Maze and labyrinth

WAYFINDING PUZZLES.

Classic hedge maze The Longleat Maze in Wiltshire (England) has viewing bridges that give people an overview before they return to the pathways between tall hedges. Photograph by Niki Odolphie.

Definitions A maze has multiple entrances and exits, choices of direction, and dead-ends. A labyrinth has only one way in and one way out.

Garden labyrinth Below, the Edinburgh Labyrinth (Scotland) in George Square Gardens. Photograph by Di Williams.

World’s largest The Guinness Book of Records lists The Maze of Butterfly Lovers in Ningbo, China, as the largest permanent hedge maze, with a total path length of 8.38 km (5.2 miles). It opened in April this year. Designed by Adrian Fisher, it contains the shapes of two butterflies. Adrian has designed hundreds of mazes and puzzles (in various formats) all over the world. Image from Google Maps.


Labyrinth project As a celebration of the 150th anniversary of the London Underground in 2013, Mark Wallinger created a unique enamel labyrinth for every one of the 270 stations. They’re a connection to the system’s history of classic graphic design, and reflect the idea of entering the labyrinth of walkways and tunnels that make up a journey.


Photograph by Jack Gordon.

All of them are photographed here: http://labyrinthtubephoto.tumblr.com

Book cover design

EXAMPLES FROM THREE ERAS.

Vintage The beauty of these decorative book covers stands the test of time. Examples from the 18th and early 19th centuries.


Graphic animation Henning M. Lederer has brought motion to some 1950s, 60s, and 70s graphic covers.

There’s a lot more. 55 examples are shown in this video: https://vimeo.com/141891887
And 36 more here: https://vimeo.com/228577316


Modern Examples from 2016 and 2017. Below, design by Oliver Munday.

Design by Jaya Miceli. Art by Valerie Hegarty.

Design by Will Staehle.

Design by Mark Swan.

Data viz reflections

SOME THOUGHTS ON A THURSDAY.

Information upswing Stephen Few succinctly captures the position we’re in. From his book: “Signal.” On Amazon: goo.gl/mAVGLW

The best license plate This stopped me in my tracks as I approached our building. Who owns that gem? I soon had the answer: Eric Duell, who is Vice President, Analytics and Intelligence at The E.W. Scripps Company. The BMW i3 REX is electric with a gas-powered engine to extend it’s range. (Notice that data viz people are eco-conscious.)

Only one person in Ohio can have this plate, and it’s clearly not going to be me.


The sweet spot In terms of understanding, it’s halfway along the information axis. Jessica Hagy’s blog: http://thisisindexed.com

Data pretzel I see a lot of data viz, and (of course) there’s some brilliant examples, but also a lot of scary stuff. However, there’s plenty of room for optimism. Although data visualization has been around for a very long time, a fundamental component has changed: we now have unprecedented amounts of data. And there’s many new ways to edit and display this information, so let’s give the process time to develop. (Photograph © annete/123rf)

Hazardous

VISUAL WARNINGS.

The biohazard symbol was designed in 1966, by Charles Baldwin, an engineer at the Dow Chemical Company.

Below, a set of hazard warning pictograms.

GHS The Globally Harmonized System is a universal set of symbols from the United Nations.


Nuclear waste How do we warn people of buried toxic waste without words? And stop them from digging it up. We don’t know if mankind, thousands of years in the future, will understand any radiation hazard symbols, or a written warning (in any current language). This clever visual solution, by Nick Shelton, was for a School of Visual Arts infographics project.

A detail.


Mosquito sign Maleria is a huge problem in some countries.


Flight ban The items that you should not take to the airport. (From an American Airlines check-in page.)


Radiation Designed at the University of California in 1946. It symbolizes activity radiating out from an atom.


Effective We know to proceed with caution if we see this.

Roundabout

THE ULTIMATE TRAFFIC JUNCTION.

I was driving through Swindon, which is between London and Bristol, and I arrived at the “Magic Roundabout,” which has been described as the most complicated traffic intersection in the world. Five roads meet here, and five small circles feed a large central one. The traffic direction is clockwise on the small roundabouts, and counter-clockwise on the large one.  The easiest track is just to stay on the outer circle, or you can take a shorter route by heading into the central one. I did that (perhaps unintentionally), and went through with no problem. But then again, I wasn’t in the rush hour. Photo by Dickbauch.

Constructed in 1972, it took on it’s current (popular) name in the 1980s. This mega-roundabout has a good safety record, perhaps because traffic moves so slowly through it. Diagram by Hk ing.

From Google Maps.

This is not the Magic Roundabout, but it shows how this type of road feature works.

Not everyone loves this junction. Some drivers’ surveys have chosen “The Magic Roundabout” as being amongst the worst intersections in the United Kingdom.

It’s named after a long-running 1960s and 70s French/British children’s TV program.

Badges

IDENTIFICATION DESIGN.


Wartime World War II wings.

Bike Historical (and beautiful) bicycle head badges.

Soviet era I bought these enamel badges, pinned to a postcard, from a vendor on a Moscow street.

Police An essential addition to the uniform.

Scouting achievements I was in the scouts, but I didn’t earn anything like this number of merit badges.

I.D. The modern tag is very different from these twentieth-century analog predecessors.

Playing games Children like to be the sheriff etc.

VisCom Our School of Visual Communication (at Ohio University) has a simple “V” badge that we like to wear. There’s also a more detailed enamel version that is given to graduating students.


Photograph by Kate Stone (while a VisCom student): http://www.katestonephoto.com

Place names

THE LONGEST, THE SHORTEST.

58 letters I always thought that this Welsh railway station sign was the world’s longest. It means: “Saint Mary’s Church in a hollow of white hazel near the swirling whirlpool of the church of Saint Tysilio with a red cave.”

85 letters Then I came across this New Zealand sign. Translated from the Māori language: “The summit where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, the climber of mountains, the land-swallower who travelled about, played his nose flute to his loved one.”

One letter This Norwegian village has a difficult name to beat in terms of brevity. It means stream, or small river. There are several other As in Norway, Sweden and elsewhere, and many other one-letter contenders around the world, like Ô in France, and U in Vietnam.

Venn diagram

OVERLAPPING RELATIONSHIPS.

This brilliant example is by GuyBlank. There’s a t-shirt version here: goo.gl/VGA8nV

Venn diagrams are used to show commonalities and differences, primarily in mathematics, statistics and logic. Named after John Venn, a logician and philosopher, who highlighted them in an 1881 paper. They were developed from Euler diagrams of the 18th Century. By the way, Venn also built a machine that bowled cricket balls.

In the popular sector, they’re mainly used for jokes.

Below, a serious Venn diagram that shows the common uppercase letters of the Greek, Latin and Russian alphabets. (From Wikipedia)

And now back to the jokes…

 

Mitch Goldstein’s site, “A Helpful Diagram,” highlights the concerns of designers and design students: http://www.ahelpfuldiagram.com

Graphic

INSPIRATIONAL DESIGN.

This small book (with a lot of pages) gives an overview of classic graphic design. The reproductions are small (obviously), so it’s best to look for a larger version to really appreciate any particular example. Here’s a sample of the 500 pieces that the book contains.

Woolmark logo,1964 Franco Grignani

The Gutenberg Bible, c.1453-1455 Johannes Gutenberg

Metropolitan World Atlas, 2005 Joost Grooten

The Man of Letters, or Pierrot’s Alphabet, 1794 Unknown

Vertigo poster, 1958 Saul Bass

Shell logo, 1971 Raymond Loewy

Physikalischer, 1845/48 Heinrich Berghaus. Detail below. A high-res version: goo.gl/sejFrP

Mexico Olympics identity 1968 Lance Wyman

London Underground logo, 1918 Edward Johnston. A post about the Underground Map is here:
https://www.johngrimwade.com/blog/2017/07/20/underground/

Unknown Pleasures album cover, 1979 Peter Saville. A post about it is here:
https://www.johngrimwade.com/blog/2017/04/06/the-dataviz-album-cover/

The Elements of Euclid, 1847 Oliver Byrne

IBM logo, 1972 Paul Rand

Bauhaus Book, 1929 László Moholy-Nagy

Esso logo, 1933 Unknown

 

Eight by Eight: Issue 11

A NEW SEASON, A STRATOSPHERIC TRANSFER FEE.

The latest issue of my favorite football (soccer) magazine* came out a few weeks ago, just before the new season in Europe began. The cover story was right on the money. Neymar suddenly moved from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain for 222 million euros ($263 million ), which blew away the previous highest fee of 105 million euros ($116 million at the time). The deal will cost PSG nearly 500 million euros ($600 million) over a five-year period, with an annual salary of 45 million euros ($53 million) a year (including endorsements etc).

Below, some spreads from the issue. Subscribe here: https://shop.8by8mag.com/collections/subscribe

My main infographic didn’t materialize because of problems with obtaining the data, but I did get to make a million pound note.
The Bank of England doesn’t have one at the moment. Mine is an adaptation of the new plastic fiver.

* Note: I’m the infographics director.