The crazy world of visual hallucinations

An infographic on hallucinations? Well yes. Insanely cool.

See the full infographic after the jump

How music travels in space and time

We all know that music as we know it in the 21st century originated in Africa, but what routes did it go through?

Travel experts Thomson sponsored this wonderful interactive infographic following contemporary music genres as the traveled from Africa to the US to Europe and beyond. From Swing to Disco and from Hip Hop to Trip Hop, check out the history of music.

In the name of design

More amazing minimalistic movie posters!

See more posters after the jump

Word as image

The great challenge: to ‘create an image out of a word, using only the letters in the word itself and their graphic elements without adding outside elements’. That was what Ji Lee, former Creative Director at Google Creative Labs (we first met him here), did in his new book Word as Image. Have a first look of his work in this wonderfully animated video:

You can find his book here.

via Quipsologies

See also:

• Words have a life of their own
• Clever words
• Words without words
• See the object, guess the movie

What goes with what?

What goes with what? Do oysters go with asparagus, bacon and mozzarella? Taste Buds: Complementary flavours, an extremely interesting and accurate infographic created by David McCandless and Willow Tyrer, recommends different herbs, spices and ingredients, for different types of food in order to create a good-tasting meal.

via Information is Beautiful

See also:

• This is not a food blog but…
• A Ming cupcake
• Don’t stuff yourself on this one

Follow @itsasmallweb

In 60 seconds

Every 60 seconds, 168 million emails are sent, more than 13,000 iPhone applications are downloaded, over 600,000 search queries are made,  more than 98,000 tweets and more than 1,500 blog posts are published.Pretty amazing, don’t you think?

via TechPages

See also:

• The universe of social networks
• The internet in 2015
• I am socially stoned
• It started with the occasional profile update and now you are hooked: social media addiction

Strings of words

Art for transit enthusiasts? Yes, it exists, like these minimalistic maps made up of strings of words that spell the station names. TRNSPRTNATION is a series of typographic transit maps created by Fadeout Design, which include transit systems of Boston, London, New York, San Francisco, Washington DC and Chicago.

See more after the jump

A world of clichés

All French people are arrogant, Greeks are lazy, Americans fat and all the people from the Middle East are bad. Our world is full of clichés, perhaps because it is our way to identify our self and differentiate it from the others. See some of them in The World Map of Useless Stereotypes created by Christoph Niemann.

via Laughing Squid

See also:

• The bad guys (in video games)
• I was once blue, now I am pink
• The world is not a peaceful place

The form of a word

Can you imagine the forms and colors that words can take? Digital design agency Corum + Guerrette created String DNA, an interactive data visualization image generator, which converts alphabet letters into shapes and colors.

By typing your name or a short description in the text box, you can a visual interpretation of how a letter or a word looks like, like our blog’s name just below.

See also:

• Create stunning word cloud infographs
• Can you hear color?
• Making (non) sense

Making (non) sense

There is an infographic for everything. From comparing the most controversial figures, like the Beatles & Jesus or even Kanye West to Bob Dylan, to unraveling the universe of your social self and from exploring theories, genres and art movements, such as science fiction or graffiti and street art to explaining the form of the infograph itself in a rather self-referential mode.

It is the new form of conveying easily and visually appealing information, but Chad Hagen’s ‘Nonsensical Infographics’ convey no information, they play rather with form than function and remain visually challenging.

Familiar faces

Warning: Recommended for mature audiences. Strong design and coarse inspiration.

Managing to convey elements of the plot into the features of their faces, designer Noma Bar tells the story behind each character of some of the most peculiar movie stars.

See more after the jump

Wouldn’t life be perfect if…

The medium is the message

Or in this case, the message is the branding. Another confirmation of the fact that the best ideas are the simplest. Case in point: a milk carton that wears its nutritional facts as its branding. Aka, infographic packaging.

By information designer Audree Lapierre for ffctn.

See also:

• The end of computers
• Don’t stuff yourself on this one
• The thread of hypertextuality

Follow @itsasmallweb

Illustrated cities

Find your way to some of Europe’s landmarks, including archaeological sites, museums but also bars, clubs, markets, via designer Owen Gatley‘s city map illustrations.

The universe of social networks

Infographic created by JESS3

See also:

• The art of visual storytelling
• The sarcastic meta-infographic
• The meta-infograph

Can you name the typeface?

The boundaries have been crossed when the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) acquired last January 23 digital typefaces, which became part of its permanent Architecture and Design Collection. The boundaries between art, architecture and design. Fonts and typefaces challenges our perception of art and this quiz tests our knowledge on design.

So, can you match the 23 typefaces of MoMA’s permanent collection with the letters?

See the answers after the jump

The periodic table of social issues

The Periodic Table of Social Issues comes to replace the classic Period Table of Elements, by displaying the not so bright features of the human race.

Created by Dorothy, an art and design collective in Manchester.

via Jocundist

See also:

• Creative truths
• What makes curly hair curly?
• The human factory

The Beatles, more popular than Jesus?

Since there is not another band or musician that can challenge the popularity of the Beatles, the only one who can is Jesus.

So, which will go first, rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity?

via Daily Infographic

See also:

• Please, don’t wake me
• The Beatles in the year 3126
• The meta-infograph
• The lyrics on the wall

The history of graffiti and street art

Because graffiti and street art have a long history, too.

designed by Daniel Feral

via Laughing Squid

See also:

• The bad guys (in video games)
• A brief history of title design
• Satisfy your infographic hunger
• The meta-infograph

10 + 1 ways to visualize lyrics

Really good songs have usually really good lyrics. And good lyrics stay with you. When we were at school we doodled them on our books and carved them into the desks. What do the digital natives do? Here are the best ideas (and, incidentally, really good songs for the most part) we found around the web:

1. Pick a photo, apply a vintage effect and write the lyrics in helvetica

Paris by the Friendly Fires (the Aeroplane version featuring Au Revoir Simone  kicks major ass, too)
(visual first seen at letlooselove, our title inspired by this)

2. Make a flowchart*

Should I Stay or Should I Go by The Clash
(visual first seen at Urlesque)
*but be careful not to be trapped on an infinite loop

See 9 more ways after the jump