Infographic Competition: Visualizing the Scale of the Brain

President Obama’s BRAIN Initiative has brought brain mapping to the forefront of popular science. But what does it mean to map the brain?

One human brain contains seven orders of magnitude of spatial complexity and at least 10 orders of temporal magnitude. These numbers are hard to fathom so MIT’s EyeWire has teamed up with FEI and Visually to launch a “Scale of the Brain” Infographic Competition. Entries should visualize spatial scales in the brain.

Judges

• Elise Andrew (I F*ing Love Science)
• Jen Christiansen (Scientific American)
• Christopher Jobson (Colossal)
• Derek Muller (Veritasium)
• Maria Popova (Brainpickings)
• Sebastian Seung (Neuroscientist, EyeWire, MIT)
• Logan Smalley (TED-Ed)
• Mackenzie Thomas (Google+)
• Bradley Voytek (Neuroscientist, UCSD)

Prizes

1st:

• Trip to MIT (Spring/Summer 2014) hotel+flight up to $1,400 – Sponsored by FEI
• Dinner with EyeWire HQ
• Tour of MIT Brain and Cognitive Science Department + MIT Media Lab
• Signed copy of Connectome
• Emotiv EPOC Headset
• $500 cash – Sponsored by FEI

2nd: $200 – Sponsored by FEI

3rd: $100 – Sponsored by FEI

Criteria

Judges will grade entries on the following criteria:

Information is represented accurately and communicated clearly. Sources for additional information not in the creative brief should be included according to best practices (use original sources whenever possible).

Story/layout is engaging and insightful, helping to pull the viewer through the graphic.

The infographic’s design should be attractive and captivating without detracting from the communication of the information. Illustrations, layout, font, and color choices are all important.

Each judge gets 10 points per category. All categories are totaled for each group. Totals from each judge are averaged together. Highest average wins.

Licensing

All entries to the competition should be licensed under creative commons so that the entries may be used in whole or part as educational materials anywhere. The creative commons attribution 4.0 sign should be included somewhere on the design.

Logos

The winning entries will be asked to add the logos of FEI, EyeWire and Visually, along with their own logo or name.

Submissions

Send all submissions as links or attachments to contest@visual.ly before April 30th at Midnight, PDT.

Questions about the contest can also be directed to that email address.

Schedule

• Submission Deadline: April 30
• Judging: May 9
• Winner Announced: May 15

Creative Brief

The spatial scale of the brain ranges from meters to nanometers, with plenty of gradations in between. This quick summary will get you started, and these images are a great visual reference.

ORIGINAL: Visually

by Visually