Dakota: Beauty Disguised

April 10, 2007

Beauty Disguised

As you can see, the subject is beauty disguised. The metaphorophoto above is a shot of one of the many Giordano billboards in Hong Kong celebrating the Year of the Pig. The pig noses on the models are not meant to please the western eye.

It seems that beauty can be disguised in data visualization as well. Bet you never even thought about that one. As you view the designs be sure to play with the Baby Name Voyager.- move your mouse lightly over the graphic for some random fun, or type in your own name For example, in the 90's, Dakota was ranked #81 but had dropped to #150 in popularity by 2005, thank the lord.

The best paying-attention-to-hidden-beauty story of the week involves an experiment done by The Washington Post:

...No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?

Even though the violinist was the adorable virtuoso Joshua Bell, and the music was breathtaking (watch the video clips in the article) only two people stopped to pay attention.

Maybe they were just highly sensitive people. We must remember that the experiment took place in Washington, DC, where Bell might have had more luck playing hymns.

Photo note: At least those snouts aren't golden. The red seals stamped on the model's necks are chops that look like they're specially designed for The Year of the Pig too.

Posted by Dakota at April 10, 2007 06:43 AM