The Graphic Account: March 14, 2013

From antique cartography to personalized logs, lots of beautiful connections mapped out this week! We also found visualizations that make sense of mythological relationships, suss out the virality of content, and a font like none other. Find out more below and then catch up on past weeks here.

[Cartography] Big Map Blog

During research for a film he was working on, The 59 King came across thousands of old, beautiful maps that would normally have been kept away from public viewing in archives or government FTP sites. With Big Map Blog, he aims to provide better access to each of these fantastic examples of cartography 5 days a week.

[Visualization] Women’s Political Rights Around the World

To mark International Woman’s Day last Friday, The Guardian created this timeline-based map to track women’s political rights throughout the last 150 years. It is startling to see that in some parts of the world, women are still not allowed to vote.

[Visualization] Zeus’s Affairs

Zeus was a promiscuous fellow, forming many relationships during his existence and procreating left, right and center. This visualization helps to demystify Zeus’s genealogy as described by a number of authors.

[Tools] Map Font

This font, created by UX designer Ben Markowitz, allows the user to create simple data maps of the U.S. by just typing out a few letters. The font acts in a similar way to Webdings, where each letter represents a state, and is easily styled with CSS. It’s also free to download!

[Social] Tweeted Trips

Want to record your travels on a map, post photos and comments? Then look no further than this handy web app. Tweeted Trips allows you to share your journey without the need for GPS equipment. All you need is your Twitter account!

[Social] Alongside.co

Ever wondered if your Foursquare friends are near you whilst you were checked in to a place? Now you can find that out with alongside.co, a web app that visualizes the proximity of your Foursquare relationships with colourful lines. Anyone at SXSW this week should definitely log in with their Foursquare account!

[Visualization] Average Commute Times

A mind-blowing amount of data has been crammed into this map, which visualizes the average commute times across the entirety of the U.S., allowing you to zoom right into your town, no matter where you live.

[Visualisation] ViralSearch

Developed by members of the Microsoft Research team, ViralSearch analyzes billions of pieces of information on Twitter news, videos and photos to determine whether something has, in fact, gone viral. Watch the short intro video here.



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