Martin Krzywinski - The Art of Data Visualization, Design & Information Mapping

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Krzywinski built the Center’s first IT system, beefed up their security, designed optimized keyboard layouts, and generally geeked out. Along the way, he started helping researchers with their projects, getting to know their data and its possibilities. The rest is design history.

Falling DNA sequencing prices and a growing appreciation of cellular complexity soon unleashed a torrent of genetic data. The tools for gathering data, though, had outpaced those for portraying it. “I was frustrated, reading a lot of the scientific papers and not understanding what they were saying. I just wanted them to be simpler,” said Krzywinski. “There’s nothing I can do to make biology simpler, but I started telling people to make clearer figures.”

To do this, Krzywinski developed Circos, an open source visualization tool that arranges tabular data in circular form. It was a simple idea, but transformative: It’s since been used for thousands of visualizations, and its distinctive aesthetic is synonymous with the informational richness of our moment.



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Martin Krzywinski is a scientist who specializes in bioinformatics—the practice of organizing vast sets of biological data and representing them graphically for research and analysis. His work focuses on cancer research, which he performs at the BC Cancer Agency in Vancouver.

[DayBlakelyDonaldson]

Good expression of presenting science to the public. Thanks for the video.

[KensterInSilico]

This makes me want to drink beer and talk science.

[ABitOfTheUniverse]

For anyone who liked the last bit of this, the Powers of Ten and the star part, you will really like Scale by HTwins.