information aesthetics

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How we Spend: Presenting Economic Statistics as a Narrative Infographic Posted: 13 Feb 2014 12:03 PM PST How We Spend [bloomberg.com] by Matthew C. Klein of Bloomberg Visual Data is narrative and visually engaging "interactive infographic" of nevertheless dry and boring data. The full-window infographic consists of a collection of interactive line graphs that smoothly animate between different arguments. Overall, the piece explores the question how the U.S. population spends money, and how that has changed over time. Consequently, U.S. spending data is analyzed in terms of its correlation with GDP and its overall composition (e.g. food, clothing, gasoline). Apparent trends, like the impact of the housing crisis, the increasing popularity of online shops, and the importance of cars and gasoline are highlighted and succinctly discussed.