The Center for Graphic Facilitation

31 Days in Iraq

From www.informationclearinghouse.info:

02/06/06 New York Times
In January more than 800 people — soldiers, security officers and civilians — were killed as a result of the insurgency in Iraq. While the daily toll is noted in the newspapers and on TV, it is hard for many Americans to see these isolated reports in a broader context.

The map, based on data from the American, British and Iraqi governments and news reports, shows the dates, locations and circumstances of deaths for the first month of the year

Given the fog of war, the information may be incomplete. Nonetheless, it is our effort to visually depict the continuing human cost of the Iraq war.

Adriana Lins de Albuquerque is a doctoral student in political science at Columbia University. Alicia Cheng is a graphic designer at mgmt. design in Brooklyn.

[Thanks to Bruno Maupin]

 

Sente Co.

CGF welcomes to Jay Smethurst and Bryan Coffman, two of the best and (in Bryan's case) crustiest scribes in the business. I have admired these guys for years and always enjoyed working with them.

Sente is a term from the Asian game of Go and means initiative, or a move that carries initiative, by requiring a follow-up.

Located in Orlando, Florida, they have positioned their firm as applying visualization to conference services and producing not only captivating graphics during presentations, but also constructing complex animated story maps, websites and book-length conference summaries. They are accomplished consultants and facilitators as well, helping organizations through strategic modeling.

They are the house scribes for the Sante Fe Institute, a scientific research community emphasizing multidisciplinary collaboration in pursuit of understanding the common themes that arise in natural, artificial, and social systems.

Jay and Bryan are also partners of InnovationLabs. Recent work can be seen at the Legg Masons' Thought Leader Forum or www.senteco.com.

Visual Complexity

[Thanks to Jason Simmons of GradientLabs, who sent in this site in an email titled, "Yowza!"]

If Edward Tufte is the master teacher of visualizing data, then VisualComplexity.com is the treasure trove of data-driven visuals.

"Complexity is a challenge by itself," writes Portugal native, Manuel Lima. This project to map the maps that illuminate intricate networks has grown out of Manuel's work at the Design+Technology program at Parsons School of Design, where he earned an MFA.

Currently working as an interaction designer at R/GA Interactive, Lima has created VisualComplexity as an integrated and extensive resource on the topic.

However, it often looks more like an exquisite butterfly collection. The resulting gallery of images is a powerful--and beautiful--filter through which one can see the invisible webs that connect the systems we depend upon: the biological, the cosmic, the financial, the social.

Disaster Timelines

From contributor, Jarrell McAlister, we received a link to Disaster Timelines, which contains several well-laid out graphics chronicalling disaters and terror attacks in last 30 years or so.

Produced by Claire B. Rubin & Associates, a disaster research and consulting firm in Virginia, each timeline shows  major focusing events by year and the influences that each event had on major outcomes–– reports and analyses; federal statutes, regulations and executive orders; federal response plans; and major federal organizational changes.

• Terrorism Time Line: Major Focusing Events and U.S. Outcomes (1993-2004)
• Disaster Time Line: Major Focusing Events and U.S. Outcomes (1969-2004)
• Major Terrorism Events and Their U.S. Outcomes (1988-2003).
• The Homeland Security Time Line (2003)

Order any or all in hardcopy direct from the authors.

Danes In Flames

I used to get in trouble for drawing cartoons all the time. In middle school, that is. And the only time I come close to being burned in effigy is when I attempt to draw portraits of women. The recent inflammations caused by caricatures of the prophet Muhammad are most disturbing. Of course the irony is that the cartoons were considered offensive in "characterizing Muslims as violent extremists", which incited Muslims in Indonesia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria and other countries to protests and acts of extreme violence directed towards Danish people, businesses and embassies.

To see a timeline of the events leading up to the current protests, click here. Technorati ranks the jyllands-posten+mohammed tags as number one today.

Visit Wikipedia to see what the hubbub is all about and to see the cartoons themselves.