The Beauty of Visualization

By Vahida Badat, Section Editor

Is it possible that the words beautiful and data can be used within the same sentence?  It might be hard to imagine, however to David McCandless, “Information is beautiful, data is beautiful.”

David McCandless, a British data journalist, lectures about the beauty of data visualization at a Technology, Entertainment, Design Global conference in July 2010.  He believes that through constructing data visualizations that are appealing to the eye, help make the data more understandable.

Seen below, is one McCandless’ infographics known as the Billion Dollar-o-Gram.  It depicts estimated billion dollar amounts being gained, lost, owed, earned, spent, fought, and accumulated for various reasons and businesses throughout the world.  The bigger the boxes, the larger the amounts being spent.

Not only is this graphic visually appealing, but it becomes easier for viewers to recognize links and patterns between the data sets that matter. As McCandless puts it, “Let the data sets, change your mindset.”