A Forty Day Visual Feast

The Forty Day Visual Feast Project (FDVFP) invites the submission of a portfolio of up to five static visualizations that explain a data set, process, or phenomenon. These visualizations should be stand-alone artifacts that a human viewer can interpret in the absence of any exploratory interaction with the image or any other external resources. Furthermore, each visualization must be viewable on a standard desktop or laptop computer without the aid of special purpose hardware or software. In support of this requirement, each image in the submitted portfolio should be contained in a separate portable document format (PDF) file and be no larger than a single page at US Letter size (i.e., 8.5 x 11 inches or 216 x 279 mm). Each submitted image must be accompanied by a detailed tutorial that explains the steps that the author took to construct the visualization. While this tutorial can be of any length, authors should prepare succinct documents that are accessible to readers from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds. An author should also prepare a short one or two paragraph retrospective that highlights topics such as the experience of creating the visualization and the strengths and weaknesses of the chosen approach. For every visualization, an author should submit each tutorial and retrospective as a separate PDF file.

All submissions will be reviewed by at least three members of the expert review panel (ERP). In particular, the portfolio of submissions will be judged according to how well it adheres to the theme of "creating information visualizations to inspire and educate both scientists and artists." While not absolutely required, the expert review panel encourages authors to construct a portfolio of visualizations that are unified by a specific data set and/or subject matter. During the evaluation process, the ERP will consider both the quality and the quantity of the visualizations in the submitted portfolio. The panel will judge the portfolios on the basis of their technical merit, clarity, relevance, originality, and overall contribution. The ERP will evaluate the reproducibility of the accompanying tutorial(s) and consider the overall quality of the writing for both the tutorial and the retrospective. The author of a winning portfolio must agree to have their work featured in various media available on the FDVFP Web site and, whenever possible, be prepared to share the software tools and data sets that were used to produce the visualizations. When it is reasonable to do so, authors should construct their visualization(s) with free and open source software tools such GraphViz, Sage, Gnuplot, the R language, or other useful systems.

Using financial resources provided by a fellowship from the Awesome Foundation, the FDVFP will award cash prizes for the first, second, third, fourth, and honorable mention submissions. Following the below table, the FDVFP will select one portfolio for each of the first, second, third, and fourth place prizes and one or more portfolios for an honorable mention. Since the contest organizers aim to produce a Web site and wall size poster that features a total of forty visualizations, the FDVFP will award an unspecified number of honorable mentions that each carry a variable prize amount always less than 50 USD. In the event that the contest does not yield a total of forty visualizations, the FDVFP will solicit portfolios from the members of the expert review panel and display these materials alongside the contest winners. In this situation and as financial resources permit, the FDVFP will give an honorarium to an ERP member who submits a portfolio of visualizations. Finally, the rules of the Forty Day Visual Feast Project are subject to change as deemed appropriate by the organizer of the FDVFP and all decisions of the review panel are final. All authors who receive a cash prize from the FDVFP are responsible for working with the FDVFP organizer to make arrangements to receive their award in United States Dollars (USD).