Author: benteh
“Incuriosity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is”. All-round nerd with a tendency to poke things with a stick to see what happens. Doodler, artist, bookbinder, photographer, illustrator, visual; interaction & UX designer, spider in the web.
Animal, vegetable, mineral, man-made
The three kingdoms, according to Linnaeus; was mineral, vegetable, animal. Throw in man-made, and you have the Natural and the Artificial worlds… ...
Drawing animals
Drawing is a skill, art is a gift. I am no artist, but I draw, and the same rule for learning to play the piano applies: practice, practice, practice. I have briefly mentioned earlier my deep belief in doodles. I will in a later post come back to my technique and how I go about ...
Multivariable visualisation: tracing 40 generations
A while ago, on a whim, i did some digging into my grandmothers family tree. I found more than I bargained for, as described in the post Noble genealogy. And I decided to make a family tree... A family tree of more then five generations soon gets complicated and it becomes impossible to keep track ...
“Next station! Pituitary Gland!”
Over at http://rangelmd.com/ there is this genius post: Human anatomy as subway map ...
Douglas Hofstadter: creativity
…qualities like quiveriness and vulnerability come to mind when I think of creativity… creativity requires a sense of smell, a palate to taste the scents that make brilliance. All life feeds upon the random. Creativity is the haute cuisine ...
Kingdom: vegetable
(According to Linnaean taxonomy, there are three kingdoms: vegetable, animal, mineral) After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on - have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear - what remains? Nature remains. – Walt Whitman The ultimate inspiration. Nature, the largest multivariate network there is ...
Life network
Take the things that are interesting, and see if you can connect the dots. This is made in Gephi, an open-source network visualisation tool. This will eventually be an interactive browser for my other blog ...
What good old days?
Note: this is a post I wrote a few years ago, but it is still valid. I have been reading Design Observer on and off for a few years. Sometimes it's desperately navel-gazing, sometimes is preaching to the already converted, sometimes it's talking to a few insiders. Sometimes, it is good. The last time I ...
John Maeda: skill in the digital age
Skill in the digital age is confused with mastery of digital tools, masking the importance of understanding materials and mastering the elements of form ...
Beautiful statistics
Hans Rosling, the hero of beautiful statistics, showing us the world as it actually is. By making statistics beautiful and demonstrating that the impossible is possible. Oh, and btw; you can play with the Gapminder tool yourself ...
Streetart
Streetart is all around, in the most unlikely places. I implore you, do not just walk past. Stop and sniff the excellence of creativity in the dark. alley turtle turtle kitty banksy-ish marine life ape in the hotel unicorns weird biker war pac-man eh... trumpeter royal creature stikman piece piece gekko gekko good people once ...
“Design is where science and art break even”
Once in a while I come across some images that takes my breath away, and make me intensely wish that I had thought about it myself. Art can of course do magic, but the combination of information and art, I feel, somehow takes both to a higher level. Giorgia Lupi Has made these amazing charts ...
The importance of doodles
The importance of doodles: I am a great believer in doodles. I am a notorious meeting-doodler, and believe there should be more doodles in the world. I carry around a Moleskine for this purpose, and here are some examples. my left hand doodles big city doodle deck of cards, three of hearts doodle doodle from ...
Visual complexity: in defence of hard
In defence of hard is a splendid post from P.J. Onori, over at Adaptive Path. He argues eloquently that simplifying the visually complex is an affront to the human capacity; that the tendency for treating people like idiots makes us idiots. You are allowed to demand something of people: not everything is simple, and we should ...

