Gapminder—geographical identity visualisation

Seamus McCauley points us to what is effectively a geographical identity visualisation tool.

Here's a lovely bit of design and presentation - the Gapminder tool from the Gapminder foundation. It plots all sorts of demographic and economic data from different countries on a chart over time, so you can see for example how life expectancy plots against per capita income or how the gender balance in schools relates to Internet users per thousand. Fascinating. Reminds me a little of my favourite tine-series design ever, the BBC's US elections since 1948 map.

Why not have a play? It's an intriguing experience (hint: you have to press "PLAY", after selecting some options, to see it working).

Supermarket as airport

There was a brilliant piece in last week's Green Room on the BBC News site from Andrew Simms, policy director of the New Economics Foundation (Nef). Andrew details the massive environmental and socioeconomic costs of the implacable rise and rise of the Supermarket. A key quote:

"Supermarkets have trained us to believe that nothing but affordability should constrain what, when or how much we consume."

For me, supermarkets have a rootless quality of identity, a bit like airports; their products are branded like ever-cheaper flights to the most "exotic" global destinations. The rich geographic and socioeconomic context of the Product is subsumed within the supermarket's transnational brand.

Is there a way beyond this supermarket identity soup? A way to plug products back into the socioeconomic fabric, as they were when we bought a pork chop reared by Jim the farmer from Bill the local butcher? These are great questions for us to ponder...