, 2010 at 8:29 pm By Dave | Filed under update | Tagged as , , , | 1 Comment

Educational food and drink infographics

In the past couple of weeks I’ve been noticing an increase in infographics about food and drink, whether these are brand new productions or just old content being resurfaced I thought I’d start collecting them as and when they cropped up.

What follows are 20 examples of food and drink infographics, ranging from high-end commissions for Wired or GOOD magazines, to the hobbyist just trying to communicate data.

Lokesh Dhakars Illustrated Coffee Guide
Beautiful simple and strong illustrations makes this coffee infographic really stand out.

The Caffeine Poster
Not graphically the strongest, but very interesting to see caffeine levels of everyday drinks.

Wine Infographics
The high contrast colour scheme and strong simple line illustrations really make this one stand out.

How Clean Is Your Tap Water

Sugar Stacks
Simple everday foods and drinks are simply photgraphed next to how much sugar they contain. Some powerful, and interesting images on this site.

The Story Of Beer
A vertial timeline of beer, littered with nuggets of historical and interesting information.

The Best Beer In America
A great style to this graphic, almost cartoon like and beautifully illustrated by Mike Wirth.

Starbucks And McDonalds

Iria Castro Poster

Food For All Seasons
Another one from Good Magazine, the colours on this graphic really stand out.

Seasonal Food Chart

Which Countries Eat The Most Meat

Wired Magazine: The Future Of Food
An excellent series of infographics with a huge variety of graphs, charts, and pictograms to illustrate this thought provoking food report.

Ensuring The Future Of Food

Graham Meyer’s Estimated Food Consumption
A simple, colourful and beautiful infographic illustration of what Graham Meyer ate over the course of a month.

Lunch Break

Digital Podge
Thsi beautiful infographic website has been doing the rounds recently, and for good reason. Go take a look!

Processed food: A Silent Assassin

Fast Food Calories Per Dollar

Hellmann’s - It’s Time for Real
A fantastic video with animated infographic goodness make this video about eating local food really shout it’s message.

Post Details Posted January 16, 2010 at 5:40 pm By Dave | Filed under Food & Drink, infographics | Tagged as , , , , , | 6 Comments

Resolution

Out of the three resolutions I made this new year this is the only one I’ve not broken yet. Sad but true. 8 days in I’ve already had a beer and cut my hair. Re-launching, writing, and designing for this site is the only one that remains, and with the constant challenge of Anton’s Project52 bearing down upon me I intend to keep it.

The basic idea is to write 1 post every week, 52 posts for 2010. This is number 1. Hello.

Now this first post is a bit of a copout, and it’s for the same excuse I’ve been using for the past year - I’ve had no time. But, I have been getting my act together. I’ve been busy. I could have posted screenshots of the new design (oh yea!), written about the upcoming news browsing visualisation I’ve been working on at my dayjob, or even documented all the un-used ideas, mockups, and files for the original DTN series. However, it being after 2am on the last day of entry for the first #p52 of the year - I haven’t.

Next week will be better. Promise. Until then here’s a little promo video I made a while ago which I’ve been meaning to post for bloody ages.

I know, the resolution’s crappy and my video editing sucks. I’ve used the program maybe twice!

For those of you on twitter who are so inclined, I’m posting regular updates on data visualisation and infographic stuff on the DTN twitter account. I’m planning a sweet visualisation of my twitter followers at some point, so if you want to be immortalised in print you should really follow me!

Post Details Posted January 8, 2010 at 3:16 am By Dave | Filed under Site News | 0 Comments

SXSW Panel – Please vote for the DTN talk

It’s been over a year last month since I posted anything on this site - too long by any stretch. I know most of you reading this in feed readers will be pretty surprised (probably having forgotten all about it), but I have a favour to ask.

Like me, those of you visiting this site are looking for great examples of everyday data visualisation and infographics. Some for inspiration, and some in order to solve the problem of massive data overload. I’d like to tell people more about data visualisation and how it can be used in order to solve simple everyday user interactions on the web. I need you to help me do that, by voting for my panel at the SXSW panel picker website.

Not only will you be helping me out, you’ll also be helping to create more great content for the next version of this site, version 2, due for relaunch this October. Yes. Designing The News is coming back, bigger, better, with more posts and more great original content.

I’m also looking for guest authors as well, so if you’re interested email me at dave (@) designingthenews (dot) com.

Once again, if you could, I’d really appreciate you voting for my panel at SXSW. There’s only a handful of data visualisation related stuff on there — let’s tell people about it. Get them involved, and get them inspired!

Thanks. You should follow me on twitter to stay up on how it’s going. http://twitter.com/davebowker and http://twitter.com/designingnews.

Post Details Posted August 20, 2009 at 10:49 pm By Dave | Filed under Site News | 1 Comment

Quick update

I mentioned a while back that I’ll be posting something on the rejected designs and the process I went through to create some of the visualisations. That’s still on my to do list, and hopefully in the next couple of weeks I’ll get that out. Infact it may be a 2 parter as I’m imagining it to be a pretty big post, with lots of samples of styles and designs, and why I rejected them over the published ones.

Anyways, the reason there hasn’t been an update in so long is because I’m in the process of moving down to London. Actually I’m in London at the moment, without a computer and without the internet, which is why I’m in an internet cafe at the moment with 9 minutes remaining on my time trying to write this update pretty damn fast.

Hopefully I’ll have a new laptop by the end of next week, and will crank out some more stuff soon.

New job!

Also, I’ve accepted a new job at a company in London dealing with search technology, news, and data visualisation, and I’m just waiting to sign the contracts. Hopefully the paperwork will be done sometime this week, or early next, and I can let you know who that lucky bunch are!

The good thing about this is that in alot of respects, DesigningTheNews will become my day job. Bonus! Which means in areas where the work isn’t subject to NDA, I can share some of the things I’m working on right here. With you. Before anyone else. :)

Stay tuned! And thanks to everyone who’s emailed me wanting posters. At this rate if interest keeps up I may have to do another run!

Post Details Posted July 23, 2008 at 4:21 pm By Dave | Filed under Site News | Tagged as , , , , | 5 Comments

FIRST!!!

Final university project grade = 1st!

Still in the apple store on Regent street. Single solitary tear just hit the keyboard. Not sure if that’s because I got a first, or because I will forever remember that I used a Mac to find it out. Thank-you Apple store.

Post Details Posted June 18, 2008 at 4:37 pm By Dave | Filed under Site News | Tagged as , , , | 18 Comments