For example, on the first game against the USA when Gerrard scored there was a period between the goal and the peak reaction when messages averaged over 3,000 per second. That’s alot of things to happen per second!

The following shows how the time expands and compacts based on the amount of traffic during each match. In the second game against Algeria you can see hardly anything got a reaction. The score was 0-0 and the match to watch wasn’t very exciting, except at the end Rooney made a comment to the camera and network traffic went crazy.

The final graph is a comparative look at the traffic over all 3 matches. We can see from this graphic when something significant happened during the match there was a traffic spike, and another at the end when the match finished.

Though the end spike was probably everyone working out which pub to go to!

What’s shown below is the updated graphic with about half hours more work on it since the submitted version for the competition. The original idea I had was to do about four visualisations looking at wealth, quality of life, culture, and size. I’d already spent time gathering and compiling the data a couple of weeks beforehand from various sources, but then other projects took priority (again) and my time lines got screwed (again!). So here’s just one: size.

How big is the USA poster

It’s a visualisation focused on showing the size of the USA compared to other countries in the world.

The process and older drafts

This is the first draft that was completed with only 5 minutes to spare before the deadline ended, using an automatically generated colour palette.

This is the second draft after I decided I hated the colours, and decided to go with a monochromatic green variant to represent the land.

This is the third draft after I decided to try and colour code everything by the dominant country’s flag colour, then gave up halfway through as I realised I was going backwards.

This is the final draft you see above. I’ve taken out the block colours and used a stronger line weight to pick out the more important areas of the visualisation. As it’s a focus on the USA, I’ve brought out the USA’s area on the pie with their customary red, white and blue colours.

…and I did try an inverted version but never really fancied it.

Now I’ll have to wait to see if my entry gets picked up by the project, and try and be cheeky and ask the organisers if they’d be so kind as to accept the updated version. I couldn’t leave it after the second draft anyhow, it just wasn’t up to spec.

I’m not going into too much detail right now until I put a little video together of how it works, but if you’re in London and you’re free tonight (February 19th 2010) then you should come along to Design Overtime at the Design Museum on the Thames. It’s going to be a great night with full open access to all the exhibits, plus the designers in residence (that includes me) will be taking over the museum. What this means I’m not sure, but my visualisation will be tracking everything, and if the weather holds out then this vis will be projected onto the outside wall of the DesMus for all to see. Should be pretty darn cool.

I’ll have plenty of pictures, video, and screencast on this after the weekend, so tell your friends! — and if you are in London and you want to come down then I have a few tickets going begging. Let me know on twitter, @davebowker or @designingnews, and you should follow me too. I like to think I’m funny. :)

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?