What Software do you use for Infographics?

OmniGraffle

A few readers have written emails to me asking about what software to use to create infographics.  My needs are pretty simple for my day job, so I only have a handful of tools that I use loaded onto my MacBook.  But the graphics I create are fairly simple, and don't use massive amounts of data.

• OmniGraffle
• FreeMind
• MindNode
• Vector Designer
• Microsoft Office
  

Yes, I included MS Office in the list because there are some really cool things you can do with Excel and PowerPoint.  I'll post some examples in the future.

What software do you use?

Post about your favorite software in the comments and share your "must have" software with everyone here.

Map of Online Communities

Greetings from the Blogipeligo!

A fun infographic from xkcd.com that uses a map image to communicate the relative sizes of the different types of online communities.  I was impressed that I at least recognized most of them, and actually participate in some of them.

When are you at risk online?

From the Mozilla website, and obviously a part of their sales pitch.  I picked up that the calendar arrangement of the squares is in fact correct for 2006.  Its getting the small things right that help make good infographics.

An independent study shows that, in 2006, IE users were vulnerable to online threats 78% of the time. Firefox users? Only 2%.

“At risk” defined as publicly available exploits with no patch. Source: “Internet Explorer users Unsafe for 284 Days in 2006” Brian Krebs, Washington Post, 1/4/2007

Who Owns the West?

Found on digg.com, this map was posted on strangemaps.com.  The portion of each state shows the amount of land in each state owned by the Federal Government, but not the specific location.  It's centered in each state just to show the relative size.

This map appeared as an illustration to ‘Can the West Lead Us To A Better Place?‘, an article in Stanford Magazine, a periodical for and about alumni from that university.

iPhone 3G under the hood

Will all of the hype around the launch of the iPhone 3G, I wanted to share a simple infographic showing the circuitboard from inside one of the new phones.  It clearly identifies each major component and also adds what that compnent does inside the phone.  The graphic really adds a significant amount of depth to the article.

The full article is from TechOnline.

Map of the World 2.0

This world mosaic is created from 1,001 Web 2.0 icons/logos and each one is a clickable link to its respective site.  It was created using AndreaMosaic photo software, by the team at AppAppeal.

Thanks Jelle for sending in the link!

The Map of Scientific Paradigms

One of the projects from Information Esthetics, the Map of Scientific Paradigms by Kevin Boyack, Dick Klavans and W. Bradford Paley shows how scientific papers in different fields are connected through their citations.

As to what the image depicts, it was constructed by sorting roughly 800,000 scientific papers into 776 different scientific paradigms (shown as red and blue circular nodes) based on how often the papers were cited together by authors of other papers. Links (curved lines) were made between the paradigms that shared common members, then treated as rubber bands, holding similar paradigms closer to one another when a physical simulation forced them all apart: thus the layout derives directly from the data. Larger paradigms have more papers. Labels list common words unique to each paradigm.

 Thanks for sending in the link Alwyn!

The Internet's Undersea World

An infographic map from the The Guardian in the UK, a map showing the few underwater cables that connect the world.

Found on digg.com

The iPhone Timeline

From iPhoneGold.org, is a cool little iPhone timeline.  I couldn't find an author to credit, just the website.

Found on digg.com

U.S. Flag Infographic

For the 4th of July, I wanted to post a new link to the U.S. flag as an infographic, but it looks like the "Meet The World" brazilian website that I posted about in February 2008 is down right now.  I still have the image, and its from the flag series by artist Icaro Doria. 

Icaro Doria is Brazilian, 25 and has been working for the magazine Grande Reportagem, in Lisbon, Portugal, for the last 3 years. He is part of the team (with Luis Silva Dias, João Roque, Andrea Vallenti and João Roque) that produced the flags campaign which has been circulating the Earth in chain letters via e-mail.