Designers, artists, visualization junkies listen up! I know that sometimes it can be difficult to find inspiration, which is why I want to help you out. About a week ago, I was checking out the Visualy blog when I came across a super cool post by Visually’s Visualization Architect, Drew Skau. In his post, Drew outlines six totally cool sites to help satisfy your recommended daily dose of data visualizations.
So without further ado here’s Drew’s data visualization hit list:
- I Love Charts – Admittedly the most lighthearted recourse on the list, I Love Charts features several new visualizations each day. Most are tongue-in-cheek or “use visualization humor.” With several different visualizations posted a day. It’s a great place to routinely check out. As you can see from the graph take from their site below, it’s also a great place to get some daily laughs in.
- Daily Infographic – Another daily visualization site is Daily Infographic. Despite only having one new post per day, Daily Infographic has stockpiled a pretty cool collection of visualizations. Each new visualization comes with a brief introduction, giving you a little bit of background information on the graphic. So not only do you have access to some cool visualizations, but also you might just learn a thing or two.
- Viz of the Day from Tableau – Tableau Public is a free tool that allows anyone to create and publish an interactive visualization to the web, using their own data. Because it’s a free tool, Tableau has a massive library of nice user generated visualizations to browse. According to Drew “each day, bloggers, journalists and data enthusiasts create hundreds of visualizations using the programs.” Tableau Public has also recently launched a “Viz of the Day”. These visualizations are chosen from the very best of these Tableau Public creations.
- Infographic-a-Day – Another gem from of Drew’s picks. Here, David Warlick curates a site that is updated every weekday with one new visualization. Infographic-a-Day offers an insanely diverse variety of visualizations that if you can’t find some inspiration here – you must not have a pulse. Not only is the subject matter diverse, but so are the styles of the visualizations. The styles visuals on Infographic-a-Day span the entire gamut: from static to interactive.
- Infographic of the Day from Fast Company – If you are a little more designed focused, then check out Fast Company’s Infographic of the Day. These graphics are almost always guaranteed to be exceptionally designed and well-done. The one drawback to Fast Company is that while you are guaranteed to get one new infographic a week, the update interval isn’t what I’d like to call regular. Drew points out that “A big value-add is the analysis and/or visual breakdown that supports these visualizations, often incorporating interviews with the authors themselves.” You’re not only going to discover a totally cool visualization, but also you’ll get to learn more about it from the very guys that created it.
- Visually’s Staff Picks – Ah yes the caboose. While last, but certainly not least we have the Visually’s staff picks. If you haven’t gone and checked out this page and their picks you’re really missing out. Each weekday, about three different visualizations are selected and showcased as examples of good visualization practice, good design and interesting subject matter.
So there you have it. I hope that these sites not only help inspire you, but also provide a much needed break to your day.