Data as Art

Any time a large amount of data is collected, we tend to see patterns emerge - these patterns can easily be put into bar graphs or a pie chart and the significance of the data is easily apparent.  But sometimes data doesn't easily flow into a chart because it is too complex, or sometimes it overlaps other parts of data that have equal or more importance relative to the first data set.  This requires a special display of the statistics that, when treated with a creative eye, can become visually rich and even beautiful.  More examples of beautiful data can be found here.  Hat tip to Shawn for sharing that link.