"Charting the Beatles" is a project that I find highly intriguing. One of the visualization that I find highly interesting for that matter is the "Self Reference" representation. As described by the authors: "The lyrics of the Beatles include a number of references to their own previous songs. This diagram explores these connections, noting the exact referencing lyrics and at what point in each song they can be found."
This is surely a recurring topic on Pasta and Vinegar. Perhaps because of the ongoing discussion I have with my neighbor who works on this the circulation of cultural elements and will surely appreciate (and re-use) this example.
Why do I blog this? looking for inspiration mostly, this chart provides a good example of the circulation of "designed elements" that may prove useful in out gamepad evolution project. The point would then be to map how certain elements (such as the direction-pad on the Game&Watch electronic games) have circulated over time to be adapted in different joypad iterations.
The link granularity (explicit/implicit reference, reference with melodic parallels) is very relevant because it shows the different granularities in how an element can circulate from one data point (a song in this case, a joypad model in the case of our project) to another.