There’s approximately 25,000 paper feathers in the model, and each one was fringed and scored by hand.
Work in progress
It took Lisa about three months to make the model, working three or four days a week on it. The skeleton is made of strong card, and there’s a wire that runs along the top of the wings to give necessary support. The eagle’s wingspan is 6.5 feet (2 meters).
This is my 250th post, over a period of four years and four months. (Including a five-month break after the pandemic took hold.)Back at the beginning, I posted twice a week, then once a week, then once a month (or less). I could keep following this trajectory, but once a year might be a little too infrequent. Basically, I’m surprised that I’ve had more than fifty ideas, and indeed many of the posts were suggestions from interested people. In some cases, they were completely put together by much-appreciated infographic friends. (Oh, if only I had more of those.)
Total visitors to date: 71,006. Total views: 119,253
Frédérik Ruys (an infographics friend) took this photo at his local sports center in Utrecht, the Netherlands. A multi-use floor can be a visual challenge when it has markings for korfball,* volleyball, badminton, baseball and soccer. Frederik says he can’t properly watch his children play korfball because of a color-vision condition that makes it difficult for him to separate the relevant set of court markings from the others.
(I suspect it could be quite hard work for me too.)
*A non-contact sport, similar to netball and basketball, but with four female and four male players in a team.
Testing Some example images from the well-known Ishihara 38-plate test (which was first published in 1917). The numbers in the circles are repeated at the bottom of this post.
You can take it, and other vision tests, here: https://www.color-blindness.com/color-blindness-tests/
Numbers and variants Around 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have a color-vision deficiency of some form. Approximately 300 million people worldwide are affected. So this is clearly a topic that all information designers should consider. Deuteranomaly is the most common type of red/green color deficiency, and is mild. Many people are not even aware they have this condition, unless they take one of the tests. This is the one that affects Frédérik.
Below, a TV test card seen through a color blindness simulator, which can be downloaded here: https://colororacle.org
First, the original image.
Protanopia: Relatively common.
Deuteranopia: Relatively common.
Tritanopia: Rare.
Achromatopsia: Extremely rare.
Eyewear EnChroma makes color-recognition-correcting glasses. I don’t have any information about how effective this technology is, but it’s an area worth investigating. https://enchroma.com
Resources Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop have built-in proofing for protanopia and deuteranopia available under View > Proof Setup > Color Blindness. And there are other online resources, like this: https://bit.ly/3eFML2a
Editor’s note: “Color blindness” could perhaps imply a complete lack of color recognition, so I’ve tried to avoid that term here, although it is still widely-used to describe color deficiency.
(The sample Ishihara test numbers are 12, 8, 5, 2, 26)
The model is obviously not to scale. The Earth would be tiny, and a huge distance from the Sun. This earlier post was about the scale of the Solar System: https://wp.me/p7LiLW-A8
Below, an image from Smith’s Illustrated Astronomy (1850) with an orrery in front of a diagram of the planets and their orbits.
This 1776 painting by Joseph Wright of Derby shows a lecturer discussing an orrery. There’s a lamp in place of the Sun.
A tellurion (or tellurium, or tellurian) shows the Sun and the Earth. This one was made in 1776.
It’s hell out there The planets look benign in planetary models, but in reality they’re hostile environments, to put it mildly. For example, Venus (shown below) has a toasty average temperature of 870°F (466°C), and Neptune is somewhat cold at -350°F (-212°C), plus it has brisk winds in excess of 1,200 mph (1,931 kph).
Micrographs Rob Kesseler reveals the unseen world of plants in the “PHY-TOPIC” series. Using a range of complex microscopy processes, he creates composite images, adding many subtle layers of color that reveal functional and structural characteristics. Rob’s work combines science and art in the tradition of visual scientific discovery that goes back centuries. He is a Professor of Arts, Design & Science at Central Saint Martins, London. See more work here: http://www.robkesseler.co.uk
Above, Daucus carota. Wild carrot. Fruit. (From “Fruit, Edible, Inedible, Incredible” by Rob Kesseler and Wolfgang Stuppy. Published by Papadakis.) https://bit.ly/2SW7aYS
Medicago arborea. Tree medick seedpod.
Salix caprea. Goat willow, collection of pollen grains.
Recognizing viruses Unseen invaders, by Bryan Christie Design. This illustration is from 2009, which explains the influenza virus being swine flu. Today that would, of course, be COVID-19, which has turned our world upside down.
Nanometer Nigel Holmes explains a measurement that’s used for very small items. An example: DNA is about two nanometers in diameter.
The head of a pin In 1959, physicist Richard Feynman challenged scientists to find a way to inscribe a book page 25,000 times smaller than in it’s regular printed form. 25 years later, Tom Newman used a beam of electrons to etch the first page of Charles Dickens’“A Tale of Two Cities” on a piece of plastic 200 microns* square. At this scale, the entire Encyclopedia Britannica would fit on the head of a pin (which was the original challenge).
* 1 micron = 1,000 nanometers.
Someone once told me that my knowledge of mathematics could be written on the head of a pin with a sledgehammer. I made a few bad numerical errors in infographics earlier in my career, so that statement was not entirely off the mark.
They’re mostly found near the back of in-flight magazines, along with profiles of jets and lots of aircraft manufacturer metrics that probably only appeal to about one person per flight, maximum. (Yes, I’m that person. I want to know the wingspan of an Airbus 320.) You can find some network information in these spider-web extravaganzas, but it’s quite hard work, especially in areas where there’s lots of flights. The one above shows Delta’s US network.
Of course, this type of map grew in route complexity as commercial air travel expanded. Early maps were pictorial and rather engaging. These historical examples, with easily defined routes, are all from the 1940s. Jet-powered airliners didn’t come into service until the 1950s, with the consequent dramatic expansion of flight networks.
Below, American Airlines, 1945. Click on the image for a larger version.
A detail. “Oh look, there’s a steam shovel down there, just like on the map!”
Delta Air Lines, 1946.
Air France, 1948.
BOAC, 1949.
The historical images above can be downloaded in high resolution from the David Rumsey Map Collection. https://www.davidrumsey.com
Talking of BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation), I saw this 747 decked out in retro (and excellent) livery at Heathrow Airport last summer. It was painted to celebrate British Airway’s 100-year anniversary.
The maps gradually outgrew their format as air travel expanded. With no possibility to isolate and examine a single route, they’re of marginal effectiveness in print. Obviously the lines are not flightpaths. So an airline route map is more a diagram than a map, with the lines arcing farther in an attempt to avoid all the other lines.
Pure flight Airline routes drawn from data, by John O’Sullivan.
By Aaron Koblin. See an animated version, with a flight count, here: https://bit.ly/31QuBWf
The latest edition of Robert Priest and Grace Lee’s football (soccer) magazine* has just arrived on the newsstands. It contains a 27-page celebration of ten great players. Below are some sample spreads from that section, and from the rest of the issue.
Ten degrees of infographics I’ll probably run into some trouble from the data police for arranging this graphic at an angle. OK, I accept the criticism in advance, obviously it’s easier to compare values when they’re not tilted, but…that’s showbiz! (Click on the image for a larger version.)
This is 2020’s color. We’d better all use it for absolutely everything this year. Here’s the way that Pantone sees it:
“Instilling calm, confidence, and connection, this enduring blue hue highlights our desire for a dependable and stable foundation on which to build as we cross the threshold into a new era.”
Peter is head of industrial design at Oculus, the augmented and virtual reality company. His work follows a simple aesthetic, that’s both beautiful and functional. Above, the Oculus Rift headset. His website: http://www.peterbristol.net
Toogle Touch Remote. The sliding top reveals controls for different devices.
The Juniper THIN Chandelier has 12 articulating arms, so it can be adjusted into an infinite number of forms.
Cut Chair. A steel plate concealed in the carpet makes the chair functional.
Training Dresser encourages kids to organize their clothes.
Microsoft Sculpt Keyboard.
Square Leg Round Table in wood and powder-coated steel.
Infinity Racing Wheel, for iPhones and iPads.
Clip Bag. Borrows its form from a common binder clip. Wool felt and aluminum.
ACKNOWLEDGING OUR MISTAKES, AND LEARNING FROM THEM.
I’m a bit late getting to this, as the book was published on October 15, but that’s not in any way an indication of my feelings about the latest excellent tome from my friend, Alberto Cairo (Knight Chair in Visual Communication at the University of Miami).In my opinion, everyone who is visualizing data needs to read it.
Here’s what Alberto told me last week about his main reason for writing the book:
I’ve been designing infographics for more than twenty years, and writing books about them since 2012. Recently, I’d been thinking about their common themes, and the driving forces behind them. I realized that I wrote them as if I were telling readers, “Here, these are the things that I’ve learned through study, practice and, more importantly, trial-and-error, so you don’t have to.”
“How Charts Lie,” in particular, contains tons of examples of erroneous or commonly misinterpreted graphics, and in the book I say that I think I’ve made most of the mistakes that I describe. So I know where they come from. This isn’t false modesty, but plain truth.
We celebrate our successes, so why not do the same with our fumbles? As a consequence, the book is a playful overview of graphical disasters, but also a celebration of the power that graphics have to illuminate complex information.
Below are a few of the many examples of data visualization that Alberto analyzes in detail:
A 2016 election map with results by county. Territorial voting results do not show us how many people voted for each candidate. This one is on it’s way to be hung on a White House wall. The photograph was taken by Fox News Foreign Correspondent, Trey Yingst. (@TreyYingst) https://bit.ly/34nfh3O
Photograph by Trey Yingst. @TreyYingst
Corellation doesn’t equal causation. Does more smoking make you live longer?
A baseline set at zero gives a clearer impression of the difference in the numbers.
The cone of uncertainty is a frequently-misinterpreted storm warning. This is the predicted track of the aptly-named Subtropical Storm Alberto, which crossed the Gulf of Mexico in May 2018.
Behind the scenes “The Secret Lives of Colors” contains the fascinating stories behind 75 colors. https://amzn.to/2pOCmNv
Movie colors In “The Colors of Motion,” each line represents the average color of a single frame. https://thecolorsofmotion.com
Black and white VANTABLACK (Vertically Aligned Nano Tube Array)
This coating, made by Surrey NanoSystems, absorbs 99.96 % of visible light. It’s intended for use where stray light needs to be suppressed, like the interior of optical equipment. Below, aluminum foil with an application of Vantablack. So much light is absorbed that three-dimensional surfaces take on a two-dimensional effect. Anish Kapoor has licensed the coating for his exclusive artistic use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack
Artist Stuart Semple takes great exception to Kapoor having sole artistic rights to use Vantablack. He doesn’t accept that a pigment can only be available to one person. To make his point, Semple has produced the “World’s Pinkest Pink,” which anyone can use except Kapoor. Notice that to buy this, you have to state that you’re not Anish Kapoor, and that you will not let Kapoor get hold of this item.
However… Kapoor managed to get some and put a confrontational photo on Instagram. (Editor’s note: I definitely do not condone this behavior by showing the gesture here, and I would not normally show an image like this. However, I work alongside a journalism school, and the full story should be told. Unfortunately, this was a development in the continuing battle over color ownership.)
Now Semple has his own “blackest black” for anyone to use. Black 3.0 is an acrylic paint that absorbs up to 99% of light.
Here it’s applied to a sculpture. https://bit.ly/31RVtnr
Kapoor’s installation, “Descent into Limbo,” is a concrete cube containing an eight-foot-deep (2.5 meter) hole, that’s painted with a light-absorbing black. (It pre-dates Vantablack.) Last year, despite warning signs, a man fell into the hole at the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art (which is in Porto, Portugal).
And an even-blacker black has recently come onto the scene. Diemut Strebe’s “The Redemption of Vanity” features a 17-carat yellow diamond (worth $2 million) that has been turned into a black hole by applying a carbon nanotube coating, made by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), that absorbs 99.995% of light. On view at the New York Stock Exchange until November 25 (by appointment).
And BMW displayed their 2020 X6 with a Vantablack finish at the Frankfurt Motor Show last month.
Photograph: BMW
SPECTRALON
The opposite of the ultra-blacks is a fluoropolymer that reflects over 99% of visible light. Used for calibration targets and remote sensing applications. It doesn’t seem to be exclusively licensed to an artist at the moment.
Color charts Back at the dawn of time (when the Earth was still cooling down), graphics people all had these charts, and they needed to have good supplies of the various colors.
I’ve had a recurring nightmare since 1975: It’s midnight, my deadline is the next day, the art supplies store is closed, and my tube of Cerulean Blue gouache is almost empty.
Safety concerns Some paint pigments (like Cobalt Blue and Cadmium Yellow) can potentially present a health risk. It’s a complicated area to figure out, but definitely something to be aware of. This article covers some of the main issues: https://bit.ly/2HzXw7Y
Werner’s Nomenclature of Colors This classic color guide (from 1814) has been brought into the digital age by designer, Nicholas Rougeux. https://www.c82.net/werner/#intro/
