The Art of Data Visualization

Last day at FOWA and Eric Rodenbeck of Stamen gave an understated and blistering demo of their data visualization work for Trulia. He was kind enough to explain his trilby wearing, adamant that he started wearing one before Ryan Carson, further confirming my suspicions that this hat stuff is some signifier of a secret pixel mixing coven.

Eric wants to see ‘data visualization as a medium’ , like painting or sculpture. I’m already looking for a trilby on ebay (I have a big head, not deformed, just bigger than average) . Data visualization is an art form if done to the Stamen standard, and work we are inspired by at Fat Man.

Eric touched on brands sponsoring visualizations that reflect their brand, Razr sponsor Twitter Blocks. This a great example of appvertising. Similarly Intel sponsor Digg Arc, itself a thing of beauty. Data visualization can be a business and can enhance a brand - true to the appvertising methodology it provides a service to the user with the brand as the enabler of this free application. This is only the beginning, what if you used IMDB Pro’s data on celebrities and created a depth of field interface using papervision? Data visualization can make intelligent ever evolving games of data, or as evinced by Stamen with their work on Crimespotting: interactive map of crimes in Oakland, have a civic function.

(Britney exploring the depth of her field - via Planet Hiltron)

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