Design, Science and Technology

By 2050, the world’s population is projected to approach nine billion. With more people will come more developed land—a lot more.

Urbanization, agriculture, energy, and mining put 20 percent of the world’s remaining forests, grasslands, and other natural ecosystems at risk of conversion by 2050.

With that kind of expansion, there are sure to be harms—namely clean water, clean air, and biodiversity. 

To mitigate some of those risks, scientists and geographers at the Nature Conservancy have taken a crucial step by mapping the potential impact that human growth will have on natural lands.

It’s the most comprehensive look to date at how major forms of development will take over fragile ecosystems, if left unchecked...

Via Lauren Moss

Topography, architecture and traffic routes give every city a unique structure.
'These conditions create the typical and individual inner structure of a city. I didn’t only want to show these structures in the conventional way from above, but also including the exact three-dimensionality of topography and buildings – a real world visualisation.
The OpenStreetMap data enabled me to visualize the satellite-based information using DEM Earth in Cinema 4D. The results are some extraordinary views of large capitals and small towns.'

Via Lauren Moss

Via Eric_Determined / Eric Silverstein

Big Questions are speculative, exploratory, and systemic. As the name implies, they are also answered at scale: Rather than distilling a small slice of a dataset into a concrete answer, Big Questions look at entire datasets and reveal small questions you wouldn’t have thought to ask...

 

Via Lauren Moss

DataAppeal software provides an alternative to complex mapping tools through an easy to use, web-based GIS application that renders typical data files into beautifully designed multi-dimensional maps and datascapes instantly. For architects, landscape architects, urban planners and designers of the built form, the application is a great tool to utilize evidence-based information to expose new site patterns, to provide alternative 3D modes of mapping for communication purposes, and to aid in the initiation of master plan designs.

It’s also a refreshing way to visually engage professional and students with their site-based data...

Via Lauren Moss

We are living in the information age. The amount of information stored, transfered, and processed is growing at a staggering rate.

From the common megabyte to the mind-boggling yottabyte, this infographic serves as a guide to understanding the world of bytes!

Via Lauren Moss

Colour and Space is a project by designers Mie Frey Damgaard and Peter Ørntoft for decorative paint brand Jotun. It digs through Turkish Pinterest boards, analyzing two fairly basic but powerful categories: color and location. The results are placed into simple pie charts, showing preferred colors in places around the home like kids’ rooms (the faintest pink), living rooms (maize), and kitchens (white).

Colour and Space leverages big data to boil all that design into the simplest of actionable metrics--what color should my living room be? Because what you’re responding to in some random interior design photo may be the unique furnishings, but it’s just as often the color--that striking palette that’s all of a trip to Lowe’s away from reality.

Via Lauren Moss

In our Data Visualization 101 series, we cover each chart type to help you sharpen your data visualization skills.Scatter plots have been called the “most versatile, polymorphic, and generally useful invention in the history of statistical graphics” (Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 2005).

That’s a big claim, but just as their name implies, they can take a confusing and scattered set of data and make sense of it. As such, these plots are much more than a visualization tool; they are a discovery tool. Let’s look at what makes the scatter plot so good...

Via Lauren Moss

A new interactive tool estimates the economic, urban, and demographic risks through 2030.

According to the World Resources Institute, river floods affect 21 million people in the world every year. In 2030, that number could rise to 54 million, with climate change driving the increase and urbanization putting more people in harm's way...

Via Lauren Moss

'About a year ago, we published a blog post framed as a letter to NASA, asking them to stop using rainbow color scales. The post was written out of a general frustration with rainbow color scales, but especially out of seeing field experts and leaders, like NASA, using a perceptually incorrect color scale. We weren’t alone.

Robert Simmon from NASA’s Earth Observatory has been crusading for the same changes. He’s made great progress, and as a continuation of that, he’s responding to our “letter” with a brilliant series of blog posts on proper use of colors and color scales.'

Via Lauren Moss

Ever wonder if your Facebook ads are performing better or worse than the industry standard for ROI – searching for some Facebook benchmarking data? What is the average CPM, CTR, CPC, the average cost per like, or average page like rate for your industry or business?

 

This graphic is based on data from Social.com’s study of 1 million ad units and over 114 billion impressions from January 1st to March 31st, 2013. The report analyzed the top 25 countries globally and top five countries per region based on impressions. All rates were converted to U.S. dollars using the average daily conversion rates during the reporting period.

 

You can use this data in many different ways – one of which is determining ROI of your Facebook Campaign to determine if social media is worth the ROI for your business.

Via Lauren Moss

A demographic portrait of humanity if the world were 100 people.

From data source, 100people.org:

The world population has now reached 7 billion people. This milestone inspired us to conduct research to update our statistics, and the changes over the past 5 years are remarkable. In 2006, only 1 person out of 100 would have had a college education-- today that number has jumped to 7 thanks in part to advances in higher education in Asia. The detailed research and source information can be found here and the statistics provided by Donella Meadows in 1990 that originally inspired our project can be viewed here.
Via Lauren Moss