Our goal for this week is to create an information visualization that is engaging and meaningful. As much as possible, we will try to leverage what you’ve learned about typography and form over the last 2 weeks. Programming, although a benefit, is not required for any part of this segment. I firmly believe that the best visualizations work as static views as well as dynamic. What is required, however, is that we use real data. No data-greeking allowed! And I can tell you from experience that collecting data by hand in an Excel spreadsheet is not only a great way to become intimate with your data, but it can also be quite a Zen exercise.

This week we'll be looking at data representation. The most important thing in beginning a representation is to understand clearly what the question is that you want to answer visually. It can sometimes come from a data set, but it needs to be more specific than "what does this data mean?" or "what's inside this data?" It sounds a bit simple and dumb, yet it's almost always done poorly, even though it provides the basis for everything else in your project. It's one of those things that sounds obvious until you try it. Unfortunately you probably won't get credit for it if you've succeeded, because it'll be obvious to everyone else (the joy of being a designer).

The background image is composed of two screenshots. The pattern was designed by Edwin Utermohlen and the overlaid diagram was designed by Alice Gambrell for Lisa Strausfeld's course on Generative Form.