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So That’s How He Dies?: Complex Character Deaths, Chart Style

I’m a kind of data junkie but I wasn’t always one. In undergrad and graduate school I studied the least ‘data’ friendly of academic disciplines: religion. My life was spent reading and writing papers and analyzing the cultural production of texts. Blah blah *insert euphemism for overly intellectualized b.s. here* In my post-grad school life, I have worked and currently work as some kind of Excel chart making, data analyst and I love it. The beauty of number crunching is its simplicity: the margin of error for Foucault quoting and critical theory infused analysis is practically non-existent. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Michael Foucault but sometimes the b.s. levels are little too high.

More important than data analysis is data representation. Data representation is key: What is the best way to visually represent x to an audience of y? I love great data visualizations but more importantly, I love it when data junkies use their skills to have a little fun with pop culture like the example above. Randall Munroe, a data junkie, has created “some interesting (and humorous) graphics describing the paths that characters in movies (Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Primer) intertwine.” Dude, basically plotted out what happens to characters in movies. The Lord of the Rings diagram is quite impressive, even if it’s totally nerdy.

The 12 Angry Men diagram is my favorite. I feel sort of inspired to something similar with this blog and my social media behaviors. On second thought, maybe that’s a super lame idea.

Source:

Matthew Hurst -> Twitter-> Via Google Reader/Rss Feed-> XKCD

-Posted by Christina D.

11.16.09

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Redesigning Nabokov: 21 New Takes on a Dead Russian’s Work

The Design Observer Group has become one of my favorite blogs. Period. Authored by some truly intelligent and talented people, the posts of the DOG blog are always as insightful as they are visually stunning. While doing my daily industry reading via my Google reader, I read John Gall’s (art director for Vintage and Anchor Books) post about redesigning the book covers of Vladimir Nabokov. Nothing makes Christina happier than a combination of graphic design and dead Russian writers!

Gall’s project:

“Every so often, a dream project lands on your desk. Here’s one: redesign Vladimir Nabokov’s book covers. All twenty-one of them. Let me rephrase. Every so often the most daunting project of your entire life arrives on your desk.”

The following are two of my favorite covers from the complete series:

How I found Gall’s post or more aptly, how I was introduced to the DOG blog:

The Short of It: Me-> Daily Industry Reading Via Google Reader-> RSS Feed from D.O.G. Blog-> Gall’s Post.

The Long of It: Joy Olivia Miller, a former of colleague of mine at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , posted an article by the D.O.G. on her tumble blog which showed up in my Facebook Newsfeed. After reading the article in the notes section of her profile, I then spent some time on the D.O.G. website. I fell in love, added the RSS feed to my Google reader and now read the writers’ brilliant posts from the comfort of my RSS reader via my iPhone.

And this, my friends, is the art of citing your sources.

-Posted by Christina D.

11.12.09

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Paul Octavious’ “The Things I Saw from JFK ✈SFO.”

Paul’s work is interesting and visually striking. His work has a kind of nostalgic, almost timeless feel to it. It reminds of events and people I can’t quite place but who are familiar nevertheless.

Anyway, I am a sucker for travel photography like that of Octavious’ “The Things I Saw From JFK to SFO” series. Each time I am on an airplane I attempt to photograph my views but my photos never come out as bold or striking as Paul’s. Depressing, really. All that time spent pressed up against the plastic interior of the plane and not a damn photo to show for it. On the local level, Paul’s series, Montrose Harbor, is a great take on the harbor that is a 15 minute walk from my apartment in Uptown.

How I found Paul’s work:

Tumbler JeSuisPerdu blogged about Paul’s “Montrose Harbor” series from someplace in NYC. I read Paul’s posts in my Tumblr dashboard. After clicking on Winslow’s (Jesuisperdu) post, I spent some time on Paul’s site where I discovered his “JFK to SFO” series. It took a 2O year old tumbler in NYC to connect me, in Chicago, with Paul, who is also based in Chicago.

Breakdown: JeSuisPerdu (NYC) -> Me (Chicago) via Tumblr -> Paul (Chicago).

-Posted by Christina D.

11.12.09

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Social Media Digest #3

Apple Begins Fixing App Store Approval Process Via Mashable.

Expect Caffeine (Google’s new and improved search engine) After December Via Matt Cutts (an engineer at Google).

Painting with Flickr Via Matthew Hurst (Data Analyst extraordinaire). Teaser: “Cartogrammar has an interesting post describing using photographs tied to locations to interpolate average colours in a map. By positioning the pictures in space and analyzing them for colour distribution, then taking a function of the colours of pictures in the same area, some quality of the location as a function of photographs, emerges…”

The Digital Economy’s Coming Subprime Crisis (And What You Can Learn From It) Via Harvard Business Blog.

Three Masquerades of Metrics Via Social Abacus.

-Posted by Christina D.

11.11.09

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We Are Local Author || Christina Dennaoui

Christina Dennaoui is an American rapper, digital strategy maniac and all-around tweed clad bad-ass. Only she, with her old man prowess, can make wearing tweed blazers and driving loafers nothing short of miraculous. Her old man swagger, coupled with unnecessary intellectualism and a penchant for kitsch and serial commas, made her a hit at all of the graduate student parties she attended while at the University of Chicago.

After acquiring two degrees in a field of study that is useless to everyone except for academics and Homeland Security, she decided to give up the ghost on rap and armchair anthropology. In her post-graduate school life, she works as a (social) media and brand reputation analyst in the research division of a highly ranked Public Relations firm. She’s an artist, musician, and maintains a blog read by a riveted audience of three.

Christina’s ‘Beat’: She’ll be writing about the culture of social media and its implications for everyday life. On occasion her posts will be critical analyses of the opinions of social media ‘experts.’ Other times, she will be conducting guerilla style interviews with strangers to pick their brains about what this thing called ‘social media’ really means.

Christina Dennaoui’s website. Christina tweets at twitter.com/cdennaoui

11.08.09

We Are Local: Digitally Curating Urban Wanderlust

So That’s How He Dies?: Complex Character Deaths, Chart Style

Redesigning Nabokov: 21 New Takes on a Dead Russian’s Work

Paul Octavious’ “The Things I Saw from JFK ✈SFO.”

Social Media Digest #3

We Are Local Author || Christina Dennaoui