The Marginalian
The Marginalian

NYTimes Data Artist Jer Thorp Visualizes Brain Pickings

This year, we asked some of our favorite visualization artists to each capture the 10 most popular Brain Pickings articles of 2010 in a single piece of artwork, and we’re revealing them one by one this month. After visualization virtuoso Stefanie Posavec, infographic master Sam Potts, UK designer Tiffany Farrant, Greek illustrator Christina Tsevis and sketchnote maestro Len Kendall, we continue with someone you may recall from pickings past — educator, writer and New York Times Data Artist in Residence Jer Thorp.

In 2010: Once Around The Sun, Jer visualizes every single read of every single Top 10 article in a rotating clock-like orbit display.

The articles, in order of popularity:

  1. Mythical Beasts & Modern Monsters — three humorous takes on the relational understanding of the monsters ecosystem.
  2. Mapping European Stereotypes — a Bulgarian designer based in London pokes fun at Europeans’ xeno-bias and the subjective reality of nationalism.
  3. 7 Image Search Tools That Will Change Your Life — 7 visually-driven image search interfaces that change how we look for, find and catalog images.
  4. 7 Must-Read Books by TED Global Speakers — selection of the 7 most compelling books by speakers at this year’s TED Global in Oxford.
  5. How Do I Explain It To My Parents — Dutch abstract artists sit down with their parents and try to explain to them what they do, to a delightfully amusing effect.
  6. Vintage Posters for Modern Movies — a look at the faux-vintage design trend as it applies to film poster design, spotlighting the work of seven contemporary designers with a retrostalgic aesthetic.
  7. How To Be Alone — a poetic manifesto for the art of solitude.
  8. Strange Worlds: Miniature Condiment Landscapes — remarkable miniature landscapes made out of spices and condiments by artist Matthew Albanese.
  9. What Does It Mean To Be Human? — three disciplines (evolutionary biology, philosophy and neuroscience) tackle the grand question of existentialism.
  10. Literary Action Figures — you know you want them.

See more of Jer’s juicy data viz here and follow him on Twitter for one of our absolute favorite feeds.


Published December 30, 2010

https://www.themarginalian.org/2010/12/30/jer-thorp-visualizes-best-of-brain-pickings/

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