Mapping songs lyrics: Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles

One of the key skills of a visual mapper is to be able to identify and represent patterns when analyzing a situation, trying to solve a problem, planning a project, etc...

This skill can also be used in order to understand and to show the structures of songs lyrics. Here are some examples.


Mindmapping Jimi Hendrix song "The Wind Cries Mary"
This beautiful mindmap was created by Paul Foreman, one the most creative visual mappers I know. He also turned into a mindmap "Dust in the wind" by Sarah Brightman.




Diagramming the Beatles song "Hey Jude".
This amazing video was created using Lucidchart, a web based  diagramming tool.

Charles Mingus on Creativity

I love this quote from Charles Mingus, the great Jazz Composer. In  previous posts I wrote about Simplicity and Simplexity, those concepts are critical for visual mapping. In my opinion visual mapping is a way to turn complex information into a simple, creative and structured representation.

Source: http://lynnaltevogt.tumblr.com/post/4032540820

China Digital and Social Media Landscape

Published a month ago by Zaheer Nooruddin from Burston Marsteller, this report is really awesome: the use of maps and graphics helps to see quickly and clearly the big picture of the Internet and social media landscape in China. I was surprised by the power of Social Media there, despite of the governmental control over Internet. It seems clearly that the number of Social Media Users will continue to grow in China during the next years.

D/BM China Digital & Social Media Landscape Report 2011 Burson-Marsteller

View more presentations from Zaheer Nooruddin

Improve the visual impact of your mindmaps titles

Recently I came accross Flamingtext.com a very useful online resource for mind mapping, presentations, etc.

This is a free text generator that permits to create stunning titles for your mindmaps and improve their visual impact.

We can choose the style, the size and the colors and then export the result as a transparent image.  You can see an example below.

My first impressions of MindMaple

Mindmap created using MindMaple

End of 2011 a brand new Mind Mapping Software was launched: MindMaple.

I had the opportunity to try it during the last weeks and are here are my first impressions.

What I liked: The fluidity and ease to create and position freely items, the clean visual aspect of the mindmaps and the  and intuitive user interface . An original feature I found very useful: the ability to organize imported images and icons with folders and keywords, perfect for creating a personal icons library.

It is also easy to insert links, attachments, text notes and images into the subjects. You can combine different grow directions inside your mindmaps.

MindMaple has launched a blog and a Twitter account.

This is my first post about MindMaple, however I think writing further ones about this very interesting software.

Interesting Presentation : The Geography of Visual Thoughts

Today, reading the excellent Sabrina Bresciani's blog, I came accross this presentation. It was made using Prezi, one of the best non linear presentation tools. Enjoy.

The Geography of (Visual) Thought on Prezi