As time will be one of the navigation elements in the project I was having a look through some implementations in other projects. I came across this rather interesting timeline of timelines.
Smashing magazine have done a couple of round ups of interesting data visualisations.
Infostheics has a whole series of really interesting data visualisations and they have a great set of bookmarks worth viewing for inspiration.
The Guardian also had this interesting post on the future of map design.