Infosthetics

This March 23 PingMag article, Infosthetics: The Beauty of Data Visualization, is an interview with Andrew Vande Moore, an assistant professor at The Key Centre of Design Computing & Cognition at the University of Sydney who specializes in Information Design, or Infosthetics, as he calls it.

In Vande Moore's words, "Information design is about the design of information graphics, and the design of visual displays of information," which doesn't really give you an idea of just how wonderfully this branch of design straddles art and science, evoking not only meaning, but also beauty and sometimes emotion from data, via graphical representation (Edward Tufte called it "the poetry of visual information").

The article has some fantastic examples of the field and a number of links. One of these is a graphical representation of Iraq war casualties which gives insight into the demographics of deceased U.S. service members from the beginning of the Iraq war to the present. I think it's an incredible example of the power of Infosthetics.