I hate numbers. They have little meaning to me in themselves, and that meaning seems to decrease as the numbers of numbers increase. I also know numbers can have an impact on my life, so I love it when I can see them transformed into a brilliant visualization that brings out the meaning I can’t see otherwise.

That’s why I found this documentary so interesting. Through interviews with journalists, designers, programmers and others, it gives a “behind the scenes” view of the people who make data visualizations. I’m a junkie for good design and typography (I own a copy of a documentary on the font Helvectica!) so it appealed to me on that level as well.

Well worth a watch if you can spare an hour. Best viewed full screen.

Journalism in the Age of Data from Geoff McGhee on Vimeo.

(via kottke.org)