Friends!! After a five month blog vacation (a blogcation?), I'm back. If you remember from my last post at the end of December, I mentioned that it was not my viz season. You can read about that here. The truth is, I've had a lot of stuff going on the last year and it took significant energy. That creative spark died down and that made me super sad. For reasons I've touched on in my new blog (about life, which you can read about here) coupled with an Iron Viz theme I was really excited about, I felt that creative spark and decided to viz.
May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor
My first thought when the Iron Viz theme was announced was "May the Odds be Ever in Your Favor", a quote from Effie Trinket, Advisor to Katniss Everdeen.
When I was looking for this meme, I also found this one, which I thought was fun and *had* to include in this post.
Let the Viz Begin
I knew I wanted the title to be 'May the Odds be Ever in Your Favor'. I found some data about the most prominent tributes (the players in The Hunger Games) survival and career status and started to create.
I tried a few different visualizations but kept coming back to the survival and the odds. Career tributes are favored more than "volunteers." I kept it simple and just focused on a couple of things. I worked on this viz for a hour or so to explore the data and then worked on refining the viz for a total of one hour spread over three days the week the submissions are due. Here's what that effort got me:
I tried a few different visualizations but kept coming back to the survival and the odds. Career tributes are favored more than "volunteers." I kept it simple and just focused on a couple of things. I worked on this viz for a hour or so to explore the data and then worked on refining the viz for a total of one hour spread over three days the week the submissions are due. Here's what that effort got me:
I'm submitting this viz, not because I think I'm going to win. It's not spectacular or even the complex. From a technical perspective, I just used circle plots. When I asked Matt Francis for suggestions to make it better, I specifically asked him to provide me tweaks I could in limited time with my rusty skills. I really appreciate his help to scope the suggestions for me.
Why Submit?
1. I have been a big supporter of having more women enter the feeder contest, so I felt like I had to show up.
2. I felt inspired and wanted to share that.
3. Why not? After five years and a couple of feeders of wanting to enter, I didn't have the time or energy. So when I finally did, why not enter? The worse that can happen is that I don't win and someone thinks this is WTF worthy. Or maybe, one of the judges is like the world's biggest THG fan and really appreciates that I've used a color palette that was used in movie promos for the book. Or they see the nuance of the game-makers rating (they tend to rate them similarly but will choose to rate a tribute higher than the others to make them a target). Or maybe they just love dystopian novels. But seriously, there was no good reason for me not to submit it. This submission was for me.
2. I felt inspired and wanted to share that.
3. Why not? After five years and a couple of feeders of wanting to enter, I didn't have the time or energy. So when I finally did, why not enter? The worse that can happen is that I don't win and someone thinks this is WTF worthy. Or maybe, one of the judges is like the world's biggest THG fan and really appreciates that I've used a color palette that was used in movie promos for the book. Or they see the nuance of the game-makers rating (they tend to rate them similarly but will choose to rate a tribute higher than the others to make them a target). Or maybe they just love dystopian novels. But seriously, there was no good reason for me not to submit it. This submission was for me.
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