Initial Inspiration

I created a data visualization last year and so I wanted to use my existing knowledge in this area of digital media and create another visualization for this creative project. I began with reading David McCandless's book named Information is Beautiful (2009). He describes his book as, 'miscellaneous facts and ideas, interconnected visually. A visual miscellaneum. A series of experiments in making information approachable and beautiful' (McCandless 2009, p.2). His book displayed a range of information, covering various categories, which was visually engaging and aesthetically pleasing.

For initial inspiration I focused on my main interests. As a young female I'm very interested in fashion and beauty and after my degree I hope to pursue a career in the women's magazine industry; thus I thought I would combine both of these interests and focus my data visualization on the fashion and beauty articles in leading women's magazines. I really like McCandless' visualization named In 25 Words or Less, Most common words used by (in)famous columnists (Fig. 1, seen below).
   Fig.1                                                                            The visualization reflects the most common
words used by each journalist, with the larger words being the words which were used most frequently. One idea which stimulated from this visualization, would be displaying  the most frequent words used in beauty and fashion articles, but in the shape of a woman's body or face. This has been demonstrated by TBWA/Chiat/Day when they were hired to produce a series of typographic portraits to promote the 51st annual Grammy awards. An example is seen in Fig. 2, with their portrait of Thom Yorke from Radiohead (TypeTheory, 2009).

Fig. 2

Another data visualization which interested me was McCandless' visualization on salad dressing, Salad Dressings, All in proportion (Fig. 3, seen below). 

           Fig. 3                                                   I like the outline of the salad dressing bottles and the different

colours used to indicate the different ingredients used to create the salad dressing. I thought I could apply this to my idea with the women's magazine articles and draw an outline of a woman with different colours used to indicate the most common colours mentioned in the fashion articles.




















Bibliography

Fig. 1. McCandless, D. (2009) In 25 Words or Less, Most common words used by (in)famous columnists. [Diagram].

Fig. 2. Thom Yorke. (2009) [Illustration] At: http://www.typetheory.com/?p=741 (accessed 2 October 2013).

Fig. 3. McCandless, D. (2009) Salad Dressings, All in proportion. [Diagram].

McCandless, D. (2009) Information is Beautiful. United Kingdom: HarperCollins UK.

TypeTheory. (2009) Grammy Typographic Portraits. Available from: http://www.typetheory.com/?p=741. (accessed 2 October 2013).