Show & Tell 2.0: Designing Data

During my third round of searching for compelling infographics (I swore I would not be distracted this time by cartoons), I came across a wonderful blog called Information is Beautiful, created by information designer David McCandless. A book of his work is available through the site, and the UK edition sports part of the below image on its front cover (please click to enlarge!):

What you're looking at is a kind of ethnographic color wheel that illustrates the various chromatic connections different cultures make with emotions, objects, and states of being. In South America, green is the color of death; in Japan, orange is the color of energy; silver represents peace, purity, and truce in Muslim cultures; and red is the color of success in Asian and Native American cultures. To me, it's an especially fascinating example of infographics because the role of color is not tertiary or  secondary--it's primary and at the very essence of the information the graph is setting out to convey. Color is an incredibly important aspect of how images mean, and I like that this piece is pointing out how different things can look depending upon where you're coming from.

It's a pretty amazing visual, and it's also just the tip of the iceberg. This website is absolutely full of striking looking data on everything from Peak Break-Up Times on Facebook to an interactive visualization of the effectiveness of dietary supplements on particular diseases and conditions. Also, another interactive winner designed by McCandless: a visualization of the Drake Equation, an actual mathematical statement conceived in 1961 by American astronomer and astrophysicist Frank Drake which calculates the potential number of alien civilizations in our galaxy and the visible universe. Awesome.