Journal: News & Comment

Tag clouds hit the front page of the newspaper

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UPDATE: Photographer Alex Waterhouse-Hayward mentioned this post (and Darren Barefoot's) in his talk at the Northern Voice conference 2007.

The tag cloud (or "weighted list") is a hip-and-happenin' visual design trend that's been around for more than a decade, but which has taken off since its appearance in 2004 at Flickr.

I was surprised to see a similar weighted list appearing on the cover of the Vancouver Sun today: larger, bolder type represents greater increases in property values for different Vancouver-area municipalities.

There's a small explanation at the top ("The bigger the letters, the larger the growth in property values for 2006"), but otherwise it's just there, and does its job well.

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