DTN’s primary focus now is to create original infographics and data visualisations. If you like seeing great examples of data visualisation then you should follow @designingnews on twitter for regular updates on fantastic data related stuff I find around the web, but I will no longer be posting these on the blog. I find twitter updates to be passive, and great for this sort of content.

So there you go. Hope you enjoy original content as much as I do. :)

Announcing the next visualisation project

For those who haven’t heard already HUG United have launched their second open project, USA by Designers, for designers to create artwork around the subject “USA”. Have had this on my radar for the last couple of weeks and since wrapping up the last of my freelance jobs just a couple of hours ago I’ve decided to enter the contest.

Designers, illustrators, photographers, design studios, collectives/crews, agencies, students, visual artists… you are welcome to submit an innovative, creative, exciting, personal and experimental artwork inspired by the theme: “WHAT DOES USA MEAN TO YOU?”
We are expecting diversity and freestyle: all styles of outstanding visual media are welcome. Selected works will be featured through online exhibit and book (more information soon).

With the fantastic data resource Data.Gov I’m sure there’ll be some interesting stuff to make some really cool visuals from. Stay tuned.

And another…

Also, for those who haven’t seen the work of the amazingly talented Mike Deal, his data visualisations for the Charting The Beatles project are great examples of clean, colourful data visualisation and his series of posters have inspired me to create something too. More to come. Lots more.

What follows are 20 examples of food and drink infographics, ranging from high-end commissions for Wired or GOOD magazines, to the hobbyist just trying to communicate data.

Lokesh Dhakars Illustrated Coffee Guide
Beautiful simple and strong illustrations makes this coffee infographic really stand out.

The Caffeine Poster
Not graphically the strongest, but very interesting to see caffeine levels of everyday drinks.

Wine Infographics
The high contrast colour scheme and strong simple line illustrations really make this one stand out.

How Clean Is Your Tap Water

Sugar Stacks
Simple everday foods and drinks are simply photgraphed next to how much sugar they contain. Some powerful, and interesting images on this site.

The Story Of Beer
A vertial timeline of beer, littered with nuggets of historical and interesting information.

The Best Beer In America
A great style to this graphic, almost cartoon like and beautifully illustrated by Mike Wirth.

Starbucks And McDonalds

Iria Castro Poster

Food For All Seasons
Another one from Good Magazine, the colours on this graphic really stand out.

Seasonal Food Chart

Which Countries Eat The Most Meat

Wired Magazine: The Future Of Food
An excellent series of infographics with a huge variety of graphs, charts, and pictograms to illustrate this thought provoking food report.

Ensuring The Future Of Food

Graham Meyer’s Estimated Food Consumption
A simple, colourful and beautiful infographic illustration of what Graham Meyer ate over the course of a month.

Lunch Break

Digital Podge
Thsi beautiful infographic website has been doing the rounds recently, and for good reason. Go take a look!

Processed food: A Silent Assassin

Fast Food Calories Per Dollar

Hellmann’s - It’s Time for Real
A fantastic video with animated infographic goodness make this video about eating local food really shout it’s message.

The basic idea is to write 1 post every week, 52 posts for 2010. This is number 1. Hello.

Now this first post is a bit of a copout, and it’s for the same excuse I’ve been using for the past year - I’ve had no time. But, I have been getting my act together. I’ve been busy. I could have posted screenshots of the new design (oh yea!), written about the upcoming news browsing visualisation I’ve been working on at my dayjob, or even documented all the un-used ideas, mockups, and files for the original DTN series. However, it being after 2am on the last day of entry for the first #p52 of the year - I haven’t.

Next week will be better. Promise. Until then here’s a little promo video I made a while ago which I’ve been meaning to post for bloody ages.

I know, the resolution’s crappy and my video editing sucks. I’ve used the program maybe twice!

For those of you on twitter who are so inclined, I’m posting regular updates on data visualisation and infographic stuff on the DTN twitter account. I’m planning a sweet visualisation of my twitter followers at some point, so if you want to be immortalised in print you should really follow me!

Like me, those of you visiting this site are looking for great examples of everyday data visualisation and infographics. Some for inspiration, and some in order to solve the problem of massive data overload. I’d like to tell people more about data visualisation and how it can be used in order to solve simple everyday user interactions on the web. I need you to help me do that, by voting for my panel at the SXSW panel picker website.

Not only will you be helping me out, you’ll also be helping to create more great content for the next version of this site, version 2, due for relaunch this October. Yes. Designing The News is coming back, bigger, better, with more posts and more great original content.

I’m also looking for guest authors as well, so if you’re interested email me at dave (@) designingthenews (dot) com.

Once again, if you could, I’d really appreciate you voting for my panel at SXSW. There’s only a handful of data visualisation related stuff on there — let’s tell people about it. Get them involved, and get them inspired!

Thanks. You should follow me on twitter to stay up on how it’s going. http://twitter.com/davebowker and http://twitter.com/designingnews.

Anyways, the reason there hasn’t been an update in so long is because I’m in the process of moving down to London. Actually I’m in London at the moment, without a computer and without the internet, which is why I’m in an internet cafe at the moment with 9 minutes remaining on my time trying to write this update pretty damn fast.

Hopefully I’ll have a new laptop by the end of next week, and will crank out some more stuff soon.

New job!

Also, I’ve accepted a new job at a company in London dealing with search technology, news, and data visualisation, and I’m just waiting to sign the contracts. Hopefully the paperwork will be done sometime this week, or early next, and I can let you know who that lucky bunch are!

The good thing about this is that in alot of respects, DesigningTheNews will become my day job. Bonus! Which means in areas where the work isn’t subject to NDA, I can share some of the things I’m working on right here. With you. Before anyone else. :)

Stay tuned! And thanks to everyone who’s emailed me wanting posters. At this rate if interest keeps up I may have to do another run!

Still in the apple store on Regent street. Single solitary tear just hit the keyboard. Not sure if that’s because I got a first, or because I will forever remember that I used a Mac to find it out. Thank-you Apple store.

Anyone else think the logo looks like pieces of Meccano and a couple of flat head screws?

Just a quick note to say that I’ve just set up a prints page for the One week of the Guardian data visualisation posters. They’ll be a very limited print run so if you’re interested in getting your hands on one, the series, or more then you’ll have to be quick!

Only available until MIDNIGHT GMT tonight!

I’ll be taking orders via email until midnight on June 15th. They’re £12 each, printed on thick semi-gloss paper, and are all signed and numbered on the reverse so you know which one you bought!

Remember kids, having the series is like owning Pokémon. Gotta catch ‘em all.

UPDATE: 12:30 25/June All posters were delivered to the post office this morning, and should be on their way to you shortly!

UPDATE: 10:30 24/June I’m sick as a dog at the moment. I have all the prints, all packaged and ready to ship. I managed to get a couple out yesterday, but the rest will be going out no later than tomorrow morning.

Sorry they’ll be a day or two late. This ‘not man-flu’ has knocked me off my feet.

The info poster below is a larger view of what was included in the supplement prototype packaging that I posted yesterday.

For each piece printed, the preview image of the storyboard (this one being the Thursday visualisation) would be the preview to what’s printed on the opposite side of the page, thereby allowing the poster to be hung either side for a more informative view, or a more visual view.

Well one idea I had was a supplement piece, with accompanying package containing a fullsize A1 print every week for six weeks. This way the One week of the Guardian project is contained in it’s own package, with accompanying information which tells the story of the project, and a poster of a piece of work to encourage people to collect the whole series.

Inside the envelope, the A1 print would be folded down to A5 size, 4 folds in half each time. Printed on the back of the visualisation for that day would be a storyboard with project information, the same for each day so that if a reader jumped on board half way through the issues, they would still know what’s going on.

A rough scale of things would look something like this.

I was thinking it might be nice to have these supplemental packages published next year on the dates they were created, as a time capture looking back one year ago using data visualisations. A hypothetical fantasy, but a nice one I think.