The Big Daddy of Periodic Tables 03/24/2010
 www.keaggy.com/periodictable  www.azuregrackle.com/periodictable/table The Periodic Table probably brings back either happy, or horrifying memories of your Chemistry class. Thats when you were busy mixing sulphuric acid with phosphorous or quietly dozing in the back (I know I was doing the last option). But this is one really resourceful periodic table, where each 'element' links you to a whole other periodic table. Its got everything from music to beverages and what-not. Some of the good ones are The Periodic Table Printmaking Project. This combines science an art in an amazing way to give you loads of information on different printing techniques. And The Periodic Table of Chippies (better known as Dingbats) in the AIGA archives. There is also The Periodic Table of Typefaces. Another one worth looking at is The Wines of Substance Periodic Table. Wine at its interactive best. There's the seemingly inane Table of Cupcakes for the food-inclined. And a very cryptic Periodic Table of Metaphors (scroll to see) Cartoon lovers can check out the Periodic Table of Cartoons. For some great sarcastic humour check out the Periodic Table of Criminal Elements. I bet India could have a very rich one like this. There is the Periodic Table of the Europeans. Its interesting to see how the basic structure of the Periodic Table can be applied to organize almost any bunch of data, from the useful to the frivolous. The original Periodic Table generally credited to Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869, is an early example of visual representation of information to help us classify and compare. It seems simple to us now, almost symbolic, as we take that representation for granted, but must have been a creative leap for science back then. The system it uses to represent the elements, is functionally strong enough to still be used and applied to different data. The person behind the impressive Periodic Table of Periodic Tables is Bill Keaggy whose official tagline is "Collector, maker and breaker of things". And he has done some serious collecting just in terms of the amount of links/resources on his site. The word 'Publishmentalitarianism' on the browser when you open his site just sums it up. The Periodic Table is small fry for someone with a site like this. The home page looks deceivingly simple, but there are loads of images, links, information he has posted there. As he has stated there, "This web site is a collection of visual indiscretions. It serves no purpose and despite what you may think, it does not waste a lot of my time — just yours." By Armeen Kapadia  archive.aiga.org |   Every monthSeptember 2010 CategoriesAll |
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