Sorta Urgent - Interesting Graphs

Topia

I am doing a project for school, and due to a death in the family have been unable to complete it this weekend, I have just recieved word from my professor that he will give my until the end of tomorrow night to hand it in, and have only one need of help from you on it.

I need to find 3 interesting graphs/charts, something unique, a cool way of displayign data. I'm thinking of doing a worlde for the wiki page for statistics (it's a stats course), but I was wondering if any of you have seen any other interesting graphs/charts around that you would like to share with me (with a brief description of what it is about, if you can't provide a link to a website that would describe it otherwise).

Thanks a ton

edit: made this post farther down, second question

Oh here's a secondary question, a little while ago, not too long however, I saw this interactive online... like train map, but for the internet. It had stations where all the major websites were, and the higher up showed the more popular the site. It also had multiple "rails" for different categories of web pages. Anyone of you see this? I think I got the link off reddit.

RUNN1NGMAN

http://www.edwardtufte.com

This guy has made a living studying how to display information graphically. You should be able to find one of his books in the library, at least.

Dark Moon

infosthetic, a blog devoted entirely to this precise topic.

Pure Din

I love the interactive graphs on The New York Times website.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/02/23/movies/20080223_REVENUE_GRAPHIC.html
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/08/04/sports/olympics/20080804_MEDALCOUNT_MAP.html
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/04/07/us/20090407-immigration-occupation.html#view=all

Just for a few examples.

Topia

Oh here's a secondary question, a little while ago, not too long however, I saw this interactive online... like train map, but for the internet. It had stations where all the major websites were, and the higher up showed the more popular the site. It also had multiple "rails" for different categories of web pages. Anyone of you see this? I think I got the link off reddit.

edit: I do not need this for my assignment, and thank you all greatly for your help, it was perfect. However, I do wish that if someone knows (from my terrible description of the interactive map I am looking for) the link to this map I would love to still be able to see it. Thanks.

EskimoDave

http://graphjam.com/

MagicToaster

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/10/18/charts-and-graphs-modern-solutions/

JoeUser

GE Graph makes some neat things out of Google Earth

EggyToast

This is one of the most famous information design graphs. Your prof has probably seen it a million times, but it would at least show that you're paying attention:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Minard.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Joseph_Minard

onceling

Topia wrote: »

Oh here's a secondary question, a little while ago, not too long however, I saw this interactive online... like train map, but for the internet. It had stations where all the major websites were, and the higher up showed the more popular the site. It also had multiple "rails" for different categories of web pages. Anyone of you see this? I think I got the link off reddit.

It's called Web Trend Map. Here is one copy:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/formforce/3409362834/sizes/o/

I am not sure which year this is, they do one for each year.

Edit: Better view:

http://www.zoomorama.com/2477f0e8b447bb6570493cdac464c41f

Feral

I'm going to second the Edward Tufte suggestion. His books are awesome.

GoodOmens

I've seen some lectures by an economist named Hans Rosling on TED.com. He uses animated graphs to examine the relationship between wealth, lifespan, fertility and so forth. Plus at the end of one he swallows a sword, so there's that.

SpongeCake

This is one hell of an interesting graph...



...showing survival rates on the Titanic.