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Facebook: The path to World Domination in 30 infographics

TSSVeloso — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:30:22 +0000

On February 4th, Facebook will celebrate its 8th anniversary, and we can already consider it a major force in our modern day lifestyle. As many would say, Facebook IS the Internet. I can’t completely agree with that, but, nevertheless, the truth is that over 800 million people use Facebook, and that’s pretty much enough to awe anyone.

The next logical step is the IPO, with all the experts predicting it to be perhaps the biggest EVER. So, with all that, what’s left to say about Facebook?

You’re right, not much. Let’s just have a look at some of the hundreds of infographics made about the social network – actually, we have over 700 (!) on Visual Loop -, its features, and its impact in many different dimensions of our society.

First, a little bit of history:

Facebook 2011 Yearbook | Via

A Brief History of Facebook | Via

Facts about Mark Zuckerberg | Via

The Making of Mark Zuckerberg – A Timeline | Via

The Evolution of Facebook Features | Via

Facebook attacks in 2011 | Via

The Rise Of Facebook’s Valuation From 2004-2011 | Via

Cyber Criminals Target Facebook | Via

From Founding To IPO, Facebook’s Success Story | Via

Facebook IPO | Via

The Road to a Facebook IPO | Via

The History of Advertising on Facebook | Via

And some interesting factoides and numbers:

If You Printed Facebook | Via

A World Without Facebook | Via

What If Facebook Was a City? | Via

The value of Facebook | Via

Facebook Profile Photos By The Numbers | Via

Why Do People Unfriend Each Other on Facebook? | Via

Facebook Statuses | Via

Does Facebook Hurt Relationships? | Via

The Last of the Facebook Myths| Via

Facebook Advertising Opportunities Across The Globe | Via

The Truth About Facebook Depression | Via

Facebook & Education: Is Facebook Bad for Students? | Via

A Look Into the Obsession with Facebook | Via

Men vs Women on Facebook | Via

Social Games Popularity on Facebook and Google | Via

How To Define Shared Media On Facebook | Via

A Graphic Guide to Facebook Portraits | Via

It’s not hard to predict that we’ll be seeing a lot more infographics about Facebook. Is there any other that you find especially interesting to add to this list? Just share it in the comments below.

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

Facebook: The path to World Domination in 30 infographics

The Facts and Figures of 2011 in 30 Amazing Infographics

TSSVeloso — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:21:58 +0000

First of all, let’s wish everyone a great 2012! And, like we did last year, we start our season of guest posts here at Inspired Mag with a collection of infographics that look back at 2011, bringing out the best (and worst) of the year. They show impressive and curious facts and stats focusing several aspects of our lives.

So, without further ado, here’s a look at what 2011 was like.

2011: A Techrospective [Interactive] | Via

The Year of Daily Deals | Via

OtherFocus Collaboration

Jennifer Cirpici — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 10:26:18 +0000

OtherFocus is an international creative blog founded by Jennifer Cirpici, an Illustrator and Graphic Designer from The Netherlands. Jennifer had an idea to create a blog but didn’t know where to start. There was a question in her mind she needed to answer: “What do we want to give our audience?”, the answer came quickly enough: an Other Focus.

We focus on quality posts above quantity and we want to inspire and motivate our readers by giving them something new, different and fresh. In collaboration with InspiredM we will be writing a couple of inspiring articles on how to improve yourself as an artist, like our upcoming article ‘Get Accepted in a Creative Agency’. In the meantime you can check www.otherfocus.com and you can follow us at our Twitter.

Meet iOSInspiresMe – iOS Design Inspiration and Resources

Milan Zivkovic — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 13:50:54 +0000

iOSinspires.me was created aiming to be the new best friend of every designer who’s putting efforts in creating new and inspiring iOS applications for iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. With the progress of mobile platforms, we entered a new era where basic functionality and originality of an application itself isn’t enough to attract a big following. Therefore, developers must have a very unique and attractive design. If you’re dealing with iOS and trying to make your way among numerous App Store competitors, iOSinspires.me is a great starting point for you.

Here you can find large number of app icons and app interfaces that can inspire you to create your own for your iOS project. iOSinspires.me hosts as well a gallery of app websites, so if you have your own app with a dedicated website, you can submit it as well, and the staff behind iOSinspires.me will do their best to promote your site.

Here are some of their top picks:

Icons

Awaken

Awaken is the popular Mac OS X alarm clock and sleep timer that’s now available for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

Commodore 64

Kiloo and Manomio bring back the best selling personal computer of all time: the one and only officially licensed Commodore 64 for your iPhone and iPod Touch! This version provides an authentic reproduction 8 original games.

Voices 2

Ever wish you could change your voice to something more fun? Well, now you can with Voices!

Interfaces

Awesome Note iPad

Awesome Note is an innovative note taking application and to-do manager that allow you to combine notes with to-do flexibility.

Project Noah

Project Noah is an award-winning mobile application that helps nature lovers discover local wildlife and aspiring citizen scientists contribute to current research projects.

Billings Touch

Billings Touch takes the Apple Design Award winning time tracking and invoicing experience from the Mac and puts it in your pocket.

Websites

Lighty Website

Lighty is the most easy to use LED flashlight app. Lighty does one thing: ON and OFF (automatically set to ON when launched).

The Daily Website

Introducing The Daily – the first digital news publication with original content created every day exclusively for the iPad. Built from scratch by a team of top journalists and designers, The Daily covers the world: breaking news, sports, pop culture, entertainment, apps, games, technology, opinion, celebrity gossip and more.

Superstash Website

Superstash is an enhanced web browser allows you to quickly take screenshots of any image or page on the web, annotate it, instantly share with friends and colleagues, or file it for future reference.

Resources

If you need help with a certain task in progress of designing your iOS app, the Resources page should be your next destination. There you’ll find various resources like icons, tutorials, wallpapers, GUI elements etc.

iPhone 4 GUI (Retina)

This PSD is formatted for Apple’s retina display at 326 dpi and includes the majority of elements in iOS 4.3.

Glyphicons

Library of precisely prepared monochromatic icons and symbols, created with an emphasis on simplicity and easy orientation.

Combine 3D Geometric Shapes and Flowing Lines for a Sleek iPhone Ad

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a variety of 3D geometric shapes and combine them with abstract flowing lines to create a vibrant advertisement.

Hall of Fame

Hall of Fame will guide you through the most popular icons, interfaces and websites. Here are some apps that are currently at our Hall of Fame.

Last, but not least, every once in a while they host special giveaways, where visitors can enrich their iOS device with various paid applications.

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

Meet iOSInspiresMe – iOS Design Inspiration and Resources

Celebrating The 83rd Oscar Awards With 83 Amazing Infographics

TSSVeloso — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 12:21:51 +0000

This year’s edition of the Oscars has passed, but we thought that it would be nice if we selected some of the most interesting infographics about the wonderful world of cinema.

And that’s a huge task, especially if we consider that some sagas – like Star Wars or Harry Potter – have so many infographics about them, that we could make an entire post just with them – just for you to have an idea, we have over 400 on Visual Loop!!!.

Even so, we selected some from all over the world, so we hope you enjoy it!

The Oscars

Of course we have to begin with a round-up of the many data-viz goodies made for the Oscars. Some of them were created previously to this year’s edition, but they’re filled with interesting data – and some humor as well.

The Animated History of the Oscars | Via

All about Oscar and the Academy Awards | Via

The Numbers Behind the Academy Awards | Via

Everything you wanted to know about the Oscars | Via

Best Picture Winners: Where they took place | Via

Guide To Actual EGOT Winners | Via

Profiling the Best Film Oscar winners in the past 30 years | Via

The Oscar Box Office Effect | Via

For this year’s edition:

2011 Oscars Cheat Sheet | Via

Award Season 2011 | Via

Oscars: The Hit List | Via

The Oscars Vs. SuperBowl | Via

Spanish online newspaper La Informacion made a great set of Interactive graphics:

How the Oscar nominees are chosen

Oscar Nominees

The relations between the Oscar 2011 nominees

Some of the winners were subjected to infographics, before the great night:

The Art of the Pause – The King’s Speech | Via

Inception | Via (more here)

Toy Story 3: By the Numbers | Via

And like everything else in these days, Social Media also played its role:

The Oscars, On Twitter: Over 1.2 Million Tweets, 388K Users Tweeting | Via

Here’s Who You Think Should Win The Oscars | Via

Oscars Buzz: And Social Media Monitoring Says the Winner Is … | Via

Pre-Oscars fun: foursquare at the movies | Via

83rd Annual Oscar Buzz | Via

And the winner is…. | Via

Off course, there were a lot of humorous takes:

Oscar Nominee Venn Diagram: Weirdly Specific Similarities | Via

So you Want a Best Actor Oscar? | Via

10 Ways to Win an Oscar | Via

The Hollywood Revolution

Facts, curiosities and numbers about the movie industry, with this huge selection. First, a look at 2010:

2010 – A Year in Movies | Via

2010 US Movie Box Office [Interactive] | Via

The Best Movies of 2010 | Via

The Hollywood lifestyle as become the stuff of dreams…and good laughs!

Hollywood, by Inna Zaykovskaya | Via

Diagnosing Hollywood | Via

Are You a Hollywood Bad Guy? | Via

The Education of a Child Star | Via

And now, some infographics about the industry and the different movie genres:

Film Industry by the Numbers | Via

Most Successful Movies | Via

Financial Flops of The Silver Screen | Via

The Flow Of Money Through The Film Industry | Via

The 101 Most Killtastic Movies | Via

Top 100 Movies by Location | Via

The Longest Movies Ever Made | Via

How Low Budget Films Get Financed | Via

50 Movies for 50 States | Via

The Weird and Wild West | Via

High School Movies | Via

A History of Time Travel in Film | Via

Bad Science In Sci-Fi Movies | Via

Video Game Movies by the Numbers | Via

Why Do Video Game Movies Keep Getting Made? | Via

The Evolution of the Superhero Movie | Via

Superhero Movies By The Numbers | Via

The Alien Invaders Ugly-O-Meter | Via

Aliens on Screen | Via

When Your Favorite Sci-Fi Movie will Happen | Via

Cyborgs on the Screen | Via

The Melted Mind of a Film Buff | Via

The Genre Codex | Via

Explaining the IMAX | Via

Hulu vs Hollywood | Via

American Movie vs. Tech Industry (or Love Bytes) | Via

Great Sagas

There’s an handfull of infographics about some of the most epic movies ever. Have fun with these ones!

The best and worst Movie Trilogies of all time | Via

The Sequel Map – Which Sequels Were Better or Worse Than the Original? | Via

Harry Potter vs Lord of the Rings vs Twilight | Via

Alien: Acid Evolution | Via

The Economics of Star Wars | Via (a lot more here)

Star Trek Online Galactic Map | Via (a lot more here)

Kill Bill | Via

Tron Timeline | Via

The Harry Potter Franchise | Via (a lot more here)

Horror Films & Franchises That Made a Killing | Via

The Dark Knight | Via

The tortured 73-year history of The Hobbit film, by Blastr | Via

Driving 007: A History of Bond Cars | Via

How The “Flux Capacitor” Works? | Via

Who Is The Deadliest Actor In The Expendables? | Via

Two projects deserve a special place here. The folks at Society6 made some great typographic posters for several films, and Tom Whalen‘s ilustrations. Here’s an example of that work:

Pulp Fiction, by Society6

The Goonies, by Tom Whalen

Big Names

Either being actors, directors or companies, the great names of the film industry have won their “infographic place” as well:

Steven Spielberg at the Box Office | Via

The Coenfographic | Via

The World of Pixar | Via

Angelina Jolie, a life of movies | Via

Movie Military Chain of Command | Via

Hollywood’s Greatest Investigators | Via

Which Actors Have Died the Most | Via

Sure, there are so many others that we could have brought here, but, as usual, feel free to leave your suggestions!

Our incredible deals of 350-050 and free 650-251 tutorials make your success certain for the final 642-533 exam and you can get 650-568 dumps & 642-978.

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

Celebrating The 83rd Oscar Awards With 83 Amazing Infographics

The Full Dimension of the Arab Revolution in 50+ Infographics

TSSVeloso — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 05:00:15 +0000

This is a special guest post by Tiago Veloso from Visual Loop – a non-stop stream of Infographics, Maps, Charts and many other Visualization Goodies, with lots of new posts everyday. User submissions are always welcome, opened to artists and designers from all over the world. Be sure to check out Tiago’s first massive hit on Inspired Mag – Info-Visualization Through the Eyes and Talent of 10 Brazilian Designers

The year has just began, but we can surely say that the political situation in Egypt and other North African and Middle Eastern nations will be one of the major events of 2011.

Despite some other big events (like the Super Bowl), a lot of attention was given to the situation in these countries, and today we bring you some of the most interesting visual resources to understand the political changes taking place in Egypt, and its impact on all the Arab nations.

History

Before entering the current events, a quick overlook at the history of one of the most important regions in History, and impressive nations in the world – especially because it seems like not even Fox News really knows where Egypt is! Egypt’s past continues to dazzle for its greatness and mystery, but looking back in time, it’s not so hard to understand how things come to the present point.

Exploring Africa trough time [Interactive] | Via

The timeline of Egyptian history | Via

The Nile valley (1588) | Via

The structure of ancient Egyptian society| Via

The Egyptian Empire 1550-1070 a.c. (Spain) | Via

Of course, we had to mention the country’s most iconic monuments:

Giza Pyramids: perfect alignment | Via

Egypt’s Touristic attractions: places of interest along Nile | Via

What’s all about

So, what are the reasons for the riots and violence on the streets? The following resources help to clarify all the doubts you might have:

Longevity in Power | Via

Egypt | Via

Timeline: Mubarak’s Presidency | Via

Everything You Wanted to Know About Egypt in One Place | Via

Egypt: Young and Jobless [Interactive] | Via

Egyptian Opposition Groups | Via

The Egyptian Legislative Elections 2010 | Via

The Psychology of the Crisis in Egypt | Via

Protests in Egypt | Via

Why Are People In Egypt Protesting? | Via

What Are The Protests In Egypt Accomplishing? | Via

Egypt, a new Revolution | Via

Why Are People In Egypt Still Protesting? | Via

Mubarak calls for change in Egypt | Via

The Conflicts

Violence it’s always dreadful, despite the context. But, unfortunately, it’s also the only way to get attention and make some necessary changes. History teaches us that, and the recent events in Egypt seem to corroborate this lesson:

Locating the Protests in Cairo | Via

Egyptian protests turn bloody | Via

Diagram of the Battle for Tahrir Square | Via

A closer look at the protests in Egypt | Via

Egypt: The camp that toppled a president | Via

The protests in Egypt| Via

Egyptian Activists’ Action Plan: Translated | Via

The Egyptian Revolution | Via

The Youngsters that have taken the Streets of Egypt | Via

Mubarak’s speech – Feb 10 | Via

And there’s even a sort of humorous explanation:

Explaining The Egyptian Revolution Through ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ | Via

Role of the Internet

Apart of the social and political situation, the most impressive differential, when comparing to other revolutions, has been the role of the internet, and especially the Social Networks – so big that an extreme shutdown measure was applied. Let’s take a look at some infographics about that.

Internet Censorship: Enemies of the Internet | Via

The Internet in Africa | Via

The Middle East Internet Statistics 2010 | Via

Africa Without Egypt | Via

Egypt Unrest and the Social Web | Via

The Guardian’s Twitter network of Arab protests | Via

How Egyptians Used Twitter During the January Crisis | Via

Visualizing The New Arab Mind | Via

Egyptian Unrest Social Media Map | Via

Internet Activity in Egypt | Via

How Egypt shut down the Internet | Via

Mobile web usage highest in Asia and Africa | Via

Spreading the Revolution

Other nations from the Middle East and north Africa are following the steps of Tunisia and Egypt. Change is on the way as we speak, and the word is spreading fast, due to the amazing power of the internet.

Language family map of Africa | Via

The Domino Effect: Unrest in the Middle East | Via

X-Ray of the countries of North Africa and Middle East | Via

Unrest in Arab countries | Via

All you need to know about Arab World Protests | Via

The Arab World Riots | Via

The Arab world protests | Via

Revolucionary Measures | Via

Understanding the Arab World Crisis | Via

Unrest in North Africa and the Middle East | Via

Dictators in Danger | Via

And we cannot forget that it all started in Tunisia…

The Tunisian Revolution [Interactive], by Nouvel Obs (France) | Via

The Ben Ali Clan [Interactive], by Le Monde (France) | Via

Ben Ali to remain in power for life? | Via

It would be literally impossible to compile every infographic and visual resource on this subject. We hope to see a lot more in the next weeks, and feel free to comment and share any other you find interesting.

And, governments of the world, beware: the internet has fulfilled its role of major social and political transformation agent.

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

The Full Dimension of the Arab Revolution in 50+ Infographics

The Facts and Figures of 2010 in 30 Amazing Infographics

TSSVeloso — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 12:02:46 +0000

And here we are, with a new year on the way, lots of expetations and promises. But, if there’s anyone out there already missing 2010, this post could ease that feeling. Why? Well, amongst other things, pretty much everyone said that 2010 was the year of the infographic, and we’ve seen lots of retrospectives usign data-viz. So, let’s have a look at some of the most interesting ones, and remember what happened in 2010!

The Biggest News Stories of 2010

A Look Back on How 2010 Changed Our Lives

Yahoo’s Top Searches of 2010, by JESS3

The 2010 Lexicon

2010 Weird & Wacky World News Headlines

Fatal airliner accidents 2010

The major Catastrophes of the Year, by Noticias24 (Venezuela)

Lots of cool designs also about entertainment:

2010 – A Year in Movies

From Katy to Ke$ha, Gaga to Bieber: The Year in Music

Precious Medals: The 2010 Hip Hop Gold & Platinum Plaques

Word Frequency in Song Titles

2010: The Year In Gaming

Amongst all the topics, the Internet and Social Media are always favorites, when it comes to infographics, and it wasn’t different in the end of the year:

The Year of Social Media 2010

Sharing in 2010

The 2010 Mashable Awards Winners

A Year in Social Commerce

Most viral brands of 2010

The Blog Economy in 2010

A Year of Twitter

Facebook 2010: The Saga Continues

Twitter vs. Facebook in 2010

Internet in Brasil – 2010, by Bruno Cardoso (Brazil)

2010: Open Source in Jordan

The State of Cloud Computing in 2010

Memes 2010: The Year in Review

These Interactive visualizations are also pretty cool:

2010 – the year in review, by The Guardian

2010 Year In Review

Economist Mag: Most Popular Charts of 2010

World Bank 2010 Timeline

2010 US Movie Box Office

The most important facts in 2010 Brazil’s political scenario, by G1 (Brazil)

Year in Reviews by Pitchfork

The Best Movies of 2010, by UOL Cinema (Brazil)

And even some companies made their retrospectives with infographics:

Mashable 2010 Year in Review

Shopify: A Year In Review

The Year for Samba Tech, by Samba (Brazil)

And to close, a bunch of great videos:

Zeitgeist 2010: Year in Review

YouTube Rewind 2010: Year in Review

What We Learned

Mobile Year in Review 2010

I’m sure you’ll have others to add to this list, so, feel free to share them with us!

And a great 2011 for everyone, filled with health, success and, of course, inspiration!

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

The Facts and Figures of 2010 in 30 Amazing Infographics

10 Outstanding Data-Viz Blogs that You Probably Don’t Know – But Should!

TSSVeloso — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 05:00:32 +0000

This is a special guest post by Tiago Veloso from Visual Loop – a non-stop stream of Infographics, Maps, Charts and many other Visualization Goodies, with lots of new posts everyday. Be sure to check out Tiago’s first massive hit on Inspired Mag – Info-Visualization Through the Eyes and Talent of 10 Brazilian Designers

As the Christmas Season arrives, and 2010 comes to an end, nothing more proper than a “gift” for all you awesome Inspired readers. No, I’m not making a Christmas infographic round-up this time, as perhaps some of you might expected for my monthly contribution. Instead, today I bring a selection of Infographic blogs that are not as popular as the main ones, simply because most of them are new, but nevertheless, worth following. So, I hope you enjoy this selection, and add some of these blogs to your must-read list.

Everyday Venn

Everyday Venn is the playful expression of language and its relationships. Each day, Rebecca Rapple paints a picture of a word by characterizing it as the intersection of 2-3 other words, striving for clarity through simplicity.

Some of my favorites:

Encouragement

Revenge

Efficiency

Famous Rivalries

Justin Thomas is a veteran web writer and the former managing editor of a popular humor website, where his writing and illustrations entertained over 3 million visitors every month. He also contributed to a number of other popular humor and entertainment sites over the last few years.

“My original plan was to do an infographic on Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, because that relationship and rivalry has fascinated me for a long time, and I thought it would make a great infographic. While I was working on it, I began thinking about a whole bunch of other famous rivalries that were all fascinating in their own particular ways. There have been a lot of books, articles, and websites dedicated to specific rivalries, but there aren’t many that are dedicated to the subject of rivalries in general. I decided to start Famous Rivalries as a means of telling these fascinating stories in a quick, informative, and entertaining way.”

And we thank you, Justin!! Here’s a sample of his take on some epic rivalries:

Edison vs. Tesla

Facebook vs. Everyone

Sperm Whale vs. Giant Squid

Visualising Data

Visualising Data is a UK based data visualisation consultancy delivering collaborative design projects and knowledge transfer training programmes through the application of contemporary design theories and innovative visualisation techniques. The scope of Andy Kirk‘s blog is far reaching, showcasing best practice design, theoretically driven critiques of ineffective visualisations, deep collections and examples from major data events as well as all the latest key developments in the visualisation field.

The visualisation examples displayed here represent examples of some of the visualisation makeover designs Andy has presented on his blog over the past year as well as his popular Tableau analysis work on the Wikileaks Afghanistan war logs.

Obesity prevalence graph makeover

Improving an iPhone ‘My Account’ app design

Visualising the Wikileak’s war logs using Tableau Public

Infografiria

Considered by many as the father of infographics in Brazil, Luiz Iria has colected, during his brilliant 20-years career, over 30 Malofiej medals and several other prizes. Today, he’s the Director of the Infographics Department at Editora Abril, one of the most important in South America, and Infografiria is his personal Blog, where some of his amazing work is posted on a regular basis.

Forest Monsters

Life is Amazing

Biodiversity

Paris vs New York

Vahram Muratyan went to NYC for a few weeks to get some inspiration and freshness, and soon became clear that somethings were a bit different, when comparing the Big Apple with Paris, where he worked with Elodie Chaillous under the name ViiiZ.

Paris vs New York is a visual but friendly match between those two cities seen by a lover of Paris wandering through New York’s infinite details, clichés and contradictions.

Take a look at some of this brilliant comparisons:

Tha Singers

The Stylists

The Snacks

52 Infographics in 52 Weeks

Gareth Parry is Wavelength‘s CEO, a New-Zealand based company that designs and develops custom learning solutions on any topic, and in the right mix of media for the context. Almost a year ago, Garry decided to start producing weekly infographics, with a help of his wife, facing each one of them as challenge, and covering a variety of topics.

Here’s a sample of the results so far:

The New Zealand brand

Lady Gaga

Stop rubbish

Brand Pilgrim Visual Thinking

Brandpilgrim.com is a visual thinking blog, runned by Suma Mandagiri, a strategic branding consultant living in Munbai, India. She attempts to illustrate complex concepts in a simple manner.

She explains: “As humans, we ideate in pictures, linkages and patterns. It is only later that we weave our seemingly disjointed impressions into a vocal framework that is presented in neat rows as evidence of our organised thinking. In the process, we sacrifice emotive expressions and sensorial engagement.”

“Brandpilgrim.com is an attempt to return us to the quirky thinking that takes the form of doodles, scribbles and caricatures on our notepads. I believe, what we classify as ‘doodle scrap’ are powerful repositories of knowledge and inspiration. Beneath the quirkiness lies an organic thought process that does not need the crutch of a long-winded explanation. And if you are like me, you respond to colours, forms and shapes with primitive glee.”

Brands Need To Have A Point Of View

Facebook ‘Like’ – Reasons To Like & Dislike

Metagrafic

Metagrafic is Javier Pérez individual brand, focused on information design, graphic design and data visualization.

“I believe in the power of visual thinking and its capabilities: analisis and synthesis. The complex symplicity of good design is a perfect weapon of knowledge and this is what I offer to my clients.

Information doesn’t need artifices to emphasize. The keys of my work are good sources, typography, data illustration and good pictures. Colour is not beautiful when it doesn’t enhance data. The rest is a previous and exhaustive documentation. This must be enough to produce a motion graphic or a magazine. Of course, today we need good software engineers, too.”

Since june of 2010, Metagrafic is a partner of Itbook.es, an electronic publishing company of interactive touch books for kids. “This is my new project, together with a team of experts in videogames and marketing. Times are changing. Now, creative publishers, editors and designers make an important part of the message too.”, says Javier.

A couple of examples of Metagrafic’s work:

One More Graphic

Luis Chumpitaz is a Visual journalist with a vast experience in design and redesign of newspapers and magazines, working presently as the Information Graphic Director at Dubai Media Incorporated. One More Graphic its his personal blog, where you can find some samples of illustrations, data viz, infographics in Spanish , English and Arabic.

Some of my personal favorites:

Happy Birthday, F1

Find Your perfect Valentine Gift

2010 World Cup Series

Graphadelic

Graphadelic was set up by Michael Judge, a web developer going by the name of ClickOpen, as a fun side-project to improve his design skills and explore presenting information visually. The main purpose is to inform and entertain, with easy to understand, colourful visual designs.

According to Michael: “After finding inspiration from all the attractive Infographics out there, I realized that quite often the subject matter was a little dry, geeky and humourless. There’s a lot of interesting facts, world records, unusual statistics and events that can be presented. It’s fascinating trawling the web, researching and gathering data for each subject – You discover some amazing things about the world around us.

I also found that some Infographics are too large and complex to be appreciated in a web browser, so I produce smaller, bite-size graphics that fit nicely on a web page.”

And here’s a sample of Michael’s work:

Backwards Messages in Music

Sports Balls in Space

Sure, there are dozens of other interesting blogs out there, and with the rise of infographics pretty much everywhere, my guess is that we’ll keep seing new projects popping out in 2011.

I wish all of these authors the best, and may their work continue to amaze us for as long as possible!

Have any other favorite blog? Just share it with us in the comments!!

Merry Christmas everyone, and a superb 2011!!

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

10 Outstanding Data-Viz Blogs that You Probably Don’t Know – But Should!

Design Students: Build Your Confidence Before Your Portfolio

Patrick Branigan — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 15:57:38 +0000

Follow Patrick Branigan on Twitter @pbranigan | patrickbranigan.com | fourfifthsdesign.com

In September of 2007, I chose to engage in a four year art program at the University at Buffalo’s Department of Visual Studies. My hope was that my interest in graphic design would lead me on a path far from the arid and repetitive routine of large text books and long lectures that had plagued my freshman year of college. In May of 2010 I graduated from this program with a B.F.A. in Communication Design, a solid network of professional contacts, and a portfolio constructed well enough to immediately land me my first job in the design industry. After repeatedly being told how hard it was going to be to obtain a job as a designer in such a competitive field, I couldn’t help but conclude that it was clearly luck which got me to that first day of working as a professional.

I’ve now been working for six months and I can already safely say I am better off because of my education than I would have been without it. But not for the reasons you may think. I was not taught how to master Photoshop or Illustrator. I was not taught how to compose a piece of work a specific way in order for it to be most effective. I was not taught how to communicate with a client or even meet anyone’s needs other than those of my own. In fact, I hadn’t even designed a website before this past summer. I reassessed my previous assumption and found that I actually started off on the right foot because of one thing: Self-confidence. It’s this single, consistent factor that has led me to a great beginning in my professional career, and I have my professors to thank for igniting it.

Throughout my three years of study, I found the lack of self-confidence in design students to be shocking so I made it a point to always find the positive in everything I worked on. But just like everything else related to art and design, I believe self-confidence is best self-taught. With that said, I decided to begin to assess how I went about gaining self-confidence.

Write Everything Down

Benjamin Van Dyke was the very first professor who made a profound impact on my mindset as a designer. One of the many things he stressed was writing. He forced us to begin writing everything down. All our thoughts, concepts, observations, rants, and sketches were to be recorded and archived in whatever written form we desired. I found writing to be an organized method of legitimizing the insanity that constantly floated throughout my head. I’m not saying I’m insane, but I would generally have hundreds of ideas which I wanted to put into visual form that I just couldn’t keep track of.

Writing was the answer. It allows you to make sense of what you’re subconsciously absorbing during your day. Even more important, it allows you to revisit your thoughts and apply them when needed, specifically when trying to make sense of something that you previously didn’t understand. I feel writing will only help you grow as a designer. It’s the first step in training yourself to make predictions, statements, conclusions, and connections pertaining to your thoughts, the ideas that are unique to you. Once you have a greater understanding of your ideas, you’ll begin to enforce them, and naturally become confident in them.

Take More Than You Can Give

In my experience, design students tend to steer clear of criticism when they can. I feel as young designers we do this not because we lack the ability to create great work but because we lack self-confidence. As you build your ideas and gain more knowledge, do not hesitate to apply your intelligence by giving respectful criticism to your peers. Try your hardest to give constructive criticism. This will not only help your peers with their creative processes but it will make them recognize the fact that you have something to say and you’re not afraid to say it. It will undoubtedly lead to their appreciation for you, so long as your criticism is indeed constructive, and result in a natural boost in your self-confidence. However, always be willing to take more criticism than you give. Listen to what others have to say, no matter how appropriate you may think their comments are.

We as designers seek reactions to the messages we create. Taking criticism will help you refine your creative process so that you can better achieve the results desired in future projects. It will also allow you to build ‘thick skin’ which can come in handy as you will always receive negativity from someone regarding your work. As you become more comfortable with criticism, you will become more comfortable experimenting with design and explaining your results. This is a necessary step in building your self-confidence, and a huge attribute to have when searching for a job or dealing with clients.

Have a Reason…For Everything

While in college, I found that too many design students anchored themselves on the idea that if they created something that looked awesome, it would automatically be deemed successful. I learned not to simply create things that look good. I found that in order for my work to be successful I needed to have a reason behind every decision I made. Once you create something with reason AND it’s beautiful, then you’re chances of success are greatest.

You must keep in mind that people tend to interact with things that are aesthetically pleasing. However, more often than not, pieces of work that are aesthetically pleasing are only so because the piece of work has already served its purpose in such a naturalized way that we didn’t even notice it working its magic. (This notion is extremely important in UX design.) Having reasons for your decisions will inevitably lead to you creating better work and a better portfolio. A better portfolio equals higher self-confidence.

Sacrifice

There are two things design students fail to realize, and they’ll probably be hard for some of you to stomach. One is that you actually have more free time now than you will in a few years. Secondly, letter grades and grade point averages really don’t mean anything in the design industry.

It’s important to sacrifice certain aspects of college life when necessary in order to attain short term goals relating to your creative process. Take the necessary time needed to meet the requirements for your assigned projects. But make sure you take the extra time you have to find ways to push those projects in directions no one else will. Step outside the area of what is expected and sacrifice a weekend or two to finding a way to make a project unexpected, surprising, or simply ridiculous. Once you’ve done this, you will feel better about your work, knowing you pushed yourself to a boundary you previously were unfamiliar with.

Next, don’t worry about the grade you receive on a project. If you’re passionate about design, and you put your heart into proving something through your work, it will be noticed as a success by some regardless of the grade received. Letter grades are simply scare tactics made to limit you to the standards set by that particular institution’s education system. They’re in effect to make sure you abide by rules. Breaking the rules makes way for innovation. Creating something unique requires the actualization of something never done before. I’m certainly not recommending you completely disregard your grade point average, but what I believe is that it’s easy for everyone to fulfill a project’s requirements by incorporating what is deemed necessary by a letter grade and nothing more. I encourage you to go beyond what is necessary and what is expected of you. Do this and I can assure you it will end with a satisfying letter grade and, more importantly, a heightened sense of self-confidence.

Always Have Goals

If you don’t have a vision of where you want to be in five years, get one. Every designer has a dream of being the best at what he or she does. But to achieve that dream you have to first set goals.

Start now while you’re young. Tell yourself that you’re going to create a beautiful portfolio by the end of the semester. When the end of the semester rolls around, tell yourself that you’re going to have a job by the end of the summer doing what you love to do. When you have that job, tell yourself that you’re going to master typography, etc. All of this may sound strange, as if you’re faking yourself into believing everything is going to be alright. The advantage to making you actually believe in yourself is that you loosen up mentally. Just like an athlete, it’s important for a designer to stay loose. This means banishing worry from your mind so that you can focus on what your imagination is telling you. Believing in yourself will allow you to manage the stress that comes with being a designer. Believing in yourself is important, it’s essentially the most prominent factor in acquiring self-confidence.

Self-Confidence Can Lead To Success

If you’re able to build self-confidence as a design student, you’ll be one step closer to being able to comfortably master whatever it is you desire in life. Confidence leads to better artwork and in turn will lead you to a better portfolio. One thing they do teach you in school is that a better portfolio will certainly give you an increased chance at making a mark in the creative community. And that’s something no designer will argue.

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Design Students: Build Your Confidence Before Your Portfolio

Be Inspired By Your Surroundings

Kyle Schembri — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 14:18:23 +0000

This is a guest post from Kyle Schembri currently going to school at the University of Victoria while working with the Vancouver based Flipp Creative. You can find him on Twitter every once and a while.

Craig Baldwin writes a helpful column here at Inspired Mag were he organizes and posts the best design inspiration to be found on the web. His posts are great for designers looking for an extra boost. But without offline inspiration, you risk to narrow your vision of creativity. Lately, it’s started to become forgotten that your designs can be inspired not just by the work of others, but by your surroundings and the objects around you.

One of the first projects I ever completed as a freelancer was to create a simple logo design for an upcoming landscaping company. I remember sitting down at the computer with an open photoshop window, having it consistently remain blank after every session. Several unsuccessful attempts later I left my desk to grab a new cup of coffee, only to find the inspiration I needed right outside. Looking back at it now makes it seem so simplistically stupid, yet at the time it was brilliant. Within the next hour I quickly combined several shades of green and the curvy shape found in the blades of grass surrounding me. An inspirational transition which I always show on my portfolio, allowing the client to always see my creative thought process.

The point this post is trying to make, is that designers (especially those just starting out) need to get out and explore more often. Find your inspiration not at CSS showcase websites, or the top 25 best business cards, but rather in your world outside of the walls surrounding your office. Take a look at the animals in your neighbourhood, the buildings surrounding your house, and the colour combinations found just down the block. As a designer, you will quickly realize that you will gain more respect from a client who has seen your thought process, compared to one that hasn’t.

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