How can I learn to create beautiful infographics (with connection to my R knowledge)? [closed]

Question

I am a devoted R (r-project.org) user, and love infographics.

I just came across this article: http://www.noupe.com/design/fantastic-information-architecture-resources.html

Giving a long list of resources for information designers.

And it raised in me the desire to do more beautiful (not just informative) R plots.

Do you have any suggestion/resources on how to make this leap?

What books/software/skills do I need to have/develop in order to be able to make beautiful infographics?

Answer 1

Here's a list of resources that I would suggest:

Tufte's books are really excellent, although my favorite is actually his second book: Envisioning Information. Separately, I always found the periodic table of visualization methods to be entertaining. Ross Ihaka also taught a course on this subject in the past.

For R, learn ggplot2. The learnr.wordpress.com blog is an excellent resource for this. You might consider the ggplot book and the original Grammar of Graphics book.

Here's another useful article from the same site that you linked in your question: Data Visualization: Modern Approaches.

Some good blogs on the subject:

• http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/
• http://flowingdata.com/

In some cases, you might want to do your data manipulation in R, but create the visualization with another tool (see, for instance, this list). Here are some of the best tools that I have found over the years:

• Processing
• Prefuse
• Protovis

Lastly, an interesting open visualization platform was many eyes.

Answer 2

You might want to look into using R to create your underlying graphics, and then saving them in an editable format (like svg). Then using a more art focused application to edit your svg to make it beautifull (like Inkscape). See my previous question for an example using Cairo. I'd also +1 the learn ggplot2 from Shane.