How Star Wars Changed the World

The original Star Wars has certainly gone on to produce more than just sequels.  It has created the people and the technologies that are now considered the best in the industry.  Michelle Devereaux created this family tree for Wired magazine back in 2005 and I love how the line colors indicate people, technologies and company connections, but the tree is organized into movies, sound, effects and technologies.

I actually believe the tree is incomplete.  I think Star Wars had far greater reach and influence that what Michelle mapped out here.

It all started with a band of rebels who wanted to help a farmboy follow his dream.  Three decades later, the Star Wars empire has grown into one of the most fertile incubators of talent in the worlds of movies (Lucasfilm), visual effects (Industrial Light & Magic), sound (Skywalker Sound), and videogames (LucasArts).  Along the way, some of the original Lucas crew has gone on to become his biggest competitors.  This chart maps the people, companies and technologies touched by the Force. - Michelle Devereaux

Thanks Alwyn!

A Visual Guide to the Financial Crisis

This is a tall flow chart helping describe the financial crisis, from blog.mint.com.

Thanks Alwyn!

Laugh System Diagram

I'm back!  I've been on vacation to Walt Disney World in Florida, but I'm back now and its time to catch up on a bunch of great infographics that have been sent in to me.

First, I'll share this one from Disney.  The Laugh System Diagram is from the queue area in the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor.  I wish they sold it as a poster.  It seems simple, but I was amazed watching a five year-old explain it in great detail to her parents.

Of course, there are some inside connections too.  The yellow car in the bottom right corner is the car from the animated short on the DVD "Mike's New Car".

Olympics Schedule Tracker

The Olympics Tracker is an interactive schedule of the events.  It now only shows which events are scheduled each day and hour, but you can drag them to rearrange your favorites to the top.  Clicking on past events shows the results, and clicking on future events shows the upcoming event details.  Medal awarding events marked with a small medal icon.  You can even download a desktop version for Mac or Windows.

The Ropes at Disney

Found on CartoonBrew, this circular chart from 1943 shows the development process of an animated film through the different roles within the Disney organization.  Not exactly an org chart, this is more of a process map.

How do they make those drawings move?  This chart, an separate pull-out from the 1943 booklet, The Ropes At Disney’s (see below), explains the whole process.You’ll note that it all starts with “Walt”. And his main focus was “Story” and “Direction”.

Can you tell I’m going to Walt Disney World today?

WarCraft III DotA Poster

Created by Alwyn B., this hierarchical tree shows the complex Hero Item recipes for the WarCraft III MOD "Defense of the Ancients". As a fan and a player of the game, Alwyn painstakingly created his own infographic and then posted in on the Internet to share with other players. This makes a fantastic poster!

More than just the item combinations, the poster shows:

• Shows the basic items and how to combine them to form better items.
• Shows where to buy them, and for how much.
• Mini Map that shows shop locations
• Shop Item Layouts

When I looked today, this chart had been viewed over 100,000 times. Great job Alwyn, and thanks for sharing.

Approach to Creating Experiences

Found on Think>Draw>Make, the Approach to Creating Experiences is from David Armano from the very influential Logic + Emotion.

It’s a high-level attempt to document an approach to designing an interactive experience within an agency setting.

Tribute to Gary Gygax

From the nytimes.com