A package of three unusual 24" x 25.5" calendars and four smaller ones. Click the image for a PDF preview, which you are welcome to print for personal use only.

But the full-sized, expertly offset ones we offer are likely to cost less and have cleaner type (scanned to film at 3200 dpi resolution!) than if you do it yourself; as well as helping support the i|e cause.

Each set of three calendars is printed on heavy stock (70 lb.) and we’re including two linear calendars, as well as two copies of a playful, impossible-to-read 8" square reduced version. (We decided to use the margins of the 25" x 38" sheet it’s printed on to full advantage this time!) A package of 7 calendars in all: fun for friends and family.

A lovely and very orderly use of last year’s calendar. The full comment is here. Thanks Katherine!

After a dozen or so tweaks and small crises, the second edition of our print Relationships among scientific paradigms rolled off the presses today; we will begin shipping tomorrow.

People have set out varying hopes and interpretations for the term “Information Aesthetics,” and they mostly differ from what this organization was created to support; that’s one of the reasons we chose the less-used “American” spelling of the word. This note is the first of a few that try to better define the boundaries of our particular spotlight—perhaps closer in spirit to the original coinage by Scha and Bod (1993) (which itself seems related to some interesting work quantifying Aesthetic Judgement and Arousal due to the complexity of forms in a 1973 paper of that name by Gerda Smits—this is not a new area of study).

What makes something “Information Visualization?” At this point there are probably tens of thousands of programs turning numbers into images and many of them purport to help us understand the data. I believe most of them don’t, based on admittedly high standards: is a given tool readable, useful, worth my time? Or is it just visual titillation: fun for a moment’s early visual process engagement, and ultimately unsatisfying?

Here’s my attempt to list what runs through my mind as I see and try to evaluate new work that calls itself InfoVis. I will be expanding each section as time goes on, and welcome questions and additions.

To help facilitate discussion about specific visualization techniques I am trying to develop a terminology similar to Mathematics’ well-defined “properties,” such as closure, commutative, identity. Where I have come up with an expressive and concise term I list it above the test.

We wholeheartedly thank everyone who has taken an interest in the prints made by i|e founder Brad Paley, but have moved them to the Products page. Information Esthetics is meant to be more than just a place to get neat prints, and we want to clear the area for other features: coming soon...

Please Note: the usability-challenged design of Drupal's products page does not make it obvious that you need to click on the product title before you can add it to your shopping cart. Or just click on one of the thumbnails above. I'm looking for a workaround.

We are catching up to our happy deluge of orders: thank you all for your patience. Some 1,500 orders will be shipped in the next two weeks (we hired another part-time person to help).

Then we’re into the second print edition, which has some subtle but positive changes; that should print early next week and start shipping early the following. That batch will be sent out by professional shippers, so it should go much more quickly.

Should anyone prefer a full refund rather than wait, I completely understand. Just e-mail me (the e-mail address to which your PayPal was credited) and we'll take care of it.

The December issue of the journal Nature started its pictorial yearly review with collaborative work by Kevin Boyack, Dick Klavans and i|e founder W. Bradford Paley. This same image, at its true (readable) 42" x 43" size, can currently be viewed in person as part of the exhibition Places & Spaces: Mapping Science at the New York Hall of Science.

We’ve received scores of e-mails asking whether this material was available, so will soon be posting both video and transcripts. Stay tuned.