Influx

Jonathan Harris is fast establishing himself as a master of interactive information design. He is finding interesting ways of re-presenting data in new and interesting ways. He seems to be challenging us to play with and consider the visual pattern before we get to the text.

He drew the attention of the Internet world with his 10×10 project , which is a highly creative and dynamic way of presenting news. His latest project is Phylotaxis for the science and culture magazine Seed. Like 10X10, it’s a visual display of news stories, but because Seed is about science and culture, it visually self-organizes around these two core areas.

The influence of Blogger and 22 million blogs is leading to a sort of basic, bland, utility to the presentation of information. Harris challenges us to think a little bit more about how we can engage our readers in more creative ways. Like everything in the world, the chaos can be organized into interesting patterns.

There’s an opportunity here for news organizations to take note and think about how they can make their web sites more visually engaging in a way that goes beyond a news story.

Where are there interactive charts and graphs that WE can play with?

Where are the new ways where WE can summarize the news and find patterns within it?