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Check out this minimalist USA map by Patrick Mahoney.

Nifty.

Via.

Here she maps and visualizes Kerouac’s colors, themes, and structure – check out the  high-res version for full detail.

The structure of Part One of On the Road visualised using a simple tree structure that has been worked with manually in order to give it a more organic feel. Here, Part One divides into chapters, chapters divide into paragraphs, paragraphs divide into sentences, and sentences divide into words. Everything is colour-coded according to key themes in On the Road.

It’s a testament to strong branding that you can recognize many of these even with the detail removed– nothing more than color and proportions.

Now we know what Willy Loman sold.*

In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant’s argument for belief in God is that we must represent the highest good as a state of affairs in which everyone is happy because they are virtuous (5:113–114, 124). But neither the laws of nature nor our best efforts can guarantee that happiness will result from virtue. Therefore, Kant thought, we must conclude that the highest good is impossible — and thereby fail to be motivated to virtue — unless we postulate “the existence of a cause of nature, distinct from nature, which contains the ground of this connection, namely the exact correspondence of happiness with morality” (5:125), i.e. unless we posit the existence of God (cf. Rohlf, SEP).

As far as I’m concerned, meditation of this kind is prompted by the image above.

Famously, R. Buckminster Fuller hoped that the geodesic dome would help address the postwar housing crisis: geodesic homes are extremely strong for their weight, their “omnitriangulated” surfaces provide an inherently stable structure, and spheres enclose the greatest volume for the least surface area.

Turns out, there are some serious problems with Geodesic homes. But suppose there weren’t. What was the likelihood that the door-to-door salesman model would correctly apportion reward (i.e. sell homes) to virtue? Not much, it seems to me. A thought, then, for Monday: successful marketing is the practical postulate of all designers.

Consider, finally, that in adopting this postulate, we are motivated to get on with being virtuous.

* Thanks to Megan for pointing out this link, for the leading thought, and the conversation.

Steve Cable has created an nice infographic about the key design changes and innovation in game controller interfaces over time.

Getting this information together helped him make some neat observations about the design methodologies at Nintendo and Playstation.

Nintendo: Go big or go home

Nintendo takes a lot of risks: some work (the Wiimote), some don’t (the Powerglove). Playstation plays it safer, making small changes to the design over time.

Interesting stuff. (Also make sure to check the comments for some debate about how good the research behind the graphic is.)

Take a look.

Back in January, Nick posted an infographic of Crayola colors. The designer, in response to viewers interpreting the initial graphic to show that “crayons are becoming too complicated”, recently redesigned the infographic. For an interesting study in the subtleties of data visualization, read the full write-up on the exercise over at datapointed.net.  Below is the original graphic, an excerpt about the redesign, and final product.

Yes, the square design looks snappy, but as the colors multiply, they’re forced into ever-narrower slivers of the fixed vertical space – like sardines! Clearly, another choice of layout might have been more flattering…

…Our goal was to maintain the clean geometric aesthetic, while dialing down the “indictment of overzealous product management” and cranking up the “celebration of diversity!” We’d use the same data as before, tweaked slightly per the feedback of historians, who told us that Crayola’s early 16-color boxes tended to include English Vermilion (aka “red orange”) rather than brick red.