The History of Doctor Who Companions

The History of Doctor Who Companions infographic from mirror.co.uk gives us a guide to all the companions that Doctor Who has travelled with and a sneak peak on the newest one.  Along with the names and photos come statistics of gender, species, and who is the worst and the best companions.

It’s goodbye Amy Pond after Karen Gillan left in a tear-jerking mid-season finale, The Angels Take Manhattan. You can read our review here.

But how will Amy be remembered in the pantheon of best and worst Doctor Who companions? Did she hit the lofty heights of a Rose Tyler or a Leela? Or sink to the lowly lows of Ace and - Time Lords preserve us - Bonnie Langford as Mel Bush?

Take a look at the amazing infographic below and make up your own minds while learning all there is to know about the Doctor’s Tardis co-travelers…

I’m generally opposed to using photos in an infographic design because their full-color nature add a lot of visual complexity to a design.  In this case, photos work better than illustrations by making the different characters easily recognizable.

Thanks to Chris for sending in the link!

How to Find A Missing Child Using Social Media

Find Your Missing Child is a new infographic design by the team at JESS3.com for FindYourMissingChild.org.

Find Your Missing Child (FYMC) was founded after social media and email helped successfully find one missing child.  FYMC’s goal is to educate families about the community-building powers of social media and email to help in the search for a missing child.

The design does a good job of walking the reader through the statistics and benefits of engaging with social media as a tool in the search for a missing child.  The path provides a clear sequence of information for the readers to follow.

Some of the statistics are impressive, and would make a bigger impression on the reader if they had been visualized.  Big numbers are not data visualizations, and many designs make the mistake that using a big font makes the numbers more impressive.  An infographic should put those values into context for the reader by visualizing them.

In the footer, the URL to the infographic landing page is missing and would be helpful to readers that want to find the original full-size infographic.

Thanks to Jarred for sending in the link!

How Texas Laws Are Made

Texas Co-Op Power brings us the How Texas Laws Are Made infographic outlining the process bills go through in the state legislature to become the law of the land.  Also available as a PDF for download here.

The 83rd session of the Texas Legislature—150 representatives and 31 senators—is under way. What transpires over the 140-day session that began January 8 may seem incomprehensibly complex to the average citizen. So, in the interest of keeping our co-op members informed and involved, we offer this compact guide to how a bill moves through the legislative process and reasons why communication with your legislators matters.

Designed by Mike Wirth Art with Suzanne Cooper-Guasco, Ph.D., this infographic uses a game-board design style to online all of the steps along the path.  The color-coding to differentiate the activities between the House, the Senate and the Governor is clear and easy to understand.

The Periodic Table of iPhones

The Periodic Table of iPhones infographic from scientificamerican.com (credit to Mark Hobbs at CNET) is an infographic about the materials it takes to create an iPhone.  A PDF version is available for download here.

Key ingredients in the iPhone include so-called rare-earth minerals, elements whose properties make it light, bright and loud.

The key message in this design is obviously a wanring to readers that their iPhones (let’s be honest, this applies to any modern smartphone) are using rare materials that may be hazardous and cause environmental problems when they are mined.  

The design ends abruptly, without an ending.  At the end should be a few key things that are missing:

• What’s the conclusion or call-to-action?  What should readers do now that they understand the key message?  Is the desired action recycling, participating in protests or choosing a different phone?
• Data sources?  This design accompanied a full-text article, but because infographics are shared independently they need to list the data sources for transparency and credibility.
• URL to the infographic landing page so readers can find the original story and full-size infographic?
• Copyright statement.

Found on visualoop!

America's New Minority

The demographics of America are changing, and America’s New Minority from 59 Liberty shows us how far we have come and predicts the next 40 years.  

With the country’s changing demographics, whites will drop under 50% of the population in the 2040s. Every Republican Presidential candidate since 1968 has won the white vote, but with the population shift can the GOP compete?

This graphic simply presents the data of a changing electorate. We went through numerous iterations attempting to find something appealing that presented the data accurately.

We worked with Projects by Chi/Donahoe on concepts, Ripetungi on design, and Hustle Labs for PR support.

For direct access to the data used, please view the spreadsheet here.

I really like how simple and strong the message is with this design.  The data will be surprising to many people, so it should be popular with social sharing.

I LOVE that they include a link to the raw data in a Google Docs spreadsheet for anyone to get their hands on the raw numbers from the data sources.  The link is in the additional text on the infographic landing page.  It would be more effective if the URL of the infographic landing page and the Google Docs spreadsheet were both included in the infographic so they would be readily available to readers who see the infographic posted on other sites.

They also share some of the early drafts and other versions of the design they considered on the infographic landing page.  You can see a couple here, but there are more on the page at 59 liberty.

The History of Microsoft Office

Word, PowerPoint and Excel are the Holy Trinity of work productivity. This is the package that makes up Microsoft Office. The History of Microsoft Office infographic from Best STL (microsofttraining.net) highlights the history of past Microsoft Office releases and a preview of the 2013 version just released.

With MS Office 2013 launching soon (see below), let’s go back in time  to look at the Microsoft Office story so far.  When launched in 1990 it was called “The Microsoft Office”.

Which version was your favourite? Do you prefer an old faithful?

The design is great.  Easy to read and not too much information.  I’ve used every version of Office they have shown in the timeline.

At first, I thought this might have been an official Microsoft design, but it’s really from Best STL, who is a Microsoft partner.  It looks so much like a Microsoft design, they may be pushing the Fair Use of Microsoft’s trademarks a little further than I would be comfortable with.

Thanks to David for sending in the link!

How Social Sites Make Money

The number of social media followers are growing. But how do the sites make a profit? How Social Sites Make Money infographic from usbundles.com tells you which social media websites make money with ads, or paying customers, or mobile apps, or affiliates.

We turn to social media services to stay connected more and more each day. But even with hordes of devoted followers, how do these social sites manage to turn a profit?

Here’s a quick look at which revenue streams help major social networking companies go from social service to successful business.

Nice use of a Venn Diagram.

The doughnut charts aren’t accurate.  Like the designer eye-balled them instead of doing the calculation.  For example, the 71% doughnut is actually visualizing a value of 66.6% (2/3).

Found on http://socialtimes.com/how-social-sites-make-money_b91551

James Bond: 50 Years of Movies

James Bond: 50 Years of Movies infographic from hrblock.com is all about Bond, James Bond. See the top grossing films, iconic bond accessories and more.

It’s been almost 50 years since Sean Connery first delivered those now-legendary words on the big screen.

And 22 films later (with #23 on the way in November), the super suave super-spy known as 007 is celebrating a half century of fast cars, money and martinis on October 5th. To mark the milestone, we’ve put together an infographic taking stock of all that is Bond.

Very nice design.  My only suggestion would be to visualize more of the dollar figures shown instead of just showing them in text.  I appreciate that all of the dollar values have been inflation adjusted to 2012 dollars.

Thanks to Jane for sending in the link!

Philippe Dubost's Amaz'ing Resume

Very cool!  You have to check out Philippe Dubost’s (phildub) resume site.  Completely designed to emulate an Amazon product page, down to the smallest details.  Many of the links work nicely, taking you to a contact form or details on his LinkedIN profile page.  Things like his Product Dimensions, Only 1 Available, Star ratings and frustration-free packaging from France.  Even a Google Ad, similar to the ads on actual Amazon pages.

Certainly creative, I wondered if this should be considered an infographic resume.  I ended up convincing myself that “Yes” I do consider it to be infographic because it visualizes Philippe’s information in a way that is recognizable and easier to read and understand to the audience.  Star Ratings, key features, product photos and recommendations.  The visuals do bring meaning to the information, even though it’s done in a fun and amusing way.  It doesn’t have to be a chart of numerical data to be infographic.

What do you think?

LEGO Minifigs

The LEGO Minifigs infographic is a history of LEGO Minifigs (Mini Figures). The infographic designed by Hot Butter Studio for visual.ly includes the dates when characters were introduced or when a certain feature was added. An added bonus to the infographic is the information about female LEGO minifigs and the FRIENDS line that was designed primarily for girls.

This is a fun infographic with some interesting factoids that will keep readers engaged with the design.  LEGOs are cool right now, so the timing for this design is good.  It’s also a topic that has not been well covered in infographics, so it stands out as unique information.

I wish a few of the data points were visualized like number of minifigs sold each year or space events along an actual timeline visual.

Thanks to Karyn for sending in the link!