Around the World in 80 Hats

Around the World in 80 Hats infographic from Venere is a quick culture trip around the world with a little help from a fashionable article of clothing, hats.

All cultures of the world use the clothes they wear to define how they live, work, and respect their history. From the first world to the third world, hat styles especially have become important iconic markers of cultural dress. This infographic looks at 80 culturally significant hats from all corners of the earth, showing just how wonderfully diverse and interesting humanity can be.

A story like this depends on the visuals.  You have to see the hats to understand the history and connection to each country.  The footer should include the URL to the infographic landing page in text so readers can find the original when other sites post the infographic without the link.

Thanks to Thomas for sending in the link!

Regular vs. Royal Wedding Costs

Adaptu brings us the Regular vs. Royal: The Cost of Getting Married infographic.

Roses or tulips? Open bar or cash bar? New gown or alter the one you found online? Do you have room to invite former Prime Minister Tony Blair? The only task more stressful than planning a wedding is financing it, and nothing tops a Royal ceremony.

Keeping the cost in perspective, we wanted to compare the average American wedding budget to the Royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Click on the infographic to learn what the typical couple spends on flowers and ponder what botanical masterpiece cost the Royals $800k.

I was inundated with submissions of royal wedding infographics, and sadly only a few of them were good.  I like the fresh design aspect of this one designed by the team at Periscopic.com (I just added them to the Cool Links page).  The increasing size of the trapezoids stacked into a triangle is interesting.  What I can’t tell by observation is if they did the area calculations correctly.

In a visual comparison of shape sizes used to compare numbers in a data visualization, the area of the shapes is what the reader sees as indicative of the value, and in this infographic, but the width and height of each trapezoid is adjusted to maintain the traingle shape and be true to the values represented.

I applaud the effort to try new shapes and experiment with a fresh way to visualize the comparison between values.

Thanks to Dino for sending in the link!