Visualise Anything – This Is the Average Man’s Body

Technology is so powerful these days we can visualise almost anything we can imagine.

But data visualisations don’t have to be dull. Pie charts, graphs and flow diagrams all have an important role to play, but sometimes a picture truly does paint a thousand words.

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That’s why I love this article from The Atlantic. From readily available BMI (body mass index) data, graphic artist Nickolay Lamm has rendered visual representations of the average man living today in the USA, Japan, Netherlands and France.

The results aren’t exactly a beauty pageant (get to the gym Mr USA!) , but they do instantly show how geographically dispersed societies create humans with noticeably different physiological characteristics.

And those differences would be so starkly brought to our comprehension without such clever visualisation skills.

What data do you hold that could be visualised to bring a story to life online?