the one and only

It is just like it is, and it is great. can not get enough of it, even if it is one the most plain and well structured font there is. for some it is just invisible, like the way it is used on signs etc. but for some it is bold and outstanding it its squareness. A couple of years ago a saw a documentary on Helvetica, and if anyone has about an hour over, it is definitely worth while.
When searching flickr, we heart it, google and ffffound, this is what i...found (click on the images to find the source):


Want more?
Check this out.

Meaningful multiplicity

I had a thought about the lecture on multiplicity. It is truly amazing how just by repeating something heaps of times we can build new things. We can create a whole new level of art or experience. I went in and had a look at Chris Jordan's work and it really took my breath away. It is so inspiring to see people that would put in that much time and effort in order to put a message through. It was also really interesting how he'd used thousands and thousands of images to create a bigger images or simply just a color. This is how he describes his work on his web site:

This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. Employing themes such as the near versus the far, and the one versus the many, I hope to raise some questions about the roles and responsibilities we each play as individuals in a society that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming.

Chris Jordan, Seattle, 2008

I really think that the way he has used multiplicity is so effective and strong and it really gets the message through in a strong and touching way. The actual way that multiplicity works also gives you this feeling of interaction, even if it is still images. it gives the same effect as zooming on a screen, but you're just moving your body closer to the images.

Chris Jordan talked about his work at the TED conference 2008. He there talked about how he has visualized the overwhelming statistics in contemporary issues that we have to deal with soon but we choose to look away. His way of using multiple images to show his point rather then to show numbers makes it far more real, far more intelligent and far more emotionally grabbing.
This is an amazing work of art that I probably wouldn't have come across if it wasn't for this class, and for that I take my hat of.


This video it taken from the TED website.

TED - ideas worth spreading

Visualize this!

For my data visualization I googled the term to find some inspiration. And the stuff I found. There is so many ways of visualize data in so many interesting ways.
These are a few awesome ways of creative solutions:

fidg't
"Fidg’t is a desktop application that aims to let you visualize your network and its predisposition for different types of things like music and photos. Currently, the service has integrated with Flickr and last.fm, so for example, Fidg’t might show you if your network is attracted or repelled by Coldplay, or if it has a predisposition to taking photos of their weekend partying. As the service expands to support other networks (they suggest integrations with Facebook, digg, del.icio.us, and several others are in the works), this one could become very interesting."
(text source)

Digg Stacks
This is a data visualization of diggs on digg.com. It works so that the more people that diggs something on the web, the higher the stacks get. This is a real-time visualization and it is more then easy to spend a few hours here.

TagLines
"Taglines from Yahoo! Research allows you to visualize Flickr tags over time. For each day, dating back to June 4, 2004, the eight most popular tags are shown with a photo selected for each. You can view Taglines in waterfall mode, which displays eight tags and respective photos in eight rows, or in river mode, where tags and their photos “flow” from right to left."
(text source)

These are just a few examples that I found that I really thinks work perfectly. It is such a good idea to visualize something that normally would be really confusing or hard to see or simply just boring. I could really get in to this kind of designing. It is smart and very entertaining.

Make sure to check out:
walk2web
Digg RADAR
Zillow
CrazyEgg
KartOO

Home-made categories

Something that got stuck in my head after the lecture in week 5 was the concept of folksonomy. How we have, in difference to taxonomy, have found a system to this very loose and undefined way of categorising things. I really like the idea of tags and how they are informal and personal. It means that we can take a part in other peoples associations and metaphors which in the end will open us up to new ways of thinking.
So what exactly is folksonomy? Well, it is a social way of giving things a belonging with the help of tags. This is a informal and loose way of putting things in to a category. an example of a folksonomy is how flickr uses tags to structure their collection of photos. The different tags and the combination of tags give the photo a category, although it could be categories like "bullshit" or "crap". This photo from flickr is taged with the words: audio, music, sound, listen, stereo, hifi, mono, speaker, pump, disco, tape, tapeplayer, player, cassette, unraveled, mess, broken, spewing, spitting, pattern, chaos, magnetic, retro, symmetric, mirrored, reflection, tangled, unwound, fastfoward, rewind and eject. Now all of these tags is related to this image, but in all kinds of different ways. they are personal, individual, metaphoric or literal. this means for example if I'm looking for something that will represent mess I can find this photo, and it might represent mess in a different way then I was thinking but it is still a mess.
another example of a good use of tags is tag clouds. This is a collection of tags which have a size factor attached to them as well. For example the tag cloud on We Heart It (click on the image to get a bigger picture).
The encourage everyone to tag their hearted items so that people easily can find what their looking for, or at least a range of suggestions. I think this is a great way of presenting a web site with this kind of information. it is easy, it is inspiring, it is effective and it gives you an idea on what the most popular images have been tagged with.

ffffound nothing

Today I had a look through the photos on We Heart It (yes I am now obsessed with that site) and when I clicked on the source of one of the images it took me to an other similar style of web site. It is called ffffound and has an amazing amount of great images. So I had a look around and it was built on a tag system as well, all up, very similar to We Heart It but a slightly different style. So I thought I'd register. But no. It is built on an invitation only register system. So unless I have some friends that has invitations to give out I can not become a member of this site. This really annoyed me and the fact that not just anyone could become a member, made the whole thing so much more attractive. Then it made me think. In the lecture on Web 2.0 we talked about user based information. How web sites like Amazon.com started a revolutionary concept through their user based rating system, where books that had been forgotten long ago all of a sudden became bestseller again. Now, this way of rating is built on the fact that the more users there is, the more value it gets.
Now, ffffound do not care about that, even though it will be more logically tagged images, and a broader range of tags and images, with a larger members group. They value the mystery around the web site and the human nature to want what we can not have, more then having a large quantity of material.
These are some of the images I've found on ffffound, and if anyone have an invitation to the site, I would love to have one. I'm not desperate or anything. Or. Hm.

I [heart] We Heart It

This is amazing. When studying graphic design it is vital to have a source of good inspiration. And here it is. We Heart It .com is a web site that lets you show other people what you love. this basically means that it is a mega source of inspirational thing that every one is creating and everyone can be a part of. Such an amazing idea. This is how it is explained on the website:

--------------------------------------------------------------

get visual inspiration from what's best in the web

1 bookmark images and videos from any website with one button

2 see what everyone is 'hearting' and heart it too

--------------------------------------------------------------

It works with the help of bookmarks. You drag this symbol up on your bookmarks bar and then when you find something out on the Internet that you want to heart, you press the symbol and it allows you to heart it.

So for example, if i found this image I simply click on on my bookmarks bar.

And then it finds the object and makes a frame around it which allows you to add it to your heart (click on the images to make them bigger).


Then it opens a new tab with you chosen picture in you We Heart It account.

So simple and so smart!

So join, and heart. Now.