blog/Process

Why are there so many vacant storefronts in the Castro?

| 03.20.17

We’ve been having a really interesting time working with our friends at Hoodline, a site that was my go-to for local San Francisco news even before we started working with them about a month ago. Hoodline is quickly becoming a go-to location for really local news, like the armed standoff that took over two blocks...

Forcing Functions: Inside D3.v4 forces and layout transitions

| 11.16.16

…a guide for anyone interested in using D3.v4 forces, and especially those interested in creating their own custom forces and transitions. A recent Stamen project gave me an opportunity to dive into D3.v4’s forceSimulation() — a modularized version of v3’s force layouts with a ton of improvements. This investigation resulted in two new force modules, ready for...

The Blue Greenway: making maps of San Francisco’s fast-changing southeastern waterfront landscapes…

| 11.03.16

The Blue Greenway map The San Francisco Parks Alliance (SFPA) began the Blue Greenway project back in June of 2004 with a simple goal in mind: to envision a 13-mile greenway/waterway network along San Francisco’s southeastern waterfront. The Blue Greenway will complete San Francisco’s portion of the Bay Trail, increase public interest and enjoyment of...

Introducing the AWS Lambda Tiler

| 10.25.16

Server-Free Web Map Tile Generation Some various map tiles of the MPG Ranch area, in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley. Recently at Stamen and thanks to a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, we’ve been experimenting with a new way of generating raster map tiles using AWS Lambda with open source GIS software....

Visualizing global satellite coverage with Planet

| 10.19.16

Visualizing global satellite coverage with Planet Earlier this year Robbie Schingler, co-founder of Planet, asked Stamen to design and build a presentation that showed: Which spots on the globe Planet has daily or near-daily coverage of How this daily coverage changes during the year, due to weather and satellite deployment What progress Planet has made...

Using open data to learn about land use in Los Angeles

| 09.16.16

by Eric Rodenbeck and Alan McConchie An industrial stretch in the City of Industry OpenStreetMap’s Los Angeles County building import is well under way, having imported over 1.5 million buildings so far, and with another 1.5 million to go! We were proud to help get the project off the ground, and it’s now taken on...

Tracking and mapping Planet’s Satellite Coverage with interactive maps

| 08.31.16

Earlier this year Robbie Schingler, co-founder of Planet, asked Stamen to design and build a presentation that showed: Which spots on the globe Planet has daily or near-daily coverage of How this daily coverage changes during the year, due to weather and satellite deployment What progress Planet has made and is making towards its mission...

Merging Offline Edits with the POSM Replay Tool

| 08.22.16

Replaying offline changes and merging with OSM Introducing Portable OpenStreetMap outlined the components and basic workflow that POSM incorporates to facilitate the Missing Maps workflow in uncertain environments. This post will cover the philosophical and technical underpinnings of the POSM Replay Tool that allow it to participate as a contributing actor within the OSM ecosystem....

Embracing the Abstract in Visualized Data

| 07.27.16

Or Tangifying the Intangible Just over a year ago I showed up to my first day as a designer at Stamen Design and was asked to distill 30 years of scientific knowledge about human emotion into an interactive visualization that would be presented to the Dalai Lama in a few months time. And then things...

The Shapes of Emotions

| 07.27.16

One of the core visualizations in the Atlas of Emotions shows the range of states of each of the 5 emotions (anger, fear, disgust, sadness, and enjoyment). For example, annoyance, argumentativeness, and fury are all states of anger. But, the states vary quite a bit in terms of their intensity: annoyance is relatively mild, fury...