June 2, 2017

This Month’s 15 Best Data Visual Inspirations

1. Film Money by DataMake

A minimalist interactive data visual that looks at what it actually takes to finance movies. As you scroll through the visual, you get an idea of how the film industry fluctuates as the visual transforms to highlight various budgetary differences.

2. What Makes a Good Visualization? by David McCandless

David McCandless, founder of Information is Beautiful, created this graphic as a visual guide of the four elements he believes are necessary for a well-crafted data visualization. This is a great tool for anyone looking to design their own data visual but is unsure of where to start.

3. On The Trump Emoto-Coaster by Periscopic

This data visual mixes interactive elements as well as video elements to create a completely immersive experience. The interactive charts reveal information as well as match video segments for each dominant emotion.

4. Literary Constellations by C82

These beautiful visualizations offer a unique take on classic literary works of art, such as Dracula and Robinson Crusoe, by analyzing each book’s parts of speech and first sentence from every chapter. The visuals create sections of the night sky by generating constellations out of words found in each chapter.

5. World Bank Group Education by Column Five

The two interactives look at different aspects of educational programs the World Bank finances. This allows users to get a broad look at the various organizations but also gives them the ability to take an in-depth look as well. This creates an uncluttered experience while still providing all the necessary information.

6. All Fights in Dragon Ball Z by Nadieh Bremer

If you’re a fan of Dragon Ball Z, this comprehensive look at all of the fights that occurred throughout the 291 episodes is the perfect way to get a mental refresh of the anime. The interactive multi-colored chart is playful and perfectly presents the information in a way that isn’t too overwhelming, considering how much is being delivered.

7. The Tallest Statues In The World by Marco Hernandez

This visual is not only artistically stunning, it is also highly informative and offers up some interesting facts about important statues across the globe. Available to be viewed in print version, on a desktop, or on a mobile device, the visual is well-designed and well thought out for cross-platform applications.

8. 30 Years of Oil and Gas Pipeline Accidents by CityLab

This startling visual is straightforward and uses little flare to portray the severe impact of oil and gas pipeline accidents. The simplicity of the dots amassing on the map as accidents across the country accumulate is enough to highlight the gravity of the situation.  

9. One Angry Bird by Periscopic

This beautiful visual beautifully interprets the emotional arcs of the past ten U.S. presidential inaugural address as multicolored feathers. Users can scroll through and quickly determine the dominant emotion president’s portrayed during their speech and click on sections of the feather to view the speech in a popup video screen.

10. Baby Connect by andrew_elliot

Voted as the most beautiful data visualization of all time in Reddit’s r/dataisbeautiful forum, this simple image actually represents six months of Reddit user’s andrew_elliot’s daughter’s life in one continuous thread. The journey begins at the center of the circle (birth) then wraps outward as she ages with dark blue representing the time when she was asleep and yellow for when she was awake. A full revolution is equal to one 24-hour day making midnight the top of the clock.

11. Sierra Nevada Global-Change Observatory by Carmen Torrecillas

This visual has a lot of information on it, but the organization and neatness make it easy to navigate and understand. The thin multi-colored lines make for a beautiful system to interpret the abundant and varied bits of data.

12. What Drives A Designer? by Maga Design

A simple and to the point set of visuals, this particular example makes use of contrasting colors to compare different details of the design industry. Users can quickly determine the two distinct aspects of the study and hone in on the relevant information.

13. Data Visualization of Trump Trends on Social Media by Affinio and TechRepublic

This set of graphics looks at the rising influence of social media in politics, paying particular attention to Donald Trump’s campaign prior to his election. The color-coded categories and adjoining threads show how the different demographics and social groups connected in conversation over Trump’s inauguration.

14. Paid Parental Leave Benefits by  Column Five

This data visual perfectly separates relevant information into different blocks, creating distinct sections of related sets of data, while color continuity unifies all of the information together.

15. Death in Syria by The New York Times

As users scroll through this visual, the thousands of dots that cover the screen paint a startling picture of the situation in Syria. It’s simplicity yet effectiveness to illustrate the gravity of the situation is perfectly executed and designed, down to the color choice and large numerical font.

Source: Visual News

June 1, 2017

HOW WE MADE 101 LINKEDIN GRAPHICS IN 24 HOURS

This article originally appeared on Column Five.

There’s nothing we love more than solid data storytelling, especially when we get to help a brand bring their own data to life. LinkedIn’s 2017 Workforce Report is our latest collaboration with the brand—and a stellar example of how to turn internal data into headline-worthy content. If you’ve been hesitant to use your own data in your marketing, their example will convince you to do it ASAP.

LINKEDIN’S DATA GOLDMINE

We’ve collaborated with LinkedIn on many projects over the last few years, helping the company communicate through e-books and infographics. (We also trade content marketing tips from time to time.)

Since we believe strongly in LinkedIn’s mission to connect people to opportunity, we’re always happy to help them reach their audience through compelling visual content. Luckily, they have plenty of great ideas for all sorts of content, thanks to their goldmine of data.

With access to 133 million U.S. worker profiles, 3 million monthly job postings, 20,000 companies, and the 50,000 potential job skills workers can add to their profiles, LinkedIn has especially unique insight into the state of the U.S. workforce.

Instead of letting that data rest in their servers, the brand wisely sought to turn it into a useful resource for their audience. Thus they created the LinkedIn 2017 Workforce Report, a monthly report to shine a light on the U.S. job economy.

Each month, they analyze the data for country-wide trends, as well as trends in 10 of the largest U.S. cities. The report details the most interesting and influential metrics about the American workforce, including hiring trends, migration between cities, and relative scarcity and abundance of skills.

The report is meant to help workers better navigate their careers and to give companies a better understanding of the state of their industries, making it a fantastic piece of content to support LinkedIn’s mission.

The report also happened to be an enormous undertaking, requiring some of the biggest design problem-solving we’ve ever had to do.

A DATA VISUALIZATION CHALLENGE

LinkedIn came to us with a formidable request to contribute data visualizations to the report; they needed us create 101 beautifully designed graphics and data visualizations every month—and deliver them within 24 hours of receiving the data. While this seemed impossible initially, even with our entire design team working on it, we knew we could do it if we figured out a way to automate the graphic creation process dynamically from the data.

Fortunately, our software company Visage, a web-based design platform that allows users to create visual content and reports, had been building a new feature to address this very significant yet common challenge. (Many clients and companies we talk to are struggling to find a solution for regularly creating well-designed graphics with minimal time and effort.)

To complete LinkedIn’s ask—and ensure accuracy and quality of the graphics—Visage and Column Five collaborated to create an automated system.

First, our team designed on-brand templates for the graphics and data visualizations that would accompany each report. Then we implemented these custom templates into Visage, where they could be easily edited by the LinkedIn team.

Our new Google Sheets integration enabled us to connect LinkedIn’s data directly to the report, so we could refresh the graphics with a single click when new data was received.

Through this process, the LinkedIn team was reassured that all charts were accurate, on-brand, and ready for publish as soon as they were created. Even better, we could create a high volume of visualizations in very little time.

It was exciting to test these new features with such an amazing client and come up with a helpful solution that both teams felt confident in. So far, the LinkedIn 2017 Workforce Report has been well-received, so we’re glad it paid off.

(Although only in its second month, the report has garnered 8,600+ mentions and significant buzz. In February, it was tweeted by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. March’s report was also tweeted by President Donald Trump and featured in a live segment on CNBC.)

We hope it will continue to make an impact each month, and we’re proud to be a part of the project.

We’d also encourage you to consider what data you might turn into a great piece of original content or regular series. If you need a little help, we’d absolutely love to help you out.

Want more on creating great data-driven content?

• Find out the 3 reasons you should pursue data storytelling.
• Check out the animated infographic we made to showcase NewsCred’s survey results.
• See how we turned 10 million data cells into a sleek interactive for Northwestern University in Qatar.

Source: Visual News

June 1, 2017

Filmmaker In Focus Series: Crime

Our next three films in our Filmmaker In Focus Series tell tales of danger, consequence, and risk. If you missed these standout movies at our film festival, all are available to watch now!

In Ben Young‘s debut feature Hounds of Love (SXSW 2017 North American Premiere, Narrative Spotlight), Vicki Maloney is randomly abducted from a suburban street by a disturbed couple and quickly realizes she must drive a wedge between them if she is to survive. Young is an award winning writer and director who began his career as a screen actor at the age of 12. He has since gone on to working in commercials, music videos, fashion, series television and short film. Hounds of Love is currently playing in theaters.

In the documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest (SXSW 2017 World Premiere, Documentary Feature Competition) Erin Lee Carr enlightens us about Dee Dee Blanchard and her ailing, wheelchair-bound daughter, Gypsy Rose and the mystery that surrounds their relationship. Carr is currently directing a third true crime story for HBO with producer Andrew Rossi as well as writing a book commissioned by Random House. Mommy Dead and Dearest is currently streaming on HBO.

Small Crimes (SXSW 2017 World Premiere, Narrative Spotlight) follows a disgraced former cop, fresh off a six-year prison sentence for attempted murder, who returns home looking for redemption but winds up trapped in the mess he left behind. Evan Katz‘s directorial debut Cheap Thrills premiered at SXSW in 2013 where it won the Midnighter Audience award. Small Crimes is currently streaming on Netflix.

Hounds of Love

Q: Tell us a little about your film?

A: Hounds of Love is a psychological thriller exploring themes of control and codependence between a teenaged girl and a couple in their thirties who abduct her. It was shot in 20 days entirely on location in Western Australia over a period where the daily temperature was up to 107F.

Q: What motivated you to tell this story?

A: My mother is a crime fiction writer and often gave me books on true crime she’d read for her own research. One of these was about women who commit murder and I found it fascinating how their motivations were very different from why men tend to kill. This was something I hadn’t seen explored on screen much, certainly never in Australia, so it got me thinking about how I could do it. In further research I discovered the very real and unfortunate phenomenon of couples who kill together. This to me was a concept I felt provide the footings for an interesting and disturbing character driven, psychological thriller that could be executed for a low budget. As a director who’s interest is primarily in character and performance this seemed like the perfect idea for me to develop.

Q: Tell us a random fact?

A: I’m an Australian who grew up on a sheep farm about an hour away from where our film is set. I began my career as an actor at 12 then moved onto direct commercials, kids television, short film and music videos. While at film school I worked as a clown at kids birthday parties.

Mommy Dead and Dearest

Q: Tell us a little about your film?

A: Things are not always as they appear, especially in the case of Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose Blanchard. Child abuse, mental illness, and forbidden love converge in this mystery involving a mother and daughter who were thought to be living a fairy tale life that turned out to be a living nightmare.

Q: What motivated you to tell this story?

A: I could not believe that this actually happened.

Q: Tell us a random fact?

A: Well, I won the award for “Little Miss Irish Princess” in Hopkins, Minnesota in 1994 for doing a jig in front of city hall. Don’t worry, it was more of a Fargo thing than a Toddlers and Tiara moment. Now, I am obsessed with crime and the internet and I lucky enough for that to be my job.

Small Crimes

Q: Tell us a little about your film?

A: It’s a gonzo riff on the classic “Man Out of Prison” and “Search for Redemption” subgenres.

Q: What motivated you to tell this story?

A: To some degree my interest in seeing how far I could get an audience to follow somebody who is so obviously the wrong character to root for – also a chance to comment a bit on the political and social climate in our country these days. For some reason, the truth seems to hold less and less value to us as a culture, and I’m fascinated/horrified by what that says about us. I think the “hero” of Small Crimes (played beautifully by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is sort of a weird amalgamation of current politicians, and people that I know personally. There’s probably even a little bit of me in there.

Q: Tell us a random fact?

A: I have the attention span of a flea, but can tell you the name of the most obscure death rock album I listened only once way back in High School, if asked. I literally can’t remember a five numeral code two seconds after I’ve been told, even with a gun to my head. Please don’t test this. Also, I’m obsessed with food, hip hop, and anything pulpy, dark, and funny.

Explore More Content From SXSW 2017

Get inspired by a multitude of diverse visionaries at SXSW – browse more 2017 Keynotes, Featured Sessions, Red Carpets, and Q&A’s on our YouTube Channel.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and SXSW News for the latest SXSW coverage, recaps, late-breaking announcements, and updates.

The post Filmmaker In Focus Series: Crime appeared first on SXSW.

Source: SxSW Film

May 31, 2017

A Look At The Shifting National Budget

In order to funnel $60 billion in additional spending on defense in the United States and funding the border wall and school choice programs, Donald Trump proposed some pretty extreme budget cuts from a large number of national agencies and programs, including the Education Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. If his budget proposal gets pushed through, it would be the most startling financial reallocation since the early 1980s during Reagan’s era. The Washington Post takes a deeper look into what Trump’s budget plan would actually do.

“The Agriculture Department, Interior Department, Energy Department, Transportation Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development control much of the nation’s vast infrastructure.”

During Reagan’s time in office, the departments that control a majority of the nation’s infrastructure saw significant cutbacks, particularly HUD. Although it was Reagan’s promise to downsize the government that led to a reduction in federal housing financing, a bulk of the budget variations have been due to political and financial strife. The Energy Department’s budget jumped in the 1970s as a result of the surge in oil production during the energy crisis and in the 1980s, during the “farm crisis,” the Agriculture Department saw a similar budget hike.

In more recent years, the 2008 financial crisis led to a great deal of the departments to receive increased finances. But with Trump’s 2018 proposition, all of these departments will have their budgets slashed between 12 and 21 percent, with a majority of the money appropriated coming from research and climate-change-related programs.

“The Treasury Department and Commerce Department are concerned with the government’s finances and the country’s economic growth, respectively. Their funding levels are largely driven by the state of the economy and government budgets.”

In the mid-1970s, the Treasury Department lent out over $1.3 billion (valued at roughly $6 billion today) to New York City because the city government was on the verge of bankruptcy. The jump in the Treasury’s spending in response to New York’s predicament is similar to how other financial departments respond to national financial crises as well. The 2008 housing crisis led to an increase in funding for the Commerce Department and the FDIC saw a rise in spending simultaneously.

Trump’s 2018 plan would result in a 4 percent cut for the Treasury, mainly IRS funding, while Commerce would receive a 16 percent decrease in programs that aid communities impacted by climate change or manufacturing automation.

“The State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, which focus on diplomacy and law enforcement, have grown almost continuously for the past 40 years.”

After the 2001 terrorist attacks, the Department of Homeland Security was established. All of the independent agencies that existed prior to 2011, like Immigration and Customs Enforcement, were then consolidated into the DHS. Between 2001 and 2002, the budget for defense programs—mainly counter-terrorism and immigration—practically doubled. A minor increase in funding also resulted in response to Hurricane Katrina.

The budget changes Trump has proposed would cause an increase in funding by about 7 percent for the DHS, with a majority of the funds going towards building the border wall and increasing the number of ICE agents. The State Department would see a 29 percent drop in funding for programs such as foreign military and humanitarian aid as well as a slash in funding to the United Nations and various international organizations. The Justice Department would see smaller cuts, about 4 percent, and a transfer in money from prison construction to counter terrorism and removal of undocumented immigrants from the U.S.

“The Department of Veterans Affairs, the Education Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Labor Department have among the largest discretionary budgets in the government.”

Similar to other categories of the financial plan, funding for these departments tend to change according to the state of the economy. From 2008 to 2009, after the 2008 financial crisis, the Labor Department saw an increase in funds by roughly 50 percent to finance job training programs as part of the stimulus plan. The HHS’s budget also increased during this time by half in order to fund programs such as Head Start and medical technologies.

Trump’s budget plans for these departments seems to bounce a bit all over the place. The VA is looking at a 6 percent increase which would help alleviate some of the veteran’s health-care system backlog, while the Education Department, although it would see a 14 percent decrease overall, there would be an increase in financing school choice programs. Meanwhile, the Labor Department and HHS budget would drop by 21 and 18 percent, respectively.

“The [General Services Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, Small Business Administration, and NASA] vary as widely as their budgets, and they have faced many different peaks and troughs over the past 40 years.”

The General Services Administration, an organization that helps other agencies operate, had a budget increase of nearly twentyfold from 2008 to 2009, a part of which went to finance the construction and repair of government buildings nationwide. The EPA’s budget also virtually doubled during this time and the cumulative agencies within this category went up by roughly a third.

Since then, a majority of the budget increases have been revoked and many of these agencies are looking at further budget cuts. The EPA would lose 31 percent of its 2017 budget along with a fifth of its personnel. A majority of the cutbacks are targeted at research programs dealing with climate change and environmental cleanup. At the same time, Agencies like the Small Business Administration and NASA would see 5 and 1 percent budget cuts, respectively.

“Defense has long been one of the largest items in the budget, this year comprising nearly 50 percent of discretionary spending. The largest driver of defense spending over the past 40 years has been war.”

The Reagan administration’s response to the Cold war led to increased spending on defense by almost two-thirds. The defense budget saw another extreme hike during the Bush administration in order to finance military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Under Trump’s proposed budget plan, defense spending would increase by 9 percent, roughly $52 billion. Even though that’s more than Obama projected for 2018 and less than what congressional defense militarists want, Todd Harrison, direct of the Defense Budget Analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said, “It’s in line with what you’re expecting to see.”

[Via: The Washington Post]

Source: Visual News

May 29, 2017

Where Is Craft Beer Most Popular In America?

This article originally appeared on Priceonomics.

It’s difficult to miss the degree of variety beer lovers can enjoy at this moment in the US. This is due to the explosion of small breweries coming on to the scene, which emphasize experimenting with flavors and styles

Over the past 40 years (thanks to deregulation in the beer industry) the number of breweries in America expanded from a post-prohibition low of under 100, to over 5,000 in 2016. The bulk of this growth comes from small breweries, the most familiar to consumers being the microbrewery.

According to the Brewers Association, a trade group for American craft brewers, a microbrewery is any local and independent brewer that sells fewer than 15,000 barrels of beer per year and sells at least 75% through other bars, restaurants, and liquor stores.

Unfortunately, it’s not the case that you can walk to your local liquor store and choose from 5,000 different breweries to bring home tonight. The reach of small breweries are confined to particular markets as most microbreweries have limited and local distribution. The variety from these small craft breweries is typically limited to the state or metro area the brewery where the brewery is located. The fact is, some areas of the country are just better for beer aficionados who want lots of options.

So where do you have the best chance to sample the greatest variety of beer possible? Which states and cities have the most breweries overall?

We analyzed business listing data from Priceonomics customer Datafiniti to offer some perspective into that. This data set included the listings of craft breweries along with their locations. We combined this with supplementary information from the Brewers Association catalog of breweries, to offer more specific details. From our analysis, we are able to find out in what parts of America breweries reign supreme.

We found that cities in the Pacific Northwest and Colorado are your best bet for finding the most breweries in one place. Cities along the coasts and in the Midwest are also solid destinations. There are also some exciting small cities outside of this trend that should not be overlooked (like Asheville, NC). Vermont is the state with the most craft breweries per capita, while Boulder, Colorado is the city with the highest density of craft breweries.

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To begin our investigation, the natural starting point is to look at the state level. So, which state has the most breweries?

Data source: Datafiniti

Number one is California by a serious margin, with over 600 breweries. Colorado and Washington are the next closest with about 350 each. With 15 or fewer breweries, Hawaii, Mississippi, Washington D.C. and North Dakota are at the bottom of our list. Overall we see a greater number of breweries in coastal states, as well as the Great Lakes region. 

Colorado is an outlier in this overall trend, but that’s because it independently developed one of the most distinct state beer cultures. It is both the home of a brewing giant, Coors, and a major player in the craft beer revolution. Really driving home the importance of brewing in the state is the fact that the current governor was a cofounder of one of Denver’s first microbreweries.

Looking at the information in absolute terms skews our list towards the larger states with greater population. It’s intuitive that states with more people (and therefore more beer drinkers) would be able to support more breweries. Understanding the number of breweries per capita will tell us where breweries are most plentiful relative to population.

Data source: DatafinitiDatafiniti

The title of most breweries per capita goes to Vermont. Even though they only have about 50 in total, since the state is so small, that equates to 8 breweries per person. Montana, Colorado, Maine, and Oregon all have about 6 breweries per person. Overall we see a strong presence of breweries in the Pacific Northwest, New England, and the Midwest.

Vermont has a strong craft brewing tradition. After changes in state law in the late 80’s allowed more small breweries, there was a dramatic increase in brewpubs (brewery-restaurant hybrids that brew the beer they serve on site) and later microbreweries. Another interesting inclusion is Montana. Its craft brewing sector has grown over the past several years, with industry production increasing by 50% between 2010 and 2013. Maine is also experiencing a recent boom with an increase from 34 breweries in 2011 to 59 in 2015.

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Breweries have always been tightly connected with cities. In the wave of immigration from Europe, immigrants came into cities and brought their beer making traditions. In fact, before prohibition there were just as many breweries in America as there are now (each much smaller in size and production, of course).

From Brewerytown in Philadelphia, a neighborhood on the National Register of Historic Places, characterized by the remains of the ten breweries that once stood there, to New York City’s host of former breweries, run mostly by German immigrants – our early cities loved beer.  Cities were important because of their access to clean water, available labor, and ease of distribution. Prohibition destroyed the industry and the remains of this era are gone, but the importance of cities is still apparent today for many of the same reasons.

For this analysis, we looked at Metropolitan Statistical Areas, geographic areas with high population density which are interconnected economically and socially. This is because, for the purposes of what beers are available in which markets, city boundaries are not the best markers. For example, San Francisco is highly interconnected with other cities in the Bay Area such as Oakland (both are part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA MSA). A beer brewed in one city is likely available in the other.

So, which MSA has the most breweries? Where is our the US brewing capital?

Data source: Datafiniti

Seattle-Tacoma wins that title with 174 breweries. Other top MSAs include Chicago, IL, Denver, CO, and Portland, OR.

Similar to the case with the state analysis, it is important that we not only consider absolute number, but also breweries per capita. 

Boulder, CO is our top MSA with 13 breweries per 100,000 persons. Boulder is a key contributor to the rich brewing tradition of Colorado (mentioned previously) and had a strong homebrewing culture in the late 80’s. In fact, Colorado has the most metropolitan areas on our list, with Fort Collins, Denver (host of the Great American Beer Festival) and Colorado Springs in addition to Boulder. 

A few other metropolitan areas are worth noting because they are different than what most people would expect. Asheville, NC is the only city in the South on our list. Craft brewing grew here in late 90’s and it has since been named the best beer city in America by several publications. Also the city of Portland is an interesting case, but not the one you’re thinking of. It may be surprising, but Portland, Maine is actually ranked higher than Portland, Oregon.

***

You are now equipped with a comprehensive and exhaustive survey of American breweries. By digging into the number we can see that if you want a variety of breweries to choose from, your best options are cities on the West Coast or Colorado, but you really can’t go wrong in most big cities.

Source: Visual News