Creative fuel..

You're in the midst of your project design and need to look at something else for a bit? Perfectly understandable. Check out the following links. Maybe one of these will spark your interest...

Interactive Map of Parking Tickets in New York City (don't you want to see a version for campus?)

NPR's visualization of the U.S. power grid

Council on Foreign Relation's interactive Crisis Guides. I stumbled on these looking for interactive pieces for my world regional class. The guides all have some maps and graphics (climate is more video based) -- they are very nicely done especially considering the amount of content they contain. Some bits, like the Chapter III map in the Darfur Guide, use clever tricks to show multiple symbols that are clustered together (...they show both symbols simultaneously, but class them on separate active layers so you can easily click on the symbols to get additional info). And if you wondered about adding video and narration...more professional design there.

The growth of Target stores in the US. A simple design that lets the data drive the visuals. I love seeing the invasion of Southern California in the mid 80's (an essentially Walmart-free area at that time).