Thursday, February 28, 2013

Progression Through my Life

Hello there!

I will talk about one of the data visualizations presented in class, and that I thought I familiarized myself with.  Nicolas Ferrante's Progression Through Lives made me think about how my games' selections have changed over the last couple of years.

The first thing I really liked was how you represent the data, I think it was pretty smart since we tend to just throw the game boxes everywhere and the random feature really gave it that feeling. I felt like the colors really represent each genre, and the way that the size of each block was determined by the hours played was a good idea and it makes you think about how much time you have given to that specific game over the years.

What I found very interesting was the four different types of players you talked about. The way that one can be a killer, or an explorer really makes you think about how you play your games or the reasons why you play them. It makes the data visualization more effective, since we do not only see how your game selections have changed but also how you have changed for the last couple of years!

I thought it would be a good idea to take the quiz, and I was a bit curious as what type of game I am and here are the results:


It seems like from now on people should call me Diego since I like to go around the map rather than get every single item, get to know everyone or rather massacre them!

In overall, I believe you did a great job! The interactive part of your visualization was really good and I think it would get anyone to explore your visualization. One thing maybe you could try to change would be the direction of the piles, since they look like they are rather falling than pilling up.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Data visualizations are not just "pretty" data!


For this week we had to read Warren Sack's paper on the Aesthetics of Information Visualization. It looks like there are many questions about data visualizations, but perhaps a wrong idea about them would be that their job is to make data look “prettier,” as well easier to understand. There are other concepts like administration, body and language that Sack mentions in his book and help answer the question of Why do we make visualizations?

There are many aspects of conceptual art that are taken into data visualization. Another aspect one should pay attention when looking at a visualization is the administration of it. Whether it is democratic or bureaucratic, which would give a better picture of what the piece is aiming at.

“The art of governance,” or body of a visualization, is a point that I consider one should take in count since it is where exchanges of concepts or ideas between artist (and other people) are pictured.  Then, one should “look at the bodies, that are engaged and how these bodies are articulated, challenged, and represented by the visualizations,” as Sack mentions in his article.

PDPal does a great job on representing the way in which people are linked.
The idea behind PDPal represents the “social network” that sacks mentions, and I believe it works well to represent an art of network since people are able to share their artworks with others and link them together.

In the end, the “user friendly-ness” or "pretty-ness" of a visualization shouldn't be what to look for all the time. Its administration, body and network might give us an understanding of the reason it was made, which could lead to the appreciation of how the people can be joined inside  one big art network, and how each one of them (the bodies) take an important part to create the actual piece!


Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Sweet Pollution!


Sweet Pollution Processing Sketch
When we see candy we only think about their sweet flavors they bring to our mouth, and maybe not imagine that something so small might also be behind the cases of lung diseases, asthma or infections. The data base I picked gave me access to information of the uses of three different chemicals (NOx, VOCs and Particulate matter) at confectioneries in Toronto. I was very surprised of the amount of chemicals that are used, and released to the air by these, and I didn't focus directly on the companies but on the candies they produce.

Some representations can be "shared" when the same amount of chemicals is the same in different uses! 
I believe the idea of candy and chemicals gives an element of contradiction to the work, and a happy color scheme would make it more effective since candy are seen as harmless and innocent. At the same time, I was told about this board game called “Candy Land,” which inspired me on the layout of the each section in the info-graphic  There are also characters that might look innocent at first, but when you come near them they     take their real form.

Chemicals and uses are represented with different colors
Another element that I aimed for was originality. Instead of spreading candy around the graphics, I liked the idea of having the candy being the actual graphic so it would not be complicated to understand which types of candies are behind the spread of these chemicals into the air, and which of these are used in their production. The chemicals and their uses are distinguished with colors  in this way it would be easier to differentiate one chemical or use from the others.

Click and hold on this character will display info about the sketch
At last but not least I added a bit of interactivity, which I thought it would add more fun into the work. The viewer would be intrigued to know more about each chemical by clicking on some of the characters around the sketch. 
In overall I had a lot of fun making every section, and adding different details like in “Candy Land.” If you have a chance to play it then you will notice that there is delicious candy everywhere!


CITATIONS:

All information about each chemical was found in the database used:


Toronto Open. "Chemical Tracking (Chem Track)", last modified June 30,2011. Accessed January 19,2013, http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/open_data/open_data_item_details?vgnextoid=9fb5c3dccb8c8310VgnVCM1000003dd60f89RCRD&vgnextchannel=6e886aa8cc819210VgnVCM10000067d60f89RCRD

Wikipedia."Candy Land." Accessed February 5th, 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy_Land

Images:

Cupcake Connection. "Smarties png". Accessed February 10,2013. http://www.cupcakeconnexion.co.za/services.cfm

New Business Start-ups. "Smarties Cartoon." http://www.dna-accountants.co.uk/new-business-start-up.cfm

Tu Mundo PNG. "Lollipops." Accessed February 10,2013. http://tumundopnggratis.blogspot.ca/2012/08/paletas-png.html

Toons 4biz. "Cartoon Chocolate." Accessed February 11,2013. http://www.toons4biz.com/Cartoon-Chocolate-Bar-Graphic-Clip-Art-s/252.htm

Xochi. Info. "Jelly-Flower." Accessed February 11,2013. http://xochi.info/art/svg/flowers/jelly-flower-xochi-info-flowers-svg-youtube-facebook-linkedin-twitter-google-and-pinterest/

Images Wikia. "Hombre Gelatina." Accessed February 11,2013. http://images.wikia.com/horadeaventura/es/images/0/0c/Hombre_gelatina.png 

Life Fitness For Seniors. "Jello." Accessed February 11,2013. http://www.lifefitnessforseniors.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/rugby471_Tango_Style_Red_Jelly1.png 




Monday, February 4, 2013

Nathalie Miebach - Art made of Storms!



PRESENTATION PDF FORMAT





Sources

“Nathalie Miebach Bio,” accessed January 28, 2013http://www.ted.com/profiles/939765

Weather Scores,” accessed January 27, 2013, http://www.nathaliemiebach.com/weatherscores.html

“Art made of storms,” TED, accessed January 27, 2013, http://www.ted.com/talks/nathalie_miebach.html


"Betascape 2012," youtube, posted on October 17, 2012, accessed January 29, 2013,  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWJ6IW82FUw

Information about partners in sculpture was found in the conference at Betascape 2012 (previous citation).

ALL pictures used from her works were taken from her website www.nathaliemiebach.com


Sketch, sketch, sketch!!

So next week its the presentation of our data visualization, and in this blog I am posting the sketches of the ideas I have got about the design, colors and fonts that I will be using for it.

Before we get to the pretty colors, here is a simple data graph that I used using a bit of the information from my data set. In the end I decided to shorten the number of variables, and I will be going directly to the chemical pollution made by candy companies. YES! candy is dangerous even when you don't eat it, which is a bit sad.


Just by looking at the graph we can tell that there is three companies that release an alarming quantity of chemicals into the air. hmm, I wonder what they would use it for! Of course I will be doing a bit of research to see how these chemicals are used in these factories!

These are the colors that I have thought of using at the moment. I will be using the areas of circles for the representation of the quantity of chemicals used by the companies, which are processed, manufactured, used by other means and released to AIR! At the same time I will have a bit of information of each chemical (the clouds of smoke), and a map which will show the locations of each company. 

I should also mention that by clicking on the location of the company the viewer will be able to look at the information of the company, the products they make, and on the left side the chemical information! 

So far this is my idea of the visualization of my data, although I have to mention that I have other plan in terms of the visualization of the company's chemical info which might take the form of a factory. I think we will see how it turns out in the end!