Information is Beautiful
Learning Plus UK’s assistant project manager, Sarah, Swan, recently read the book Information is Beautiful by David McCandless. She was so impressed with it that she asked if she could review the book for our blog. Naturally, we said yes. So, take it away Sarah!
I am no data enthusiast. I love stories and I love words, so I approached this book with a certain amount of caution, but here I am, completely smitten. The author, David McCandless, calls Information is Beautiful a ‘visual miscellaneum’, which is a description almost as delicious as the book itself! This ‘Pandora’s Box’ is a perfect union of science and art, mathematics and imagination, design and data. I have rarely opened a book that I immediately bought three copies of.
Before you read Information is Beautiful, you should probably warn your loved ones that moments of shared time will dwindle. What time there is will now centre upon you bombarding them with your newfound knowledge. They deserve to be warned!
I myself started the sharing process with some of the funnies and oddities contained in the book. Did you know that left-handed men are 26% wealthier than right-handed men? Or that there is a peak of relationship break-ups on April Fool’s Day! More people are killed during freak lawnmower accidents than are murdered and falling out of bed ends more lives than falling coconuts.
When it comes to ‘international number ones’, you may ask what the UK is best at. Queuing? Manners? Nope, it's CCTV! It could be worse. We could live in America, which leads the world in serial killers, or Argentina (horse meat) or Malaysia (rollercoasters). And did you know that policemen have, on average, a lower IQ than estate agents and Jodie Foster is more intelligent than your average GP. Who would have thought that Sharon Stone, as well as Steve Martin, has a higher IQ than Stephen Hawking.
And there are also plenty of more sobering statistics. Of a 12,106 reported rapes in the UK, only 2,542 cases get to court and just 690 end in successful prosecution. Super-imposed maps from 1978 and 2008 of icecaps, lakes and the ozone layer make for truly frightening reading in terms of climate change and the ‘Middle East relationship’ map clearly shows that there are more players than potential solutions.
This is no mere book of lists to be left in the bathroom. The facts hit you hard, because your eye has been drawn to the intuitive designs, the colour and a hundred little details that will go undetected unless you are a graphic artist. For those who are inspired to learn more about graphic design, and what exactly makes one work and another not, I would recommend reading Edward Tufte’s Beautiful Evidence, and Steele & Ilinsky’s BeautifulVisualisation.
Carly Fiorina, who was once chairwoman of Hewlett Packard, said ‘the goal is to transform data into information, and information into insight’ and this beautiful book is just such a gateway.
Here at Learning Plus UK, we aim to do the same. The world of education is one that runs on data collection, its interpretation and finally, its presentation to decision-makers. We design bespoke data reports for a number of clients in a new electronic format, and we are using the types of information visualisation that McCandless lists as Mandala, Coxcomb and Sun Burst. It feels like this is the tip of the iceberg (or Icicle Pie – see page 128!) and, if we don’t already, we look forward to providing you with the pages of insight you require to offer young people a better future.