Nic Chan
What an excellent personal website!
Link tags:visual
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DOC • The power of beauty in communicating complex ideas
As designers creating images to communicate complex ideas, we rationalize our processes, we bring objectivity to our craft, we want our clients to think that our decisions are based on reasoning. However, we should also defend our intuitions, our subjectivity. We should also defend pursuing beauty as it is one of our most powerful tools.
Updating GOV.UK’s crown - Inside GOV.UK
“Make the logo bi… exactly the same size.”
You know when a new Boss takes over a company and the first thing they do is declare an immediate rebranding? It turns out that the monarchy has been doing that for generations.
Nuberodesign > Blog > In Praise of Buttons – Part One
I concur:
Just because a user interface uses 3D-buttons and some shading doesn’t mean that it has to look tacky. In fact, if you have to make the choice between tacky-but-usable and minimalistic-but-hard-to-use, tacky is the way to go. You don’t have to make that choice though: It’s perfectly possible to create something that is both good-lookingandeasy to use.
Historical Trails
Maggie explores different ways of visualising journeys on the web, including browser histories:
Perhaps web browsing histories should look more like Git commit histories? Perhaps distinct branches could representing different topics and research avenues?
No Taste | Scratching the Surface
Designers can’t help but participate in these displays and debates of taste. It’s part of the job. There’s an irony in the predominantly liberal and inclusive political leanings of most creatives that often become unbending and exclusionary in their work and everyday lives. Comic Sans, Thomas Kinkade, New Urbanism,clutter—there are too many heretical acts to count. Natalia Ilyin writes inChasing the Perfect,“For people who want their straight lines to be straight, life itself is the problem. The modern urge is the urge to get away from organic existence in general.” No wonder most movie villains live in spartan homes of concrete, glass, and steel. The often humor-free designer is not so different, if not in evildoing, then at least in temperament.
Space Elevator
Scroll up to the Kármán line.
GB Renewables Map
A lovely bit of real-time data visualisation fromRobin:
It’s a personal project created at home in Wales with an aim to explore and visualise renewable energy systems. Specifically, it aims to visualise live generation from renewable energy systems around Great Britain and to show where that generation is physically coming from.
The Web Needs a Native.visually-hidden
I agree with the reasoning here—a newdisplayvalue would be ideal.
Highlights | Catalogue | Sainsbury Archive
There are some tasty designs in this archive from Sainbury’s.
Color and Contrast
A lovely website (or web book?) dedicated entirely to colour contrast, complete with interactive illustrative widgets.
A comprehensive guide for exploring and learning about the theory, science, and perception of color and contrast.
How Florence Nightingale Changed Data Visualization Forever - Scientific American
The design process in action in Victorian England:
Recognizing that few people actually read statistical tables, Nightingale and her team designed graphics to attract attention and engage readers in ways that other media could not. Their diagram designs evolved over two batches of publications, giving them opportunities to react to the efforts of other parties also jockeying for influence. These competitors buried stuffy graphic analysis inside thick books. In contrast, Nightingale packaged her charts in attractive slim folios, integrating diagrams with witty prose. Her charts were accessible and punchy. Instead of building complex arguments that required heavy work from the audience, she focused her narrative lens on specific claims. It was more than data visualization—it was data storytelling.
Pizza Exchange Rate | FlowingData
This is a story about pizza and geometry.
The interactive widget here really demonstrates the difference between showing and telling.
Which color scale to use when visualizing data - Datawrapper Blog
A fascinating four-part series by Lisa Charlotte Muth on colour in data visualisations:
When Women Make Headlines
This is a great combination of rigorous research and great data visualisation.
My Custom CSS Reset
This CSS reset is pleasantly minimalist and a lot of thought has gone into each step. The bit aboutcalculating line heightis very intriguing!
A visual introduction to machine learning
I like the split-screen animated format for explaining this topic.
Kaleidoscope Brain: 100 Visualizations of Moby-Dick
Download this PDFto see 100 beautiful literary visualisations.
Vonnegut’s Story Shapes | Extraordinary Facility
The next best thing to havingKurt Vonnegut at the blackboard.
THE INTERNET — Opte
Visualising the growth of the internet.