Star Mapper
European Space Agency
The ESA Star Mapper is a visualization tool that allows you to explore various aspects of more than 60.000 stars from the Hipparcos mission.
open project
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Many organizations have art on the wall. But wouldn't it be even greater if that piece of art was a unique representation of your company? An abstract image, based on data of your organization.
One of the most important skills for visualization design is knowing how to design, and being able to critically evaluate your own design or that of others. Skills to use tools to create a visualization are of course very important, too. But just being an expert in a tool does not guarantee the correctness, quality and aesthetics of your design. Tools are a means to an end. This workshop is designed to improve your fundamental visual literacy, and data visualization design skills. It's about why visualizations are designed the way they are, what makes a good design and what doesn't, how to improve a visualization design, create alternative designs and how to critically evaluate a visual representation of data.
After this workshop you will be more knowledgeable about the design decisions involved in a data visualization design; you will be able to think more critically about a visualization design, and be able to come up with design improvements or alternatives.
The target audience for the workshop is rather broad; from designers to researchers to people just being fascinated with visualization and want to learn more about it. It obviously makes sense if you work, or intend to work with visual representations of data on a regular basis. And of course, actively participating in the workshop will make sure that you get the most out of it.
This is not a technical workshop, but a design workshop. No software programming skills are required. The exercises of the workshop will primarily consist of discussions, brainstorming and sketching. No laptops are required, just paper and (colored) pens and pencils. And a beamer for me to show the slides.
The minimum class size is 5. The maximum class size is 25.
It is a 1-day workshop, starting around 9.30am, and ends at around 5pm.
This is a private workshop, which means that in principle the workshop will be hosted at your organization. If this is not possible for some reason, we will discuss alternatives.
The total cost of the workshop is € 5.500, regardless of class size. This is excluding tax, my travel and optional accommodation to visit your organization.
The definition and process of creating a data visualization is discussed. A warm-up exercise and a critique exercise will sharpen your critical evaluation skills. Throughout the workshop you will work on a larger project during some of the exercises. At the end of the workshop each group will present the final result.
Characteristics of data and the impact of these characteristics on the design of a visualization are discussed. A supporting exercise will make you familiar with looking at data from a visualization perspective.
Why is someone using a visualization? What should he get out of it? We will look at common ways a user will get information out of a visualization. An exercise will help you develop a strong concept for a visualization.
How are the concept and the data turned into a design? How can you represent data in such a way that it makes sense? How do you make something stand out, or belong to each other? We will explore some of the many design decisions you will face when designing a visualization.
I have helped organizations like Scientific American, Popular Science and Nature communicate scientific research to a broad audience using data visualization.
I have helped organizations like Philips, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and Markplaats find and communicate insights in data by creating lightweight custom visual analysis tools so they had a better understanding of their data within their organization.
I have helped organizations like Unicef, Unesco, World Economic Forum and Gavi communicate important messages to the general public using data visualization.
I have helped organizations like Nielsen and Hogeschool van Amsterdam to create visualizations for creative and aesthetic expressions.
I have had the honor to be a judge for visualization contests, such as Malofiej (Spain), National Science Foundation (USA) and Visualizing.org (USA).
I have shared my knowledge and showed my work by speaking at conferences, such as Visualizing Knowledge (Finland), Visualized (USA), Malofiej (Spain), Big Data for Media (UK) and Infographics Congres (The Netherlands).
My work has been exhibited at venues like Foosaner Art Museum (USA), Ars Electronica (Austria) and Graphic Design Museum Groningen (The Netherlands).
My work has appeared in books, such as The Functional Art (Alberto Cairo), Design for Information (Isabel Mireilles), New Challenges for Data Design (David Behanic) and Best American Infographics 2013 (Gareth Cook).
I have had the honor to collaborate with world class data visualizers, such as Moritz Stefaner and Interactive Things.
I share my thoughts on Twitter and collect images that I find beautiful on Pinterest.
