[Editor’s note: I promoted ShowUSA’s animated cartograms last week. This week I show off some of their new per capita cartograms and compare them to the raw number versions. Thanks Rick!]
CO2 emissions – per capita version Click the interactive on the circular arrow to resize.
CO2 emissions – raw numbers version Click the interactive on the circular arrow to resize.
Compare CO2 Emissions with Coal Fired Electric Power – raw numbers version Click the interactive on the circular arrow to resize.
Stimulus Bill – per capita version Click the interactive on the circular arrow to resize.
Stimulus Bill – raw numbers version Click the interactive on the circular arrow to resize.
[Editor’s note: These new DC-based websites display a wealth of information about the fifty U.S. states and around the world. Maps are presented both as simple choropleth (color by area) and animated non-continuous area cartograms of the type promoted by Zach Johnson over at IndieMapping. Click on the map above to see it animated to the cartogram view. Thanks Rick!
Quibbles: I wish the US map was projected into a conic like Albers and the World maps were projected, too. Some of the maps deserve a per capita view to best show their thematic data. That would be more telling than a simple cartogram. Or a cartogram that was based on per capita measure would be even better.]
From Spanish speakers to bales of cotton produced to number of UFO sightings, SHOW®USA (show.mappingworlds.com) displays each state’s numbers in animated, easy-to-understand maps that resize the state to the data rather than geographical area. The results are cartograms that bring the numbers to life–and reveal a few surprises.
“Look at our Tornado Deaths map, for instance,” says the site’s creator, Desmond Spruijt. “The most people killed last year by tornadoes were in Florida. It makes you wonder why it wasn’t in the Midwest, where our Tornadoes map shows the most storms. It turns out states like Oklahoma have better warning systems and more storm shelters, not to mention fewer people. The visual presentation makes you think about the data, to understand it better.”
Spruijt is founder of MappingWorlds, a company that helps government, non-profit, and business clients worldwide create innovative maps and cartograms. SHOW®USA is the sister site of SHOW®WORLD, which presents maps with data on the countries of the world in the same way.
SHOW®USA and SHOW®WORLD are free for public use, with no registration or personal information collected. Users can download the numbers behind the maps, which come from dozens of sources like the U.S. Census Bureau, capture and use an image of a map with animation, hyperlink to any map, and post comments about each one–all at no charge.
“To us, maps are more than pictures, they are communication and education tools,” says Spruijt. “We want people to use the SHOW®USA maps in slide shows or research papers, in the classroom–wherever our maps can make simple numbers come alive–and also to start conversations about them on our site. SHOW®USA and SHOW®WORLD also show off the kind of innovative maps we create for our clients at MappingWorlds.”
Spruijt founded MappingWorlds in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in 2004. The company’s clients include the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.
The maps available on SHOW®USA touch on nearly every aspect of the land and people of America. Some of the current maps include: Hispanics, rural population, people with disabilities, drunk driving deaths, U.S. military deaths in Iraq, people without health insurance, strawberry production, natural gas reserves, casinos, federal farm support received, electoral college votes, food stamp recipients, gay marriages, murders, hate crimes, immigrants, charitable contributions, foreclosures, roller coasters, number of presidents born in each state, and Bigfoot sightings. With 141 maps so far, the site is still adding data and plans to have several hundred maps on display.
For those without Flash, JPG versions of the embedded SWF above:
[Editor’s note: I have updated my Calendar script to version 5. It now automatically formats the text with tab stops, date box grid, and art placeholders. Tooltips help explain the options and the script will automatically create a document if one is not open. Over 25 new features, updates, and bug fixes. Screenshots and native Illustrator template files included at end of post.
Magicien de calendrier, Kalender-Zauberer, Mago del calendario, 日历巫术师, カレンダーã®é”法使ã„, Чудодей календара.]
I was asked recently if I could automate the creation of calendars in Adobe Illustrator. It turns out there are a couple script for accomplishing this in InDesign (best is from sselberg), but only pre-built templates for Illustrator. If you need a new year, you’d have to search for a new template, which is lame. New script to the rescue! Thanks go to Joyce for this suggestion.
NOTE: The script is free to download and use. There is no license fee for publication of calendars based on the script. I reserve the right in the future to start charging a fee for the script. But this version is free.
Download the binary file using “Save as”. The file contents look like gobly-gook.
Quit Illustrator
Copy the file into the Illustrator application folder’s “Presets†» “Scripts†subfolder
After restarting Illustrator, you can find the scripts in the menu “File†» “Scriptsâ€;
TIP: You can create subfolders in the scripts folder to organize your scripts
NOTE: You will need version CS3 or CS4 of Illustrator. If you have CS or CS2, get a trial version of CS4 from Adobe. Also see posts about version 3 and version 4 of the Calendar script.
New features and bug fixes in version 5:
NEW FEATUES
NEW: Tab stops supported!!! Date numbers are automatically spaced over the correct distance 🙂 Big thanks go to N at Adobe Developer Support on this one.
NEW No longer requires an open document, one will be created for you in the right page size if necessary.
NEW “help” tooltips on all the wizard options (thanks John!). Tooltips are only in English now, other languages in future update.
NEW Wall calendar style has grid of date boxes.
NEW Wall, page, and compact calendar styles has art hole (for placement of photos, etc).
NEW starting month and starting and ending year now relative to the current date (was always Jan 2009)
NEW if 12-up type calendar selected, the current year’s 12 months are auto enabled
NEW mini Page calendar type for making the mini calendars
NEW mini Wall calendar type for making the mini calendars
NEW Tabloid calendar type for big wall calendars for each month with big big numbers
NEW mini Tabloid calendar type for making the mini calendars
NEW Compact calendar type for calendars that are suitable for newspaper
UPDATED FEATURES
UPDATE: Existing templates updated with tab stops, text sizes, other formatting
UPDATE mini “business card” type calendar uses underlining for the day header, removed trailing tab, and adjusted gutter width
UPDATE Page calendar type now based on letter page size with big numbers
UPDATE Wall calendar type now based on tabloid page size with date numbers in corner of grid cells
UPDATE Wall calendar type now auto-shrinks the text frame if a month has a short number of weeks.
BUG FIXES
BUG FIX: Month lines now auto-centered
BUG FIX: Leading space in month name line removed
BUG FIX: Fail on selected text if it is point or path. Now creates new text frame at the same location.
BUG FIX: Changing calendar size / style now sets the right day header abbreviation (shorten, letter)
BUG FIX: Change of character format from month header to date in calendar page function (remove underlining)
BUG: Page 12-up style calendar now the same size and style as a Page 1-up but with extra months (had been compact like). Expand or link the text frame to see additional content that is hidden at first.
BUG: Abbreviation for “Jan” lacked the . period (thanks John).
BUG: Custom language did not show the current settings for English (default) to edit. Now it does (disabled Holiday for now).
BUG: Canceling “custom language” dialog now returns to previous language preset, not English.
BUG: Enabling multi-month calendars via check box now works after choosing a single month calendar preset.
Version 6 Plans
Holidays and lunar phases are still not supported. Please stay tuned for version 6. What types of holidays do you want to see supported? Do you need iCal support?
Add multi-lingual tooltips. Refine translation of main interface for supported languages.
Automatically create and position the before-month and after-month mini-calendars.
Timeline calendar format (three linear, sequential rows of year, month, and dates)
Sports (game day) calendar format with support via “holiday” interface
Option to flowing multiple month calendars to new text blocks (via artboards in CS4+)
Orientation option when dealing with multiple months text blocks (horizontal, vertical, grid)
Any other suggestions? I’ll take a couple month breather and then return to this project.
Screenshots showing English, German, and Chinese interfaces. Also the custom language settings dialog.
There are several sizes of calendars:
Tabloid calendar with larger date numbers grid (no boxes) on tabloid size 2/3rds of page.
Tabloid mini 1 month that fits below the main calendar in 1/6th of tabloid size page (prior month, next month).
Wall calendar with smaller dates in box grid (boxed dates) on tabloid size half-page with room for half page of art (horizontal / landscape 8.5 x 11 inch page).
Wall mini 1 month calendar that fits in a date square in a wall calendar (prior month, next month).
Page calendar, larger dates fill grid (no boxes) on 8.5 x 11 inch page.
Page calendar, larger dates fill grid (no boxes) – 12 months at a time option.
Page mini calendar, calendar that fits in a date square in a page calendar (prior month, next month).
Compact calendar, 12 months small enough to fit on a single 8.5 x 11 inch page with artwork.
Mini calendar, 12 months small enough to fit on a business card.
All calendars areMulti-lingual. Languages include English, Deutsch, Español, Français, ä¸æ–‡, 日本語, руÑÑкий Ñзык, and custom. This affects both the graphical dialog for creating the calendars and the month and day words in the calendar itself when it is created.
NOTE: While character and paragraph styles are created for each style of calendar (you can have multiple calendar types in one document), there is an error with Adobe Illustrator where you do not actually see this script-created styles until you either (a) save the document – thanks JC, or (b) switch back to the document from another (open or new) document.
SCREENSHOTS
Tabloid (1 month on tabloid 11 x 17 inch page – with artwork) Download native Illustrator file.
Wall (1 month on tabloid 11 x 17 inch page – horizontal 8.5 x 11 inch – with artwork) Download native Illustrator file.
Page (1 month on portrait 8.5 x 11 inch page with artwork) Download native Illustrator file.
Compact (12 months on portrait 8.5 x 11 inch page) Download native Illustrator file.
Mini (business card) Download native Illustrator file.
[Editor’s note: I have updated my Calendar script to version 5 on 17 February 2009. Magicien de calendrier, Kalender-Zauberer, Mago del calendario, 日历巫术师, カレンダーã®é”法使ã„, Чудодей календара.
[Editor’s note: I have updated my Calendar script to version 4. I now support multiple languages and fixed a few bugs. New video helps users set up tabs and change character styles. Magicien de calendrier, Kalender-Zauberer, Mago del calendario, 日历巫术师, カレンダーã®é”法使ã„, Чудодей календара.]
I was asked recently if I could automate the creation of calendars in Adobe Illustrator. It turns out there are a couple script for accomplishing this in InDesign (best is from sselberg), but only pre-built templates for Illustrator. If you need a new year, you’d have to search for a new template, which is lame. New script to the rescue!Thanks go to Joyce for this suggestion.
NOTE: You will need version CS3 or CS4 of Illustrator. If you have CS or CS2, get a trial version of CS4 from Adobe. Also see post about version 3 of the Calendar script.
New features and bug fixes in version 4:
Multi-lingual: Languages added for English, Deutsch, Español, Français, ä¸æ–‡, 日本語’, руÑÑкий Ñзык, and custom. This affects both the graphical dialog for creating the calendars and the month and day words in the calendar itself when it is created.
No longer need to have text frame selected, one will be created for you. If a text frame IS selected, it will be used.
Added ability to easily stylize weekend (Saturday and Sunday) dates numbers (eg gray or red).
Equal row spacing between months checkbox now works.
Buttons for current year and month now work.
I’m waiting on Adobe to let me know how to do the tab stops. In the meantime I’ve created a better video showing how to set these manually yourself (below) and change the character styles after the calendar is created.
Holidays and lunar phases are still not supported. Please stay tuned for version 5.
Screenshots showing English, German, and Chinese interfaces. Also the custom language settings dialog.
To install new scripts you need to:
Quit Illustrator
Copy the files into the Illustrator application folder’s “Presets†» “Scripts†subfolder
After restarting Illustrator you can find the scripts in the menu “File†» “Scriptsâ€;
TIP: You can create subfolders in the scripts folder to organize your scripts
There are several sizes of calendars:
Wall calendar with smaller dates in box grid (you add the boxes).
Wall mini 1 month calendar that fits in a date square in a wall calendar (prior month, next month).
Page calendar, larger dates fill grid (no boxes).
Page calendar, larger dates fill grid (no boxes) – 12 months at a time option.
Mini calendar, 12 months small enough to fit on a business card.
Screenshots
Traditional wall calendar with boxed dates and mini calendars for prior and next month, room above for a photo or illustration (January 2009). You make your own grid and the two wall mini months. Download editable Illustrator file.
Page calendar where dates fill entire box (no lines). You make your own wall mini calendars. Download editable Illustrator file.
Mini 12 month calendar sized to fit on business card with all 12 months of the year (shown larger than life below).Download editable Illustrator file.
View video demonstration of script (click to play, 9.3 megs):
[Editor’s note: I have updated my Calendar script to version 5 on 17 February 2009. Magicien de calendrier, Kalender-Zauberer, Mago del calendario, 日历巫术师, カレンダーã®é”法使ã„, Чудодей календара.
[Editor’s note: Revised to add example 2009 Ai CS2 format files for download on 4 Dec. 2008.]
I was asked recently if I could automate the creation of calendars in Adobe Illustrator. It turns out there are a couple script for accomplishing this in InDesign (best is from sselberg), but only pre-built templates for Illustrator. If you need a new year, you’d have to search for a new template, which is lame. New script to the rescue! Thanks go to Joyce for this suggestion.
No, the script does not create the above calendar. Check out thumbcalendar.com.
Download version 3 of Calendar Script (33k). You will need version CS3 or CS4 of Illustrator.
Examples below for 2009.
Download Adobe Illustrator CS2 version of 2009 calendar. Use the script to build out the rest of the months.
12-up mini | January.
To install new scripts you need to:
Quit Illustrator
Copy the files into the Illustrator application folder’s “Presets†» “Scripts†subfolder
After restarting Illustrator you can find the scripts in the menu “File†» “Scriptsâ€;
TIP: You can create subfolders in the scripts folder to organize your scripts
View video demonstration of script (click to play, 9.3 megs):
There are several sizes of calendars:
Wall calendar, large format boxed dates, 1 month fits on a page, sequential pages.
Page calendar, 12 months fit on a letter sized page.
Mini calendar, 12 months small enough to fit on a business card.
Mini 1 month calendar that fits in a date square in a wall calendar.
Couple problems:
Illustrator lacks tables, so we have to rely on tabs and other text-only options. If you want tables, use the InDesign script mentioned above.
Start week on Monday or Sunday?
Track holidays?
JavaScript doesn’t track leap years for February days in month?!
Objectives:
Create single month, full year, or range of months / years.
Editable text
Stylize via script font family, style, size, etc and change later via character style
Option to put 6th week in 5th week line for wall-calendar style
Multiple size defaults
Multiple size calendars in single Illustrator document
Have a GUI graphic user interface
Future Work:
Use of tab stops. Now you have to redefine the paragraph style for the dayTabs.
Colorize weekends, holidays
Support holidays (absolute and relative)
Moon phase icons?
Draw day grid for wall-calendar size
The • buttons for month and year are not working. They should take you to the current month / year.
[Editor’s note: Returning from traveling in China, cities, growth, and urban geography are on my mind. Enjoy this article from the Economist about a rapidly urbanizing world populous, and how that is not necessarily a bad thing for poverty and wealth.]
Reprinted from The Economist print edition. Nov 6th 2008.
The problems—and benefits—of urbanisation on a vast scale
IN JANUARY this year a vast number of would-be travellers were stranded at railway stations and on roads in China, after an unusually heavy snowfall blanketed the south of the country just before the country’s new-year festivities. What amazed the world (in addition to the unusual sight of a prime minister apologising for his government’s slowness) was the unprecedented scale of the disruption: an estimated 200m people were on the move.
Governments in many poor countries react with a shudder to this sort of news item—and indeed to any news that seems to expose the fragility of newly urbanised economies. Most of those frustrated Chinese travellers were migrant workers going from cities to their families in the countryside or vice versa. Movement on such a scale seems inevitable, given the sort of urbanisation China and others have experienced: over the past 30 years, the world’s urban population has risen from 1.6 billion to 3.3 billion, and over the next 30 years cities in the developing world are set to grow by an extra 2 billion. But many governments have become doubtful of their ability to cope with urbanisation on such an enormous scale; some have concluded that they ought to slow the process down in order to minimise social upheaval. This view owes as much to anti-urban bias as it does to sober analysis.
In 2005, more than half the poor countries surveyed by the UN Population Division said they wanted to reduce internal migration to rein in urban growth. The food crisis of the past 18 months has sharpened worries about how to feed the teeming slums. This week the UN’s secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, warned the biennial World Urban Forum meeting in Nanjing that 2 billion could be living in slums in the year 2030 and that “urban areas consume most of the world’s energy and are generating the bulk of our waste.â€
Such fears of urban over-concentration are reflected in the policies of many different countries. Saudi Arabia is spending billions on new super-cities to ease the growth of Jeddah and Riyadh. Egypt is building 20 new cities to divert people away from Cairo. It plans 45 more. And attempts by poor countries to alter the course of urbanisation have a long pedigree in the rich world. In the 1950s and 1960s, Britain and France built lots of new towns to counter-balance their capitals’ dominance.
Yet new research published by the World Bank in its annual flagship World Development Report* suggests that pessimism over the future of huge cities is wildly overdone. The bank argues that third-world cities grow so big and so fast precisely because they generate vast economic advantages, and that these gains may be increasing. Slowing urbanisation down, or pushing it towards places not linked with world markets, is costly and futile, the bank says. At a time of contagion and bail-outs, the research also reaffirms the unfashionable view that the basic facts of geography—where people live and work, how they get around—matter as much as financial and fiscal policies. (The award of this year’s Nobel prize for economics to Paul Krugman of Princeton University for his work on the location of economic activity was another reflection of that view.)
The bank’s research yields lots of new insights. It argues, for example, that the share of humanity that lives in cities is slightly lower than most people think. The bank drew up a fresh index to get around the knotty problem of defining “urbanâ€; this new measure puts the world’s city-dwelling population at about 47% in 2000. In fact—as Indermit Gill, who oversaw the report, acknowledges—it is impossible to pinpoint the proportion: the urban slice of humanity may be anywhere between 45% and 55%, depending on how you count. The report’s main point is that, whatever their exact dimensions, the Gotham Cities of the poor world should not be written off as a disaster simply on grounds that they are too big, too chaotic, too polluted and too unequal.
I was asked recently if I could automate the creation of calendars in Adobe Illustrator. It turns out there are a couple script for accomplishing this in InDesign (best is from 
I was asked recently if I could automate the creation of calendars in Adobe Illustrator. It turns out there are a couple script for accomplishing this in InDesign (best is from 
