A tree map showing the discography and commercial success of the late, great David Bowie.
Click on each square to move in a level. Right-click to move back out.
Used as an extra credit assignment to create a 'really cool' graphic, I put this together as nothing can make graphics cooler than David Bowie.
The treemap requires nesting observations so that the appropriate variables relate to a root. As can be seen in the table below, the title variable lists the albums, but also the years, eras and 'bowie' parent node. Each album then relates to a year in the 'parent' variable column, each year to an era in the 'parent' column and each era to the parent node of 'bowie'.
The treemap command then follows:
First naming the id variable of 'title', then the parent variable. Next, I input the size variable which is 'chart', the position in which the album came in the UK charts. Size only accepts a positive value, so the chart values were reverse-coded to make the highest chart toppers the larger boxes. Conversely, the boxes with smaller areas were not Bowie's most successful chart toppers. Finally, I add the colour variable, which is the certification of silver, gold or platinum for the number of sales of the album. Brown indicates no certification and the strongest teal is a platinum album, with various shades between. The colours also relate to the different eras; the more brown each era, the lower the overall certification.
Bowie's first album did not chart and is missing from the tree map altogether. Those areas with deeper brown, like the Tin Machine era did not sell (deeper brown) too, nor get high in the charts (small area). His most successful eras were his 'Final Years' - with two albums reaching number 1 and platinum status- and the "New Romantic and Pop" era throughout the 1980s (largest area). His various success, and low point from 1989-2000, is notable by observing the overall chart.
Figure 1:
*** Sadly, coding in GoogleVis changed and the tree map is no longer visible, I shall work on an update soon***
Used as an extra credit assignment to create a 'really cool' graphic, I put this together as nothing can make graphics cooler than David Bowie.
The treemap requires nesting observations so that the appropriate variables relate to a root. As can be seen in the table below, the title variable lists the albums, but also the years, eras and 'bowie' parent node. Each album then relates to a year in the 'parent' variable column, each year to an era in the 'parent' column and each era to the parent node of 'bowie'.
The treemap command then follows:
First naming the id variable of 'title', then the parent variable. Next, I input the size variable which is 'chart', the position in which the album came in the UK charts. Size only accepts a positive value, so the chart values were reverse-coded to make the highest chart toppers the larger boxes. Conversely, the boxes with smaller areas were not Bowie's most successful chart toppers. Finally, I add the colour variable, which is the certification of silver, gold or platinum for the number of sales of the album. Brown indicates no certification and the strongest teal is a platinum album, with various shades between. The colours also relate to the different eras; the more brown each era, the lower the overall certification.
Bowie's first album did not chart and is missing from the tree map altogether. Those areas with deeper brown, like the Tin Machine era did not sell (deeper brown) too, nor get high in the charts (small area). His most successful eras were his 'Final Years' - with two albums reaching number 1 and platinum status- and the "New Romantic and Pop" era throughout the 1980s (largest area). His various success, and low point from 1989-2000, is notable by observing the overall chart.