TeleGeography create these brilliant visual map's with subtle colours and stimulate our thinking with clean, clear info graphic pye charts.
TeleGeography's innovative approach to cartography distills complex data sets into attractive posters for hanging on your wall. All maps measure approximately 37" x 51" (0.9m x 1.2m) and are printed on highly durable synthetic stock called Yupo, that is much more durable than traditional paper.
They have a more detailed map of the underground cables in this Submarine Cable Map 2008. The latest edition includes information for over 120 submarine cable systems, including major systems that are in service as well as announced cable systems expected to join a reinvigorated cable market. All data contained in the map is drawn from our Global Bandwidth Research Service, their definitive guide to the supply, demand and pricing of international bandwidth.
The map contains nine informative graphics that describe the state of the submarine cable market including a depiction of how capacity is used on the trans-Atlantic route. The connecting lines are lovely and organic almost hand rendered as was with Key Magazine Cover by John Maeda
They also have made maps for,
European Terrestrial Networks Map
Global Internet Map
& Global Traffic Map
Internet Undersea World Map seen here thorugh guardian:
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Technology/Pix/pictures/2008/02/01/SeaCableHi.jpg
Bigger version here:
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2008/02/01/SEA_CABLES_010208.pdf
Source: Teleography.com - Submarine Cable Map 2008. Internet Stats from: InternetWorldStats.com
Submarine Cable Map seen here:
http://www.telegeography.com/products/map_cable/index.php
Brilliant.
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Its interactive, you hover over the elements charted and it gives you an example of the creative data/information visualisation method.
For instance my last post Type Timeline Map would be the element T and is usually just an overview, although I tried to put as much detail in as I could, and is classed as an Information Visualisation. They're all there and more Mind Maps, Flow Charts all divided into categories.
It is another great subversion of design styles with soft pastel colours. The original Periodic Table transformed into Visual Thinking Elements is fantastic. Gives creativity and design this much needed scientific perspective as many data/info visualisations are bordering on the discipline of Science.
This isn't the first periodic table subversion, Simon Patterson not surprisingly in 'Rhodes to Reason' (1995) featured in Mapping: An Illustrated Guide to Graphic Navigational Systems has done this too. Simliar to his other Beck Tube map 'The Great Bear' (1992) subversion he takes actors names initials Sc for sean connery as an element and many other diverse individuals.
I first saw this Periodic Table of Visualisation methods featured among Jeff Bennett's Visualisation Taxonomy at his site visualthinkmedia.com. I then found it featured at Dave Davison's blog IQP which is when I discovered the full magnitude of its brilliance.
Excellant work by Ralph Lengler and Martin J. Eppler @
visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html
This visual map explores the relationships/characteristics of the many different typographers/fonts, artistic movements from 1890 - 1950 charting each decade. Wanted it to be minimal style but vast in content, yet still clear and easy to follow.
It was inspired from Stefan Thermerson 'Kurt Schwitters on a time Chart' featured in the brilliant Typographica NS no. 14, December, 1966 edited by Herbert Spencer (Typographica by Rick Poynor 2001).
'...in which the practices and the techniques of typography have changed dramatically, in which technical developments have released typography from the restrictions and disciplines imposed by metal type, and allowed it to become increasingly visual and less linear, less linguistic. the frontiers between graphic design, photography, and typography have dissolved; the marriage of word and image has been consumated'
said by spencer, poynor pg 127.
Great summary of today and visualisations that we see, said in 1967, 41 years ago.
Visualising Oxfams work poster by louise lynn imitating the ever brilliant Beck Tube map. great idea, clean, colourful, like that there are no destinations, no limits to them. nice parchment, good design.
'This was the design chosen by Oxfam to use in their Liverpool Bold Street store. Will get a photo of that up soon when I get it off my Nan X).Displayed in exhibition 'A Window Into Oxfam' in Liverpool Central Library's Picton Room'.
More info here
Note that I dont have an obsession with New York at the moment, but with such great art foundations of Rauschenberg, DeKooning & Pollock its no surprise of its creative vein. Today technology is the key that has fused creativity & opened boundaries to allow interdisciplinary practice.
The New York Times real estate magazine Key started with the cover design concept of hiring people that are brilliant to do personal interpretations of what a key means to them & their lives. The 1st cover in the Fall 2006 by Carin Goldberg featured all the places she lived at using the font Dynamoe (green & black thumbnail) & spring 2007 (yellow & purple thumbnail) was designed by new york design studio 2x4.
In dialogue with John Maeda (author of Creative Code: Aesthetics + Computation) art director Dick Barnett looked at some of Maeda's sketches and replied to him saying how he's 'loving #3 Google Mappish Mondrian' (3rd thumbnail along) idea and how he might 'think of a way to make it more personal to [maeda's] life'. Maeda responded utilising Boston, he states how he 'thinks of the world as a sort of map of cities', a topographic territory, he 'mined the internet for all the cities with an airport' & made a simple diagram and then drew some 'fluid like curves [framing] to connect into the centre of the keyhole' (4th thumbnail), (Centaur Publication, 2007, p. nov – 42).
Maeda wanted to concentrate on the background rather than the foreground & after some design processing (problem solving) such as replacing fonts used to that of Key magazines T-Star, it was finished. The design is brilliant, although probably not that easy a task to create without access/stroke knowledge of computer science functionality but excellant aesthetics. The overall white stands out from the blue (a colour normally percieved as depiciting sea in maps) causing a slight incongruity on part of the viewer, map reader/user. Boston being the epicentre of travel in this map providing the key access to other cities and the viral red linking lines spidering the topgraphic locations.
Excellant Map utilising technology to visualise data functionality mentioned upon with Bradford Paley, in the heart of its design.
'John Maeda is an artist and a computer scientist, and he views the computer not as a substitute for brush and paint but as an artistic medium in its own right. His mission is to foster the growth of what he calls 'humanist technologists'- people that are capable of articulating future culture through informed understanding of the technologies they use' (http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/maeda.html, 2008, p. john maeda interview).
More examples of the stages of Maeda's Key Cover design here, http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/09/06/realestate/keymagazine/20070909_KEY_COV_SS_index.html
Creative Review. New York. Centaur Publication, 2007, p. nov – 42).
The fabulous design agency Pentagram based in New York with partners like Angus Hyland (co-author of many excellant design/illustration books, The Picture Book: Contemporary Illustration & Paula Scher (AIGA medalists, notorius mapper, will feature soon), ....at the worlds leading multi-disciplinary design consultancy, feature an excellant map that Scher would be proud of. The partner DJ Stout has created a “Texas Designer’s Map of the World” as a part of a promotion for Sappi Fine Paper. Based on the concept of a Texas Brag Map, the poster elucidates the worldview that everything is bigger and better in the Lone Star State. “It’s part of our Texas heritage and our collective sense of humor,” explains Stout. “My apologies to the other smaller, less interesting states on the map.”' (pentagram, 2008, p.new). He divides a map of the U.S. into six parts and assigns each section to a graphic designer who resides within the region. When all six posters are put together, they form a giant map of the United States, “of course I was given the Southwest,” says Stout (pentagram, 2008, p.new). Its composition is bolshy, beautifully layered (as you notice opening the pdf on a sluggish computer), with Piet Zwart/H. N. Werkman letters treatment surrounded by soft pastel triadic harmony of red, blue, yellow. Yet still its not too disparaging with the these surreal, fluctuating sized elements like The World's biggest Jack Rabbit, it has Swiss grounding in neat, clean, precise, even grids of text J.M.Brockmann would be proud of, creating a salient [1] contrast. It also treats word (type) as image that crow [2], and concrete poets of appollinaire to mallarme would adore. The other participants include Art Chantry, Rick Valicenti, Paul Sahre, Clive Piercy and Tim Hussey. Brilliant. Download the large version image here. http://blog.pentagram.com/2008/02/new-work-sappi.php [1] Kress & Van leeuwen [2] Left to Right: The Cultural Shift from Word to Image
This is a fantastic typographic exploration of type's place within the visual world of the capital. This map won a design award from Aiga and London Design. The information is taken from AZ street maps where the icons, symbols and hard lines representing churches, streets, rivers and parks have been removed from the map, leaving only letters. It is interesting to see Geography and Creative Graphic Design combine as opposed to the separation they seem to have followed. It is a fantastic and visually inspiring/innovative typographic map of London’s street names.