World Cup Graphics

After I was forced to listen to the opening game of the World Cup via the internet in the office I naturally relied upon web based graphics and the stream of instant text updates.  Honestly I was impressed at how good some of the graphics were, giving real-time updates as an instantaneous snapshot of the game.

Naturally my first stop for the live text streaming was the BBC Sport site, lovely stuff (sadly I missed getting a screen grab of the opener but here are this evenings, you get the idea).

The graphics are so good in fact you don’t even need words.  I can immediately see all the crucial data giving a continuously updated image of the game.  Brilliant.  Sadly these graphics are only available when ITV are showing the game, when BBC have the game the graphics give way to a live stream of the actual match.  Not complaining, that’s just not the point of this post is all.

I have since found that excellent World Cup graphics don’t stop on the screen either, The Guardian offered a sterling “unofficial mtachday programme” for England v USA.  In fact the whole layout of this programme impressed me.

Please excuse the low-res Blackberry camera photos.

The Guardian also offers its own web based graphics in an interactive map here.  Focussing on how the countries actually got to the finals it shows what is essentially a lot of information both simply and remarkably effectively.

And then there is this.  Everything you wanted to know about the World Cup stadiums in one place, seriously.

View it large here, it’s really quite impressive.

Other notable graphics include this (pointed out by Full Beard) and this interactive, trophy tracking piece from Coca Cola.

All that and more than three weeks of world class football still to come.