LO-07: All Streets (2006)

All Streets (2006) is a data visualization map of all streets in the lower 48 United States created by Ben Fry, a new media program developer and computational designer. The project is an image that drew 26 million individual road segments, mapping out all major points of population and transportation. As the co-developer of Processing – an open source programming platform for computational design and interactive media software, Ben Fry’s work often revolved around using creative data visualization as a tool to understand information in both practical and aesthetic ways. In analyzing the image, I believe Fry used an algorithm that drew information from a database record containing the geographical location of all streets in the lower 48, which then mapped said data to the canvas and, in turn, drew curved lines corresponding to each street. All Streets is not only straightforward and effective in its visualization of transportation in the U.S., but it succeeds from a design perspective in its aesthetic layout and composition as well. Computational works like Fry’s All Streets that are practical and pleasing to the eye are a huge part of why I’m taking 15104; afterall, data can be beautiful.

https://benfry.com/allstreets/