Ben Fry (Benjamin Jotham Fry)

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1 Data Visualization Experts and Pioneers Ben Fry (Benjamin Jotham Fry) Rob Rolleston MICA MPS Information Visualization Contexts of Information Visualization

2 BFA Communication Design, minor in Computer Science Carnegie-Mellon University, (Tracy Kroop overlap?) An Alphabet Book, December 1995 A collection of history, ideas, and rambling about typography from Junior year of undergrad design Paper Airplane, November 1993 Instructions on how to make a paper airplane, from freshman year studio during undergrad.

3 COMPUTATIONAL INFORMATION DESIGN The ability to collect, store, and manage data is increasing quickly, but our ability to understand it remains constant. In an attempt to gain better understanding of data, fields such as information visualization, data mining and graphic design are employed, each solving an isolated part of the specific problem, but failing in a broader sense: there are too many unsolved problems in the visualization of complex data. As a solution, this dissertation proposes that the individual fields be brought together as part of a singular process titled Computational Information Design. MIT Ph. D. Dissertation, Benjamin Jotham Fry, 2004 Genome Visualizations

4 Processing is a programming language, development environment, and online community that since 2001 has promoted software literacy within the visual arts. Initially created to serve as a software sketchbook and to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context, Processing quickly developed into a tool for creating finished professional work as well. (

5 The Seven Stages of Visualizing Data MIT Ph. D. Dissertation, Benjamin Jotham Fry, 2004 Fry, Ben, Visualizing Data, O Relly (2008)

6 Ben Fry Helping Others to Fly

7 References used: Fry, Ben, Visualizing Data, O Reilly, 2007 Reas, Casey and Fry, Ben, Getting Started with Processing, O Reilly, Fry, Benjamin Jotham, Computational Information Design, Ph. D. Dissertation, MIT, 2004 For a bio of Ben, in his own words, see pp xxiv-xxv in Reas, Casey and Fry, Ben, Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designera and Artists, MIT Press, 2007

8 Rolleston 1 Rob Rolleston Tracy Kroop MICA MPS Information Visualization / Contexts of Information Visualization Ben Fry: Helping Others to Fly Ben Fry is best known to the Data Visualization community as one of the creators of Processing, an open source project used by many in the learning and creation of graphical visualizations. While the Processing programming environment is used by many to create visualizations, Ben is very accomplished in producing his own visualizations which are admired by many, and for which he has received numerous prestigious awards, accolades, and recognition. Ben Fry began his journey as a Graphic Design Major at Carnegie-Mellon University in 1993, where his is first love was typography. Ben finished at Carnegie-Mellon with both a major in Graphic Design, and a minor in Computer Science. This duality of skills, both creative and technical formed a powerful combination in the emerging field of Data & Information Visualization. The next stage of Ben Fry s academic journey took him the Aesthetics and Computation group at the MIT Media Lab. While at MIT, Ben s research focused on visualizing large amounts data, particularly related to mapping the human genome, and culminated in graduating with his P. D. in Part of this work at MIT involved creating a three dimensional genome browser which ended up making a brief appearance in the movie The Hulk. Outside of the genome visualization research, Ben worked on a wide range of other projects including those focused on social causes such as the impact of the Iraq war, and several dealing with visualization and understanding of large complex software systems.

9 Rolleston 2 These later projects while at MIT expose the roots of his creation of Processing which was born in 2001, nurtured for several years, and had its first public beta release in By making this creation public, and inviting others to help, Processing is now maintained as a community open source project. After leaving MIT Ben continued to create his own data visualizations and taught at his alma mater Carnegie-Mellon University. Ben s projects have been featured on the covers of Nature and the New York Times Magazine, and presented at exhibitions. In 2011 he won the National Design Award for Interaction Design from the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. While creating these acclaimed visualization, Ben never gave up on the care and feeding of Processing. Ben Fry and Casey Rease have written books about not only how to use Processing, but Ben has also written a more general text on Visualizing Data. It is within this book the Ben shares his philosophy about visualizing data; including: The most important part of understanding data is identifying the question that you want to answer and the seven stages of visualizing data: acquire, parse, filter, mine, represent, refine, and interact. Ben Fry is currently at Fathom Information Design, a small Boston company that helps clients understand and express data through information graphics, interactive tools, and software for installations, the web, and mobile devices. One of Ben s first projects, as an undergraduate Design student at Carnegie-Mellon, was directions on how to make a paper airplane. Today, thousands are enabled to fly to great heights by use of the software Ben and Casey so kindly offers as open source to the world. Ben has gone beyond being a pioneer blazing a trail, but has cleared the runway for others to takeoff and soar.

10 Rolleston 3 Works Used Fry, Ben, Visualizing Data, O Reilly, 2007 Reas, Casey and Fry, Ben, Getting Started with Processing, O Reilly, Fry, Benjamin Jotham, Computational Information Design, Ph. D. Dissertation, MIT, 2004 For a bio of Ben, in his own words, see pp xxiv-xxv Reas, Casey and Fry, Ben, Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists, MIT Press, 2007