I really believe that good data visualization, good reporting and good presentations are all about good storytelling. So I tend to search out inspiration from great storytellers. I read the post I quote below a few years ago, but find myself coming back to it over and over again. As researchers and evaluators we spend a […]
The big reason to stop coloring maps
From Let’s Tesselate: Hexagons For Tile Grid Maps by Danny DeBelius of the npr visuals team: As the saying goes, nothing is certain in this life but death, taxes and requests for geographic data to be represented on a map. For area data, the choropleth map is a tried and true visualization technique, but not without significant dangers […]
How pictures help you discover the unexpected.
From Nathan Yau in his book Visualize This: Visualization One of the best ways to explore and try to understand a large dataset is with visualization. Place the numbers into a visual space and let your brain or your readers’ brain find the patterns. We’re good at that. You can often find stories that you […]
A positive spin on failure according to Simon Hearn
Simon Hearn, one of the team of evaluators who put together the 10 things to know about evaluation infographic I mentioned last week, left me a comment on the post. The comment sparked today’s cartoon which I hope gives failure a bit more of a positive spin. Something we didn’t have space to talk about […]
Scott McCloud’s lesson on time in comics and what it means for infographics.
As a data designer and cartoonist, I have been heavily influenced by Scott McCloud’s book on Understanding Comics. The cool thing about his book is that many of the concepts can be applied very directly to infographics, even those that don’t employ comic style illustration. This is especially true when dealing with time. Using a comic’s […]
I still don’t know the source of the RCT Gold Standard Rhetoric, do you?
Today’s cartoon flashback comes from a post I put together early last year on the RCT Gold Standard Rhetoric. I tried, and failed, to find the source of the rhetoric, only a kooky theory about Harry Gold’s Standard (you’ll have to read the comments for that one). We did learn the source of randomista and came […]