Dataviz - Bar & Line

Should you study a masters degree in data visualization?

Quite often, I get asked about careers in data visualization by people who want to get into the field - either at the start of their career or in the

Behind the Scenes

How to Start Dataviz Sketching

Last week, I was invited to be a panellist on the Data Visualization Society's latest "fireside chat", talking about the ways I use sketching in my visualization process. It was

Dataviz

Introducing Dataplotter

I've been working on a new series of videos for my nascent pen plotter YouTube channel (Plottervision), drawing and narrating data stories. It's called Dataplotter. In it, I'm doing something

Dataviz

Defining Information Design, Data Visualization and Infographics

This morning, in the Data Visualization Society's wonderful Slack community, Jane Zhang asked a question. She asked: Has there been any good articles that are well-thought out that try to

Completed Work

20 Years of Human Presence on the International Space Station

A few weeks back, I collaborated with Katarina Eriksson of Märka Design to create a visualization of the inhabitants of the International Space Station over the years. It was an

Writing

A Dashboard for Planet Earth

Over on Nightingale, the Journal of the Data Visualization Society, I've written a 3,000 word feature on one of my favourite environmental visuals - the planetary boundary graphic. Here's

Dataviz

The Logpile Chart

A couple of months back, an idea came to me in a dream. That sounds ridiculous, I know, but it's true. I woke up one morning with a clear-as-crystal picture

Tools I Love

Tools I Love #4: Google Sheets

I don't know if I've ever made a visualization without Google Sheets. Like the sturdy vessel of a seasoned explorer, it's fast, powerful, and a key part of almost every

Inspiration

The World As a Subway Map

The New York Times has published a good* scrollytelling piece about Covid-19, which makes use of particle flows to show how the virus spread from a single market in Wuhan

Completed Work

Climate Change Solutions

Towards the end of 2019, the team at Project Drawdown got in touch to ask if I could help them out with data visualization for an update to their best-selling

Tools

How Big?

Hans Hack has developed a neat little tool that lets you quickly draw a circle or square with a given area on a map, and download it as a GeoJSON.

Sketchbook Pages

Sketchbook Pages #3

More pages from my sketchbook. I clearly don't know how to draw voronoi diagrams, but you get the idea. The line charts are my favourite!

Dataviz

Our Future on Earth

I worked on data visualization for a new FutureEarth report that connects recent news events with the latest environmental science research. Here's how it's described in the report itself: This

Experiments

Make Your Own Data Glyphs With Joyful Data

The folks at Gramener's Storylabs have built a "happy little tool" built on JOY.JS that allows you to create your own system for encoding data in glyphs. It's called

Inspiration

The Organograms of Government

What does your organisation's structure look like? You could draw an org chart, but how about an drawing an organogram instead? These charts were put together by Peter Cook, and

Dataviz

Food Miles Are Not As Important As You Think

Our World in Data has just published a great article about the source of the emissions associated with different foods. It's a simple stacked bar chart. Each bar represents a

Dataviz

Google's Dataset Search Is No Longer in Beta

Rejoice, number-hunters - Google's Dataset Search tool is now officially out of beta. According to a blog post, the search giant has indexed almost 25 million datasets. The tool previously delivered a scattershot of vaguely-related bits of information from academic papers through the decades,

Behind the Scenes

Population of Swedish Urban Areas

Or "Befolkning i Svenska Tätorter", if you like. A quick map that I was working on a while back. It's still not quite there - it needs a legend, and

Dataviz

The Missing Legacy of Marie Neurath

Looking for a weekend read to dig your teeth into? You could do much worse than Jason Forrest's latest dive into the history of data visualization - The Missing Legacy

Tools I Love

Tools I Love #2: Flourish

The best free platform for making charts on the web is Flourish. It has the best balance of usability, chart types, customisation and export options. Flourish has been a vital

Dataviz

Custom Isochrone Maps

Isochrone maps are one of my favourite things. They show far you can travel from a place in a given amount of time. There are lots of classic examples, but

Completed Work

The 1.5C Carbon Playbook

Yesterday, a project I worked on launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos. It's a short and sweet guide for companies who want to keep the planet's temperature below

Behind the Scenes

Defending the Truth

There's an interesting line in the latest FlowingData newsletter. It's difficult to plan for every single interpretation and use of your visualization once it enters the internet ethers. It's impossible

Behind the Scenes

Sketchbook Pages #2

Every few days I try and fill a page in a sketchbook with visual ideas that don't have any data behind them. I pick a theme, then execute on it

Behind the Scenes

Work in Progress #2

More circles! Loving the look on Original Fade.