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3.78 AVERAGE
3.78 AVERAGE
Perhaps I am slow, but a lot of these selected infographics were too confusing/unclear. And that is the opposite of what they are intended to do - make ideas clear through graphics! Some really cool stuff in there still, but not well edited. Or I'm too slow.
This is a really cool collection of infographics though obviously a bit outdated by the time I read it. The variety of topics and design of the infographics was really fun and super interesting. I do wish some had a bit more explanation but the book lists where each graphic was originally made available so I could dig into any I'm more curious about. I'm not sure how it was decided which graphics would be displayed in full and which would get abbreviated, but it didn't bother me too much, again I can dig into the ones I'm most interested in.
One gripe is in the forward it's mentioned that interactive infographics used to be listed in their own section but for this edition they were interspersed throughout and I don't think that worked well. An interactive infographic is like it sounds, the viewer can interact and typically change the parameters graphed, move it around, change how the data is visualized, etc. and the interaction is usually done online. When I came across the infographics that are supposed to be interactive, it felt like I was only getting half the graphic (which to be fair I was so I couldn't interact with the physical book the same way) so I'd rather those be grouped into their own section.
I love seeing data in creative ways and this book was really a joy for that. It is what it says on the tin, best infographics, so if you're interested in that you'll enjoy this.
One gripe is in the forward it's mentioned that interactive infographics used to be listed in their own section but for this edition they were interspersed throughout and I don't think that worked well. An interactive infographic is like it sounds, the viewer can interact and typically change the parameters graphed, move it around, change how the data is visualized, etc. and the interaction is usually done online. When I came across the infographics that are supposed to be interactive, it felt like I was only getting half the graphic (which to be fair I was so I couldn't interact with the physical book the same way) so I'd rather those be grouped into their own section.
I love seeing data in creative ways and this book was really a joy for that. It is what it says on the tin, best infographics, so if you're interested in that you'll enjoy this.
I've followed this series since its inception in 2013. The layout has improved each year with larger formats and cleaner reproductions of some of the larger, oddly shaped infographics. There were plenty of interesting graphics in this year's collection and yet I experienced a kind of quick burnout in looking at them... due to redundancy perhaps? It felt like this year's edition was less about where the practice was headed and more about a handful of good ones. The term "best" seemingly more subjective than ever. Maybe I'm just suffering from information overload...
Some of my favorites from this collection:
- Trillions of Trees Visualized
- The Obsessively Detailed Map of American Literature's Most Epic Road Trip
- What's Warming the World?
- A Guide to Who is Fighting Whom in Syria
- The Atlantic Slave Trade in Two Minutes
Some of my favorites from this collection:
- Trillions of Trees Visualized
- The Obsessively Detailed Map of American Literature's Most Epic Road Trip
- What's Warming the World?
- A Guide to Who is Fighting Whom in Syria
- The Atlantic Slave Trade in Two Minutes
I really love this series, but I feel like a few of the infographics selected were overly-hard to read. Not because they were interactive or large (which was an easy problem to since I could find them online) but because the graphs were unnecessarily complex/hard to interpret or had data the graphic didn't/couldn't explain (was missing a key, etc). On the excellent side, there is a beautiful 8-page foldout of a NatGeo infographic and a charming graphic of Popemobiles over the years. Of importance to bibliophiles, there's one that tracks literary road trips in the US and I'd encourage you to go to the webpage and use the interactive bits.
I'm giving this a tentative 4-star rating because I really enjoyed what I read. Unfortunately I had to return it to the library so I didn't get to do a deep dive like I have in the past. I'll almost certainly check it out again in a month or two when I need something diverting.
Something for nearly everyone. I have been studying the visual representation of data and this is a good source to see what works, some better than others. Several of the examples were inspiring enough to dive into source materials.
I have been slowly working my way through these for the last month or so. Really gorgeous representations of information - I just wish there was some way to collect infographics more along a particular theme, maybe? Or that so many of them weren't designed for web interaction, which renders the teeeeeeny tiny text in print versions nearly unreadable. Still, a good collection to browse for inspiration.