Setla 1

Kelsey Setla
Sherrin Frances
English 212
4 March 2015
Data Visualization: A Journey from Simple to Sophisticated
For years, information has been pounded into individuals skulls through many mediums
including number lines, time lines, graphs, and photographs. All of these mediums are relatively
simple in regards to how they convey information and how much of that information can be
displayed at once. However, the newest technological innovations have allowed for many new
types of informational displays. Some of the most intriguing displays of information come from
the creation of complex digital infographics. David McCandless, a digital information artist, was
a guest at the TED Talks seminar in England and is also the founder of his own website that
features his completely unique infographics relating to very interesting and contrasting concepts.
In order to understand the genius behind McCandless works in data visualization, it is crucial to
understand the background of data visualization in history, analyze the primary concepts that the
infographics convey, and make connections between the simple beginnings and the sophisticated
reality of informational data visualization today.
Throughout history, data has been important in gathering new information and building
on things that have already been discovered; however, data began as simple, linear structures that
did little in the realm of comparisons of ideas and concepts. In the book Visual Complexity,
Manuel Lima explores the humble beginnings of data visualization. In this book, Lima describes
the birth of traditional, linear informational displays with the term taxonomy. By definition,
taxonomy is a formal, hierarchal form of data organization. He describes this by comparing
taxonomy to the structure of a tree. He poses the idea that in a structure that is organized like a
tree, there is too much room for mistakes. He does so by explaining that when you chop down a
tree at the trunk, you lose the function of all of the elements that feed off of the trunk of the tree.

Setla 2
Conversely, a folksonomy is the organization of information in an intertwined system that
feeds off of multiple power sources. Lima connects folksonomy to the structure of invasive
bambooa type of bamboo that starts as one main shoot but creates several independent root
structures that allow the plant to continue to prosper regardless of challenges with the original
shoot structure. Throughout his argument, Lima uses these terms to describe his ideas pertaining
to data. He asserts that taxonomy has lost most of its necessity in society and that folksonomy is
the best way to organize data in a new age; nevertheless, David McCandless has taken the basic
principles of data organization and taken them to an even higher level than ever before.
Although he still uses the foundations of taxonomy and folksonomy, McCandless has
taken data visualization into a whole new realm. He still focuses mainly on the intermingling of
data that is supplemented by folksonomy; however, he has taken this focus and shifted it to the
digital age of creating interactive infographics that show comparisons between data sets and
allow those analyzing the data to break it down into their own data sets. For example, the
infographic following this paragraph, entitled Mountains out of Molehills, was created by
McCandless in 2014. The premise of this infographic is to display the fears inflamed by media in
accordance with the actual number of deaths caused by these fears. The infographic on
McCandless website, informationisbeautiful.net, is actually interactive and has two combined
graphs that show these two variables in comparison with one another. However, the image below
is just the first graph which shows the media inflamed fears. If you swipe the mouse over the
media on the website, it displays that most of the fears that the media reported actually had very
little or no correlation to the amount of deaths seen in the world. This type of interactive
information makes things more interesting and easier to understand. The way that McCandless
has taken traditional data and turned it into something interactive and useful shows the transition

Setla 3
of data from strictly sets of numbers to something much more beautiful and complexhence the
name of his website.

Figure 1. Mountains out of Molehills, an example of McCandless works with interactive

applications.
When visiting McCandless website, you can see many more graphs and infographics
very similar to the one pictured above. Nevertheless, they are all interesting and organized in a
more fantastical way than most people are used to seeing. At the TED Talks in Europe, where
McCandless spoke, he stated, It feels like we're all suffering from information overload or data
glutVisualizing information, so that we can see the patterns and connections that matter and
then designing that information so it makes more sense, or it tells a story, or allows us to focus
only on the information that's important. This is just one reason that he thinks that information
can be beautiful. McCandless also has a paragraph in the About section of his website,
informationisbeautiful.net, that describes his passion for making information interesting to look
at by using complex programs to create simple data organizations that depict important
information. It is easy to see in these infographics that there are traces of the roots of

Setla 4
folksonomy. These traces are evident in Mountains out of Molehills, for example. Without the
information being related in multiple ways, there would be no correlation between the different
fears and global deaths. All of his works take complex ideas that are related in some way to
create images that help society better understand problems we are encountering.
One extreme commonality that is revealed through each of the examples that are
available on McCandless website is that all diagrams are still related to the history of data,
regardless of new technologies that are available in the digital age. It is obvious that there is not
really any way for data visualization to deviate from the fundamentals of data organization, since
most information is still contrived from the same basic ideas.
In conclusion, the history of data visualization shows how far society has come in the
new millennium in the realm of information organization. McCandless attention to detail and his
interest in the spread of information has turned data from something that is not only useful, but
into something that is intriguing and beautiful. Each of his diagrams explores a whole new way
of portraying information and takes another step in the right direction. From the basic concept of
taxonomy to the age of folksonomy and now into the digital era of complex diagrams, one thing
is certain, data is an extremely important part of, relatively, everything we do.
Works Cited
Lima, Manuel. "From Trees to Networks." Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information.
N.p.: Princeton Architectural, 2011. 43-72. ProQuest. Web. 3 Mar. 2015.
McCandless, David. "Mountains Out of Molehills." Digital image. Information Is Beautiful.
Information Is Beautiful, Aug. 2014. Web. 25 Feb. 2015.
McCandless, David. "The Beauty of Data Visualization." TED. TED Global, July 2010. Web. 25
Feb. 2015.
"Taxonomy and Folksonomy." Taxonomy and Folksonomy. Knitivo, 2015. Web. 03 Mar. 2015.