So I can’t remember how I arrived at Scientific American and these two data visualizations but upon first impression, I really like them.
Why?
- Both are about topics and issues about and related to women. I am a woman, therefore I am partial to stories about anything that could affect me or enlighten me about what it is to be a woman.
- At first glance, they are beautiful. Not in that omg, wow, cool sense but in that I’m looking out on a lake and watching the sunrise; those moments before the sunrises. Slow, quietly beautiful. I think what I love most is the contrast between the organic, fluid shapes and the harder edges; the natural and scientific for lack of better terms. Hmm…
- In diving in more, the content is rich, helpful and fascinating. I took a physiology and anatomy class so more medical jargon of The Menstrual Cycle is familiar to me. The Maternal Mortality visualization was just downright shocking. This was a visualization from 2009 and maternal mortality has been in the news quite a bit lately but this visualization, I think, hits hard about the U.S. Seriously, flat-out sad.
I need to subscribe to Scientific American. If looking at and studying more visualizations is key to learning to be a better data visualization designer, then I think this magazine would be helpful. I’m also thinking that I want to collect visualizations about women.