Manuel Lima

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Manuel Lima
Manuel Lima.jpg
Lima in 2008
Born (1978-05-03) May 3, 1978 (age 46)
Ponta Delgada, Portugal
Citizenship
  • Portuguese
  • American
Alma mater Parsons School of Design
Occupation(s)Designer, lecturer, advisor, author.
Known for Visual culture, design, information visualization, graph drawing, tree structure.

Manuel Lima FRSA (born May 3, 1978) is a Portuguese-American designer, author, and lecturer known for his work in information visualization and visual culture. [1] [2] [3] [4] He is the author of three books translated into several languages and currently resides in New York City with his wife and two daughters.

Contents

Biography

Lima grew up in São Miguel Island, in the Azores, Portugal. From an early age, Lima showed an interest in the visual language of maps, many of which were kept in a cabinet at home from various family road trips. His dad has also been an important catalyst in his appreciation for design. [5]

In 1996, at the age of eighteen, he moved to Lisbon to pursue a BFA degree in Industrial Design from the Faculty of Architecture at Technical University of Lisbon. After an internship in Copenhagen, Denmark, at the design studio Kontrapunkt, Lima went on to study at Parsons School of Design [6] in New York City, where he received an MFA in Design and Technology in 2005. Lima said that a lecture from his Parsons teacher Christopher Kirwan in 2004 was the moment that drove him towards information design. [7] His thesis "Blogviz: Mapping the dynamics of Information Diffusion in Blogspace" was subsequently published by Omniscriptum Publishing in 2009. During his MFA program, Lima worked for Siemens Corporate Research Center, the American Museum of Moving Image, and Parsons Institute for Information Mapping (PIIM).

It was during his time at PIIM, that Lima consolidated his research in information visualization and complex networks leading to the creation in October 2005 of VisualComplexity.com, [8] [9] an online archive for network visualization. Following his MFA, Lima worked as a designer and manager for an advertising agency R/GA, mobile phone maker Nokia, Microsoft Bing, and Codecademy. He currently works for Google as a Design Lead and Startup Mentor. [10]

Work

Networkism

In his first book Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information (2011), Lima covers the growing popularity of the network construct, not just as a scientific pursuit but as a cultural meme. In chapter six Complex Beauty, Lima introduces a new movement or "artistic trend" characterized by the depiction of metaphorical graph structures, which he labels "Networkism". [11] [12] As Lima explains:

Networkism is stimulated by rhizomatic properties like nonlinearity, multiplicity, or interconnectedness, and scientific advances in areas such as genetics, neuroscience, physics, molecular biology, computer systems, and sociology. As a direct consequence of the recent outburst of network visualization, networkism is equally motivated by the unveiling of new knowledge domains as well as the visual representation of complex systems. [13]

Sharon Molloy, Emma McNally, Janice Caswell, Tomás Saraceno, and Chiharu Shiota are amongst the artists presented by Lima as precursors of this movement.

Proclivity for circles

In the Introduction of The Book of Circles: Visualizing Spheres of Knowledge (2017), Lima provides an evolutionary explanation for our propensity towards circular shapes. [14] [15] His account comprises three hypotheses:

1. Humans prefer curves

Lima mentions that from an early age babies show an innate preference for curves, a human tendency corroborated by different studies, including a seminal paper published in 2006 by cognitive psychologists Moshe Bar and Maital Neta, which revealed a strong human preference for curved objects and typefaces, [16] as well as a 2013 study by researchers at the University of Toronto at Scarborough, which found a similar inclination in architectural spaces. [17]

2. Circles equal happiness

In his second evolutionary explanation, Lima mentions the experiment conducted by psychologist John N. Bassili in 1978, [18] where the faces of participants were painted black and subsequently covered in dozens of luminescent dots. Participants were then asked to express different emotions in order to better understand the visual contour of each sentiment. As Lima describes:

while expressions of anger showed acute downward V shapes (angled eyebrows, cheeks, and chin), expressions of happiness were conveyed by expansive, outward curved patterns (arched cheeks, eyes, and mouth). In other words, happy faces resembled an expansive circle, while angry faces resembled a downward triangle. [19]

3. Spherical geometry of the eye

In his third point, Lima hypothesizes on how the circular framing and spherical geometry of our visual field, which cause a distortion similar to a "fish-eye lens" or a "crystal ball", could further "reinforce our innate tendency toward all things circular". [20] "Perhaps the brain prefers forms and contours that have a better fit within such a conditioned field of view." says Lima.

Recognition

Lima was nominated by Creativity magazine as "one of the 50 most creative and influential minds of 2009" [21] and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) in 2010. [22] Lima was selected for the Innovative Entrepreneurship Award in the Portuguese Diaspora (Prémio Empreendedorismo Inovador na Diáspora Portuguesa) by the Portuguese President and was elected the curator for the Portuguese delegation at the London Design Biennale 2016. [23] [24]

Publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mind map</span> Diagram to visually organize information

A mind map is a diagram used to visually organize information into a hierarchy, showing relationships among pieces of the whole. It is often created around a single concept, drawn as an image in the center of a blank page, to which associated representations of ideas such as images, words and parts of words are added. Major ideas are connected directly to the central concept, and other ideas branch out from those major ideas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline</span> Events displayed in chronological order

A timeline is a display of a list of events in chronological order. It is typically a graphic design showing a long bar labelled with dates paralleling it, and usually contemporaneous events.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scientific visualization</span> Interdisciplinary branch of science concerned with presenting scientific data visually

Scientific visualization is an interdisciplinary branch of science concerned with the visualization of scientific phenomena. It is also considered a subset of computer graphics, a branch of computer science. The purpose of scientific visualization is to graphically illustrate scientific data to enable scientists to understand, illustrate, and glean insight from their data. Research into how people read and misread various types of visualizations is helping to determine what types and features of visualizations are most understandable and effective in conveying information.

A diagram is a symbolic representation of information using visualization techniques. Diagrams have been used since prehistoric times on walls of caves, but became more prevalent during the Enlightenment. Sometimes, the technique uses a three-dimensional visualization which is then projected onto a two-dimensional surface. The word graph is sometimes used as a synonym for diagram.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Visualization (graphics)</span> Set of techniques for creating images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message

Visualization, also known as Graphics Visualization, is any technique for creating images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message. Visualization through visual imagery has been an effective way to communicate both abstract and concrete ideas since the dawn of humanity. from history include cave paintings, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Greek geometry, and Leonardo da Vinci's revolutionary methods of technical drawing for engineering purposes that actively involve scientific requirements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Infographic</span> Graphic visual representation of information

Infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data, or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly. They can improve cognition by using graphics to enhance the human visual system's ability to see patterns and trends. Similar pursuits are information visualization, data visualization, statistical graphics, information design, or information architecture. Infographics have evolved in recent years to be for mass communication, and thus are designed with fewer assumptions about the readers' knowledge base than other types of visualizations. Isotypes are an early example of infographics conveying information quickly and easily to the masses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Figure-ground (cartography)</span> Focus of attention on features in a map

Figure-ground contrast, in the context of map design, is a property of a map in which the map image can be partitioned into a single feature or type of feature that is considered as an object of attention, with the remainder of the map being relegated to the background, outside the current focus of attention. It is thus based on the concept of figure–ground from Gestalt psychology. For example, in a street map with strong figure-ground contrast, the reader would be able to isolate and focus attention on individual features, like a given street, park, or lake, as well as layers of related features, like the street network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tracery</span> Type of window design

Tracery is an architectural device by which windows are divided into sections of various proportions by stone bars or ribs of moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the stonework elements that support the glass in a window. The purpose of the device is practical as well as decorative, because the increasingly large windows of Gothic buildings needed maximum support against the wind. The term probably derives from the tracing floors on which the complex patterns of windows were laid out in late Gothic architecture. Tracery can be found on the exterior of buildings as well as the interior.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ehrenstein illusion</span> Optical illusion

The Ehrenstein illusion is an optical illusion of brightness or color perception. The visual phenomena was studied by the German psychologist Walter H. Ehrenstein (1899–1961) who originally wanted to modify the theory behind the Hermann grid illusion. In the discovery of the optical illusion, Ehrenstein found that grating patterns of straight lines that stop at a certain point appear to have a brighter centre, compared to the background.

This is an alphabetical list of articles pertaining specifically to software engineering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Data and information visualization</span> Visual representation of data

Data and information visualization is the practice of designing and creating easy-to-communicate and easy-to-understand graphic or visual representations of a large amount of complex quantitative and qualitative data and information with the help of static, dynamic or interactive visual items. Typically based on data and information collected from a certain domain of expertise, these visualizations are intended for a broader audience to help them visually explore and discover, quickly understand, interpret and gain important insights into otherwise difficult-to-identify structures, relationships, correlations, local and global patterns, trends, variations, constancy, clusters, outliers and unusual groupings within data. When intended for the general public to convey a concise version of known, specific information in a clear and engaging manner, it is typically called information graphics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thematic map</span> Type of map that visualizes data

A thematic map is a type of map that portrays the geographic pattern of a particular subject matter (theme) in a geographic area. This usually involves the use of map symbols to visualize selected properties of geographic features that are not naturally visible, such as temperature, language, or population. In this, they contrast with general reference maps, which focus on the location of a diverse set of physical features, such as rivers, roads, and buildings. Alternative names have been suggested for this class, such as special-subject or special-purpose maps, statistical maps, or distribution maps, but these have generally fallen out of common usage. Thematic mapping is closely allied with the field of Geovisualization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Visual analytics</span>

Visual analytics is a multidisciplinary science and technology field that emerged from information visualization and scientific visualization. It focuses on how analytical reasoning can be facilitated by interactive visual interfaces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keller Easterling</span> American architect

Keller Easterling is an American architect, urbanist, writer, and professor. She is Enid Storm Dwyer Professor and Director of the MED Program at Yale University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin M. Wattenberg</span> American artist and computer researcher (born 1970)

Martin M. Wattenberg is an American scientist and artist known for his work with data visualization. He is currently the Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science at the Harvard University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Brian Willison is owner and senior IT consultant at B. Willison & Associates. He is the former Executive Director of the Parsons Institute for Information Mapping (PIIM) at The New School and Program Management Officer at World Health Organization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">César Hidalgo</span> Chilean-Spanish-American physicist, author and entrepreneur

César A. Hidalgo is a Chilean born, Chilean-Spanish-American physicist, author, and entrepreneur. He directs the Center for Collective Learning a multidisciplinary research laboratory with offices in Toulouse, France and at the Corvinus University of Budapest. He is also an Honorary Professor at the University of Manchester's Alliance Manchesters Business School. Hidalgo is known for his work on Economic Complexity, Relatedness, Data Visualization, Applied Artificial Intelligence, and Digital Democracy. Before moving to France, Hidalgo was a professor at MIT where he directed the Collective Learning group. He is also a founder and partner at Datawheel, a data visualization and distribution company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mauro Martino</span> Italian artist, designer and researcher

Mauro Martino is an Italian artist, designer and researcher. He is the founder and director of the Visual Artificial Intelligence Lab at IBM Research, and Professor of Practice at Northeastern University.

Colin Ware is a professor at the University of New Hampshire, cross-appointed between the Departments of Computer Science and Ocean Engineering. Ware is the director of the Data Visualization Research Lab in the university's Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cartographic design</span> Process of designing maps

Cartographic design or map design is the process of crafting the appearance of a map, applying the principles of design and knowledge of how maps are used to create a map that has both aesthetic appeal and practical function. It shares this dual goal with almost all forms of design; it also shares with other design, especially graphic design, the three skill sets of artistic talent, scientific reasoning, and technology. As a discipline, it integrates design, geography, and geographic information science.

References

  1. "The 21 Heroes of Data Visualization: Manuel Lima". BusinessWeek. Archived from the original on April 7, 2013. Retrieved February 26, 2013.
  2. "When it comes to making data sexy, you can't be too graphic". CNN. Retrieved February 26, 2013.
  3. "Information Beautification". Creativity magazine. Archived from the original on February 6, 2013. Retrieved February 27, 2013.
  4. "Why do we love to organise knowledge into trees?". New Scientist. Retrieved October 26, 2020.
  5. "Design Observer: Interview with Manuel Lima". Design Observer. Retrieved October 27, 2020.
  6. "CV – Manuel Lima" (PDF).
  7. "Manuel Lima on How Data Visualization Can Shape Architecture and Cities". ArchDaily. July 3, 2020. Retrieved October 27, 2020.
  8. "VisualComplexity.com: 10 Years / 1,000 Projects". Medium. Retrieved October 27, 2020.
  9. Lima, Manuel. Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information; Princeton Architectural Press, 2011.
  10. "Manuel Lima | LinkedIn". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved February 25, 2016.
  11. Talasek, J. D. (2015). "Science and Culture: Data visualization nurtures an artistic movement". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 112 (8): 2295. Bibcode:2015PNAS..112.2295T. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1424990112 . PMC   4345624 . PMID   25713088.
  12. "A visual history of human knowledge". TED. August 18, 2015. Retrieved October 26, 2020.
  13. Lima, Manuel. Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information; Princeton Architectural Press, 2011.
  14. "Why Humans Are Obsessed With Circles, According To Science". FastCompany. May 4, 2017. Retrieved October 26, 2020.
  15. "Circular Visualizations". American Scientist. April 12, 2017. Retrieved October 26, 2020.
  16. Bar, Moshe; Neta, Maital (2006). "Humans Prefer Curved Visual Objects". Psychological Science. 17 (8): 645–648. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01759.x. PMID   16913943. S2CID   11705063 . Retrieved October 26, 2020.
  17. "Impact of contour on aesthetic judgments and approach-avoidance decisions in architecture". PNAS. Retrieved October 26, 2020.
  18. "Facial motion in the perception of faces and of emotional expression". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. Retrieved October 26, 2020.
  19. "Why do we find circles so beautiful?". BBC Science Focus Magazine. Retrieved October 26, 2020.
  20. Lima, Manuel. The Book of Circles: Visualizing Spheres of Knowledge; Princeton Architectural Press, 2017.
  21. "Manuel Lima". Creativity Magazine. February 10, 2009. Retrieved October 26, 2020.
  22. Lima, Manuel. "Manuel Lima". www.mslima.com. Retrieved September 27, 2015.
  23. "London Design Biennale: Portugal". London Design Biennale. May 7, 2019. Retrieved October 27, 2020.
  24. "UN/BIASED – Map 2". Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved October 27, 2020.