Perspective of information
Today I came across two very noteworthy examples of clever information design which make understanding sets of data both more visual and relative. The best way to grasp what data means is often to put it into perspective with other sets of data so you can easily make a comparison. This is when charts and illustrations quickly become a better data medium than numbers.
How the World Really Shapes Up
The first example takes a map of the world and distorts each region size, relevant to the category it is in. For example, while viewing the map on HIV presence, Africa will be bloated compared to the rest of the world.
See more maps or read more about the project at the UK Daily Mail.
(These maps were produced together by the universities of Michigan and Sheffield)
Universcale is a very interactive example of helping us putting into perspective the size of the universe. We quickly can understand how small we are compared to the billions of light years which span across the universe, whilst still being millions of times larger than the building blocks which make up the universe.
(I found Universcale through a design website which I frequently visit, Position Absolute)
Here is a video which also helps us fathom just how large the universe really is
One Comment
Thanks for the mention!