Infographics: summary is all we look for

It's been some time I haven't posted something related to a TED talk, and here I am making up for this.

TED talks for me are like seeds which eventually grow in a wider and more complex idea or understanding of the talk's subject. This time David McCandless made me think about infographics and data visualization.




Some of my very earliest post on this blog were just about that: cool infographics.
In a world overloaded with information like the one we live in right now, data visualization seems the only way to effectively communicate a complex concept in a fun and immediate way. 

As Sauron's ring (please forgive the geeky reference) sight rules over all other senses: nowadays nobody can dare to question the straightforwardness and dominance of visual stimulation.

Navigating information and data through infographics makes learning much more fun and interactive: a new way of reading the news or keeping up with statistical reports. To this purpose here I list a couple of resources I found as very interesting and worth mentioning.


Galleries of infographics and data visualization examples:

• infosthetics.com where form follows data. Beautifully showcased infographics (like the one on the left about geo-tagged pictures) in a must bookmark resource
• visualcomplexity.com showcases other cool infographics and also offers the chance of browsing content through categories
• datavisualization.ch directly from Switzerland
• flowingdata.com another, yet not common, infographic and data visualization showcase

Curious and eager to start creating infographics yourself? You can start by getting yourself familiar with the following online free tools:

• manyeyes by IBM was the first data visualization tool I ever used. It features many different visualization option and you can upload your own spreadsheets; teachers listening, bookmark this site.
• Google public data explorer definitely another site to bookmark. If you want to have a quick look at what's happening in the world and how it is evolving from a macro point of view this is the place where to come.

If you want to know more about data visualization and infographics help yourself. Internet offers a wide variety of sources and interactive examples. You can also find suggestions for books to read about infographics on Alberto Cairo's visualopolis. 

Ps: While looking for cool and interactive applications to visualize stuff I stumbled in liveplasma.com - just search for a movie or song you liked and comparable media content will just pop up as a suggestion for you to look at. Cool.