Similar to a mindmapping exercise, the author of MOTD #58, Duff McDonald and Vanity Fair, examined central themes, words and messaging gleaned from Bob Dylan’s XM radio show to represent a snapshot into the mind of the legendary American folk artist.

An interesting categorization model that focused more on Dylan’s own lyrical stylings was used to present the findings; a method that draws emotive and familiar connections with anyone familiar with the musicians catalogue.

This methodology translates well into Information Mapping in general, in that, anytime a user can locate themselves within the artifact or material, even if that connection if merely a recollection of past affection for a particular element, the engagement has been magnified immeasurably within the user’s own experience.

Well worth a look through!

With information sourced from www.opensecrets.org and illustration drawn by Serifcan Ozcan, the 57th MOTD focuses on what BHO and JMAC’s suits would look like if they were NASCAR drivers.

Each company logo is categorized by at the legend industry type, which can be referenced at the legend. {top right}

I found the relational design vehicle to be a compelling method for expressing intended meaning.

The only criticism I’d levy against this is the lumping of FedEX and MoveOn.org into the same “misc. Business categories” as one is a commercial logistics operator, and the other is a partisan political organization.

Regardless, it’s a creative way to drive home an unglamorous perspective on American political candidates.

From DTN, or designing the news, a group which specializes in visually editings the headlines or “representing news headlines by replacing the words with symbols, while maintaining the message”, hails MOTD #56.

The philosopher in me enjoys open-ended questions, and I feel that this approach to news headlines allows for a reader to draw conclusions based on their own experiences and opinions rather than have to digest those viewpoints of journalists.

Also, the use of imagery always boosts info. retention, so it’s quite possible that a viewer would strike up conversation about a news headline employing this approach as opposed to a linear text based message somewhere else in the paper.

Be sure to check out the images without the titles and you’ll realize they may not even be necessary to communicate the message!

Check out this draft concept for a business card which helps people identify and characterize those they are associated with. The proposed card uses Bluetooth technology to track a person’s movement & spoken activity during a meeting, which is then recorded and displayed.

I’d be very interested to see this concept furthered, potentially into areas such as human networking, past achievements, and individual skill sets. However, I could see such an upfront visibility into one’s behavior, that it may neutralize some of the stagecraft aspect of the workplace.

Without a doubt though, if properly innovated, this proposed tool would help one to navigate towards outcomes!

Today’s installment of MOTD hails from CartoonBrew.com, and depicts the processes and pathways for a given Disney flick from the brain of Walt himself, to the viewing audience in theatres.

Pay attention to the use of different shapes to denote varying types of information — an impactful representational style to distinguish the key story elements within a graphic.

I found it particularly interesting that there seems to be just as many support groups / functions as there are creative steps in the process. One could deduce from this type of view that the production and management activities are equally as important as the ‘creative’ process.

This MOTD created by Transportation For America, with the author unknown at this time, centers around shifting public transit trends and is a great illustration of using not only multivariate technique (the width of the lines is determined by the level of ridership in each city), but also using the a topic relevant layout to make a point.

By this, I mean that the image is about transportation, and they’ve used a metro map style of layout to start and end particular cities “track” in either service cuts, fare hikes or job loss, depending on which metric applies to a particular cities transportation bureau. I believe this technique, topic relevant architecture and medium, allows for not only a deeper emotive connection with the intended audience but for an increased level of information retention.

Thanks to the Maga intern, David McClain, for showing me this!

Today’s MOTD is a Obama campaign poster, designed by Aaron Allen, the creative director @ Wieden+Kennedy. It is titled Unite The States of America, and is an interesting use of a Venn Diagram as a vehicle for messaging. Obviously, we all know what a Venn Diagram is used for, but one would not have thought to use the actual design to further the message’s impact — very clever.

I found this to be a particularly interesting “vision graphic”, a tool that Maga employs in everyone of it’s maps.

This installment of MOTD was created by an Israeli Advertising Agency: McCann Erickson, based out of Tel Aviv. The series of images was created under the creative direction of Ido Ben Dor, who has comically depicted the differences between a man and a woman’s decision-making construct.

I’ll let the viewer draw their own conclusions on a mans’ cognitive priorities versus those of his female counterparts to avoid repercussion, but I will call your attention to the powerful use of contrast that McCann I.B.Dor utilized.

Moreover, this MOTD speaks to where information mapping systems originated from, specifically, advertising campaigns.

Cheers!

The fiftieth installment of MOTD hails from the cover of my favorite periodical, The Economist, March 21-27, 2009 edition, and is illustrated by artist Jon Berkeley.

In light of instability in the global market, the information presented within the graphics is both topical and foreboding. And while the central theme of the graphic is, as the title aptly states, a Chinese perspective towards the world, this issue is not the driving cause for anointing this image as the 50th MOTD.

Rather, what struck me about this graphic, was that it is basically constructed of a basic landscape architecture and a few well placed labels, and yet, it’s chockfull of information pertaining to foreign policy, international conflicts, and economic woes. What the artist has accomplished with this work is a fairly comprehensive high level snapshot of China’s decision-making environment, through a masterful use of four central tenets of information mapping: Representation, Sizing, Placement and Selection.

With those four lenses, take the time to re-examine the image, and you’ll quickly realize the sheer breadth of information a information graphic conveys when attention to principle is upheld.