The Shortlist

🏆 Winner Twin Cloud- Using Atmospheric Data Visualization to Depict the Breath of Cities

• Jieying Ding, Tongji University, Beijing, China
• Yun Hong, Tsinghua University, China
• Yixuan Cai, Blackvoid, Beijing, China
• Yuan Chen, Blue think tank ltd, Beijing, China

Clouds reflects ground activities. Ashes from volcano eruption forms aerosol clouds in the sky. Emissions from industrial production dye the sky red. Gases produced in cities accumulate in the atmosphere. Bombs and tear gas form fleeting artificial clouds. Rainforest also change the concentration of oxygen ions in the air …… In the past three years, global extreme weather become more prevalent than usual. Clouds are silent witness of our ground activities, which are driven by conflicts, love, human desire and even destruction. Many alterations in the natural world that take place at the microscopic molecular or biological level are difficult to see and feel with the naked eye. The data pertaining to the alterations, however, can be converted into information that people can understand. The climate change issue serves as a classic illustration, where the atmosphere serves as a map of human activity on the ground and in reality harbors numerous crises. Every breath we take makes up 0.0000000000000000000005%(1e-23) of the air on planet, chemicals from biomass burning, vehicle exhaust, and industrial emissions enter our bodies. The climate crisis is present in our everyday lives, but because it is intangible, we consistently fail to recognize how intimately it affects us. Data is insightful and could express social political events. Twin Cloud takes hundreds of city’s meteorological data around the world, including greenhouse gases, aerosol pollutants, humidity, temperature, and location. The algorithm generates twin cloud according to each location and time slice, reflecting its ground condition. For example, industrialization is revealed through amount of sulfur dioxide, coastal condition is revealed through sea salt aerosols. …… All the above will affect the shape, movement, color, and the texture of digital cloud. As toxic chemicals accumulate, the twin cloud moves from a soft/sparse state to a chaotic/violent state. Data can also be visceral and poetic.

🏅 Honorable Mention Reinsurers defend against rising tide of natural catastrophe losses, for now

• Georges Corbineau, Moody's Communication, London, United Kingdom
• Eric Fayad, Moody's Communication, New York, United States
• Todd Lindeman, Moody’s Communications, New York, United States,
• Dan Grunebaum, Moody's Communications, New York, United States

The piece submitted by Moody’s is a standalone data story that aims to reach audiences from general readers to news organizations to the investor class, bringing awareness to one of our brand’s core themes. Our team collaborates with analysts and researchers across the company. This data story is derived from previously published Moody’s research, which we leveraged to tell a more focused message. The source material spanned various Moody’s reports that informed on multiple views. We are called upon to filter this often complex and abstract information, and to design in a compelling way so that the subject matter is engaging, easily digestible and meaningful. The narrative is written to be conversational and newsy, while the charting is designed to be clear, immediate, and concise. Our work typically undergoes many rounds of development, editing and approvals. View the story on Moody's website

The Cost of Noise in France

• Silvia Romanelli, The Information Lab, Tours, France

In October 2021, the French Agency for Ecological Transition published a report highlighting the huge financial impact of noise in France, which really spoke to me because at the time I used to live in an area where noise pollution is particularly heavy. Raising awareness about noise pollution is the main purpose of this visualization, which I decided to focus on the main source of noise: transportation. Data in the report is in the form of pdf tables, so I extracted it in Excel. Then I used Tableau, Charticulator and Illustrator to visualize it. I relied upon a friend who’s an acoustics engineer to help me fully understand how sound is measured. In terms of design, I used a slightly unpleasant green to mimic the unpleasant feeling of noise. I put the charts about Lden and Lnight indicators side by side to make them easily comparable. See Infogrpahic at Behance

China’s weak property sales and funding constraints fuel developer defaults, sector woes test banks

• Georges Corbineau, Moody's Communication, London, United Kingdom
• Todd Lindeman, Moody's Communication, New York, New York, United States

The piece submitted by Moody’s is a standalone data story that aims to reach audiences from general readers to news organizations to the investor class, bringing awareness to one of our brand’s core themes. Our team collaborates with analysts and researchers across the company. This data story is derived from previously published Moody’s research, which we leveraged to tell a more focused message. The source material spanned various Moody’s reports that informed on multiple views. We are called upon to filter this often complex and abstract information, and to design in a compelling way so that the subject matter is engaging, easily digestible and meaningful. The narrative is written to be conversational and newsy, while the charting is designed to be clear, immediate, and concise. Our work typically undergoes many rounds of development, editing and approvals. View the story on Moody's website

Rapid growth of virtual banks puts new verve into old banking systems

• Georges Corbineau, Moody's Communication, London, United Kingdom
• Todd Lindeman, Moody’s Communications, New York, New York, United States, todd.lindeman@moodys.com

The piece submitted by Moody’s is a standalone data story that aims to reach audiences from general readers to news organizations to the investor class, bringing awareness to one of our brand’s core themes. Our team collaborates with analysts and researchers across the company. This data story is derived from previously published Moody’s research, which we leveraged to tell a more focused message. The source material spanned various Moody’s reports that informed on multiple views. We are called upon to filter this often complex and abstract information, and to design in a compelling way so that the subject matter is engaging, easily digestible and meaningful. The narrative is written to be conversational and newsy, while the charting is designed to be clear, immediate, and concise. Our work typically undergoes many rounds of development, editing and approvals. View the story on Moody's website

Industries boost cyber defenses against growing number of attacks

• Eric Fayad, Moody's Communication, New York, New York, United States
• Georges Corbineau, Moody's Communication, London, United Kingdom
• Todd Lindeman, Moody’s Communications, New York, New York, United States

The piece submitted by Moody’s is a standalone data story that aims to reach audiences from general readers to news organizations to the investor class, bringing awareness to one of our brand’s core themes. Our team collaborates with analysts and researchers across the company. This data story is derived from previously published Moody’s research, which we leveraged to tell a more focused message. The source material spanned various Moody’s reports that informed on multiple views. We are called upon to filter this often complex and abstract information, and to design in a compelling way so that the subject matter is engaging, easily digestible and meaningful. The narrative is written to be conversational and newsy, while the charting is designed to be clear, immediate, and concise. Our work typically undergoes many rounds of development, editing and approvals. View the story on Moody's website

About

The Visual Data Storytelling contest celebrates its seventh year in 2023. This contest aims to encourage students, researchers, and visualization practitioners to demonstrate the value of data visualization through compelling visual data stories and to promote innovative and effective use of data visualization for communication and presentation.

This contest explores the emerging data communication genre, including data storytelling, narrative visualizations, explanatory notebooks, and visual essays. Potential contest entrants are encouraged to review the following events and venues for inspiration. The contest will be held in conjunction with IEEE PacificVis 2023 from April 18-21, 2023 in Seoul, Korea.

• The Information is Beautiful Awards
• The Tapestry Conference
• The Malofiej Infographics World Summit
• The Pudding
• NYT Graphics
• Visualizing Data
• Explorable Explanations
• Google News Lab

Entries from previous contents:

• Entries from 2022
• Entries from 2021
• Entries from 2017-2020

Talks about data-driven storytelling:

• Once Upon a Time: From Data to Stories(John Schwabish @ Socrata Connect 2017)
• Animation, Pacing, and Exposition(Tony Chu @ OpenVisConf 2016)
• Where's Larry? Bringing Data to Life Through Story (Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic @ Tapestry Conference 2017)

PacificVis is a unified visualization symposium welcoming all areas of visualization, such as information, scientific, graph, security, and software visualization. Storytellers are invited to submit visual data-driven stories that draw upon any of these areas. In addition, entries that focus on computational journalism and artistic design projects are encouraged. Unlike contests such as the IEEE VAST challenge or the IEEE SciVis Contest, the data for the PacificVis visual data storytelling contest is intentionally left unspecified; storytellers are free to choose any publicly available dataset(s). Similarly, the task that storytellers are to accomplish is to successfully communicate a message or series of messages (i.e., a narrative, a series of insights) using data visualization techniques. The story's themes can draw from any topic, including current affairs, history, natural disasters, and research findings from the sciences and humanities.

Entries may be submitted by teams or individuals from industry and academia. Conference sponsors can participate non-competitively. Submissions must fulfill the requirements explained below.

Requirement

Submissions can take several forms:

• Images: A collection of images, charts, infographics, data comics, and/or data visualization that convey a story using engaging visual designs. Example 1 and Example 2.
• Video: An animation that tells a data-driven story using visualizations. Note that video submissions that appear to be tutorials or demonstrations of a visualization tool will not be considered; the focus of the submission must be a visual narrative about the data, not a visualization tool or technique. Example.
• Notebooks: Interactive articles, markups, and notebooks that guide the reader through a narrative using text and visualizations. Examples of explainable notebook platforms include Distill, Idyll, and Observable.
• Website: An interactive web page that guides the user through the story. Note that purely analytic or exploratory visualization tools/dashboards that do not provide guidance or storytelling to the user will not be considered. The winning entry in the 2017 contest is an excellent example of a website entry: Example.
• Unconventional Forms: Other forms of interactive storytelling work, such as virtual/augmented reality, mixed reality, and other audio-visual projects, are also encouraged to submit as well. A video is likely the best way to make the initial submission. For unconventional entries that are accepted, we will work with the artists/authors to decide the best possible way to exhibit the work at the conference.

Other requirements:

• The story must feature a visual representation of data generated by various techniques such as computer programming (e.g., D3.js), manual illustration (e.g., using pen & paper, physical objects, or illustration software), or other relevant techniques. Third-party techniques or applications may be used in conjunction with the author's own work as long as proper credit is given to their respective creators and it is made clear which aspects of the implementation represent the authors' own work.
• The entries must be original data-driven stories that have not been previously published elsewhere.
• The dataset(s) used in the story must be publicly available, and linked to, sourced, or otherwise referenced.
• The story content can be in any language, while accompanying explanations should be provided in English. This will help our judges provide a proper evaluation of your submission.
• A 150-word abstract (entered on the PCS submission website) that may briefly describe the purpose of the story along with the data analysis and design process undertaken by the storyteller(s). The abstract should not include the message(s) communicated by the story; the story must stand alone in this regard such that a viewer should not need to read the abstract to understand the story.
• Supplementary materials are encouraged. For example, high-resolution images, videos, audio files, or other materials to show design processes that will help reviewers evaluate the submission.
• For the accepted entries, we expect the following additional requirements:
  • A brief demo video describing the submission. (Exact details will be sent out to accepted entries.)
  • At least one member of the team must register for the conference and be present at the contest's sessions and award ceremony. Remote presentation will be available upon request.

Submission

Submit online through the new Precision Conference System at the PacificVis 2023 Storytelling Contest track.

• Static entries such as infographics and data comics should be submitted in PDF format.
• Videos should be in mp4 format, with a maximum file size of 300 MB.
• Explainable articles and websites can be submitted as a web URL. Such entries should be directly runnable in a browser without downloading or installing packages/libraries/etc.

If you have chosen to submit a URL (i.e., a website submission or an online version of your video or image submission), please add the URL in the abstract field.

Reviewing and Awards

A jury of visualization and data storytelling experts will carefully judge each submission and make the selection of accepted entries. Successful entries will effectively communicate a narrative, message(s), or insight(s) using visual representations of data. Each judge assigned to a submission will give the submission a score from 1 to 5, and they will be asked the following questions:

• Is the story novel?
• Is the story original (i.e., the author’s own work not previously published elsewhere)?
• Is the story trustworthy and functional (i.e., is the message clearly communicated)?
• Is the story engaging and beautiful?
• Is the story informative and enlightening?
• Are the submission requirements met?

Accepted submissions will be published on the PacificVis Storytelling Contest channel on Vimeo. A selected set of accepted entries will receive awards (Honorable Mention and Best Storytelling Awards). Awards will be presented to the winners during the conference.

Timeline

All dates are midnight PST (Pacific Standard Time).

Committee

Jury

Contest Chairs

Nam Wook Kim
Boston College, USA

John Thompson
Microsoft Research, USA

Contact

Email: pvis_contest@pvis.org