I've got brain freeze!

September 1, 2008 10:42 PM

I need to design some really cool (elegant but very simple and clean) charts and/or graphs for a small brochure... any good resources you can point me to for inspiration? (Preferably websites, not books. I'm working on this tonight.)

I'm working on a brochure for a skin care company and I need to include some small charts and graphs. Think Clinique, Origins or Prescriptives. Things need to be minimal, streamlined, sophisticated... right now I'm working with simple gradients. I'm looking for good examples of other approaches besides basic pie charts and stacked boxes. Trying to be uber creative... but my brain is fried. Heeelllllp.

Thanks oodles, my peeps.

posted by miss lynnster to media & arts (5 answers total)

Juice Analytics have some great stuff, including this handy chart chooser (requires Flash), which gives templates for beautiful Excel and Powerpoint charts.

Stephen Few has some great stuff at his website; check out the examples page, the library and the blog. There are some good examples of awesome charts in here.

John Peltier is probably the best guy when it comes to Excel charts; you can take some of his stuff and adapt it to whatever you're using.
posted by nz_kyle at 11:01 PM on September 1, 2008 [3 favorites]

FYI, I'm creating them in Illustrator & Photoshop. But that doesn't really matter, I can make them look like just about anything once I find the inspiration.
posted by miss lynnster at 11:16 PM on September 1, 2008

You should check out the Feltron Annual Report, wherein (designer) Nicholas Felton documents the minutae of his life with all manner of charts and stats.
posted by O9scar at 12:00 AM on September 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

It ain't online and it's library-priced, but if you ever get a chance to look at FARMAX, it does amazing things with graphic representation of data. (The colour scheme is more playful architect than high-end skincare, but it's beautiful and inspiring.)
posted by carbide at 2:10 AM on September 2, 2008

I can't believe no one's mentioned Edward Tufte.
posted by methylsalicylate at 7:47 AM on September 2, 2008