![]() >'I tried to give a sense of the raw creativity out there.' They include Bear 71, an astonishing hybrid documentary by the National Film Board of Canada and an eye-opening video clip that illustrates New York City's carbon emissions as a stream of huge, bouncing CG spheres. And recognizing that much of today's best data viz work doesn't remain static on our screens, Cook got Eric Rodenbeck, founder of Stamen Design, to pick 10 interactive pieces for the book. "I know for a fact that there are entries in here that someone who is maybe more orthodox in their views are not going to care for, or thinks could be better in some way." Still, he's pleased with the inclusiveness of the collection. "I tried really hard to give a sense of all the approaches people are taking with infographics, and the raw creativity that's out there," Cook says. Ultimately, the list of contributors includes not just the types of data journalists Cook once worked with in the newsroom, but a diverse cast of artists, statisticians, developers, and more. But there are also decidedly more idiosyncratic works, like Tom Scocca's hand-drawn chart ranking past Super Bowl halftime shows on Alfred Kinsey's heterosexual-homosexual rating scale, and Evan Roth's fantastic Multi-Touch Paintings, in which the artist documents today's ubiquitous smartphone gestures by swiping to unlock and playing Angry Birds with inky thumbs. There are other polished, prime-time pieces from pubs like National Geographic and the Guardian. There are a full dozen pieces from the New York Times, where a team of incredibly talented designers have been putting out top-notch (and Tufte-approved) work reliably over the last several years. ![]() The book showcases plenty of orthodox work but includes a good deal of not-exactly-orthodox work, too. "It's such a diverse and interesting medium, I felt like it would be a far less interesting collection–less satisfying for readers and less intellectually engaging–if we did only that one type of infographic." Ultimately, Cook found that the stuff popping up around the fringes of the burgeoning field was often the most interesting. "I thought it would be a mistake to hew to that definition," he explains. Still, Cook resisted that narrow view in making his selections. There are certain rigorous approaches to clarity and efficiency that have emerged as best practices for data visualizations–all encapsulated by what you could call "the Tufte approach," Cook says, referring to the influential data-viz master Edward Tufte, who advocated information density and highly distilled functionality. ![]() "It was very clear to me at first that there's an orthodox view of what an infographic is," he explains. >Cook had to figure out what, exactly, the word 'infographic' means. Along the way he established a brain trust of designers, editors, artists and data experts to help him collect good examples of the craft, but he alone made the final call for what made it in the book, and that involved tackling one very tough question: Cook had to figure out what, exactly, the word "infographic" really means today. Last year, the Pulitzer-prize winning journalist was tapped to edit the first volume of The Best American Infographics, a job that involved poring over hundreds of examples to come up with the 60-some pieces that ended up in the book. A radical re-mapping of the US that shows 50 states with equal population.
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