Link to original post by Stephen Wagner
This visualization shows data on all of the colors of crayons that Crayola has made since they began production in 1903, as well as if and when each color had been discontinued. I think the target audience of this visualization is made up of adults who might nostalgic for all of the fun colors (and color names) of Crayola crayons, and who might be curious to learn more about the history of colors that they remember using as a child as well as colors that were created before or after their time.
The goal of the presentation is to show the wide range of colors encompassed by Crayola crayons, and to give people a sense of what colors are younger or older, and how long certain colors have been around. Another goal is for the visualization to be interactive, allowing people to explore the colors and learn more about them one by one by clicking to reveal a larger color sample as well as more information about release date, retirement date, and any special collections that that color is a part of.
I think this visualization is effective in that it is fun to click around and learn more about the colors and their history, but organizationally it could be improved. The colors are not presented in an order that feels intuitive, and if you have a certain color in mind it is hard to find it in the mix of colors in order to click and learn more. It might have been good to include a zoom feature to zoom in on a certain section of the plot and/or reveal the names when just mousing over instead of having to click and let information load for each new color. It was also confusing to me why some colors were chosen to be available to be clicked in the Color Box on the left hand side while some needed to be found within the larger lined part of the visualization.