Research is beautiful

With so much great information design out there, it’s surprising how little of it comes from the world of research. This is, after all, an industry of people who collect, analyse and present data for a living.

Kantar is one of the companies making moves to bridge that gap – it recently brought on board David McCandless, the man behind Information is Beautiful, as a consultant specialising in data visualisation and information design. It is now sponsoring the first Information is Beautiful awards, which is open for entries.

As well as annual awards, there will be monthly data visualisation challenges with cash prizes – the first of those opens in a couple of weeks’ time.

An infographics showcase at Research 2011 gave agencies a chance to show what they can do. Hopefully these awards will be another outlet for researchers to get creative with data and make boring bar charts a thing of the past.