Thanks to our friend at the University de Zulia in Maracaibo, Prof. Maria-Isabel Neuman, we just learned about this Rosetta Stone of data visualization.

This is a must-see:  "A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods."
http://www.visual-literacy.org/pages/documents.htm

These guys in Switzerland at the Visual-Literacy Project have pulled together, in a wonderfully coherent fashion,  the multiple concepts that many of us have been working on for years. 


Be sure to also take a look at the paper by Lengler and Eppler at the bottom of the "Maps" page. It's a good, tight explanation of what they are up to.  We like their definition:

But we're not so sure that "permanent" is crucial or should even be included.  If they are referring to "method," then that would seem to limit the opportunity for refinements over time.  And if they are talking about the resulting displays of data, might not that reduce the possibility of dynamic data displays, say real-time traffic flows or changes in the stock market?  Simulations?  Oh, well, a refinement ripe for discussion.

---

Yes, we do believe in borrowing good ideas.  In this case, we are suggesting that designers of infographics "borrow" from cartographers in carefully picking colors that do more than just brighten the page.
See Cynthia Brewer's work at http://www.personal.psu.edu/cab38/ColorSch/SchHome.html

Color Use Guidelines for Mapping and Visualization
Cynthia A. Brewer

Click for generalized structure with links to discussion of each color scheme type

The scheme guidelines are limited to the use of color to directly represent data that occur at locations in the graphic where colors occur. The types of thematic maps to which these guidelines apply are choropleth maps (for example, census tracts filled with colors representing the percentage of the population from an ethnic group), filled isoline maps (for example, color bands that mark set ranges of terrain elevation), and qualitative areal-extent maps (for example, different colors for different types of vegetation). My hope is that these guidelines and the associated terminology will also guide the work of people grappling with data visualization challenges in diverse disciplines such as physics, medicine, psychology, and graphic arts.

A disorderly jumble of colors produces a map that is little more than a spatially arranged look-up table. The goal of this WWW resource is to help you do better than that by using color with skill. This resource provides a generalized set of color schemes and example maps.

---

Finding a cheap library of maps with consistent style isn't always easy, especially if those maps have to work on the Web, in print and/or PowerPoint presentations.  Today Directions Magazine points us to such sets (usually priced for less than $50) that meets those criteria.  See "Trumpet Marketing Group, LLC Announces Collection of Royalty-Free United States Presentation Maps"

Says the company:

For those analytic journalists slipping toward geezer-dom, eWEEK magazine offers up an interesting blast from many pasts this week with "Peter Coffee's 25 Killer Apps of All Time." 

Says he: "Microsoft's Vista has widely inspired the 'Why do I need that?' question, which past 'killer applications' have answered in different ways for different platforms during three decades of personal computing."

It seems to us that comparing Vista to a break-through tool like Visicalc is a bit of a stretch, but check out Coffee's slide show anyway, just for fun.

---

A couple days before Christmas, Jesse Theodore -- a writer at ESRI -- interviewed Tom Johnson about the use of GIS in journalism.  That interview is now available as a podcast at http://www.esri.com/news/podcasts/audio/speaker/tom_johnson.mp3

---

No story?  Then check out Swivel, a web site rich with data -- and the display of data -- that you didn't know about and which is pregnant with possibilities for a good news feature.  And often a news feature that could be localized.

Here, for example, is a posting from the SECRECY REPORT CARD 2005  illustrating the changing trends in the the classification and de-classification of U.S. government data.  (You can probably guess the direction of the curves.)