Peter Hook, Bernard Sumner, Ian Curtis and the Data Visualizers

(Image from Google)

I was listening to a podcast recently when the guest happened to mention how the Unknown Pleasures album visual was one of the most recognized data visualizations ever. That intrigued me not only as a huge Joy Division fan, a huge music fan and a lover of intriguing graphics. This led me to do some digging, or as millennials like to call it: Google. 

Indeed, the story behind the album is quite fascinating. Joy Division presented this image to graphic designer Peter Saville. The band had found it in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy. Saville describes the image as a "comparative path demonstration of frequency from a signal of a pulsar." Each line is in fact a measurement of the pulsar, reaching peaks in the middle, several stacked together. Saville goes on: "What you're seeing is a comparative chart of the frequency and accuracy of the signal." These astronomical measurements helped humanity understand this aspect of the cosmos. 

Pretty cool!

Source: The Atlantic