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Welcome to the latest issue of the 'Visualising Data Newsletter', chronicling the most insightful and delightful data viz content every month, straight to your inbox.

Each month I collect, curate, then publish a selection of links to 50 of the best, most interesting, most thought-provoking data visualisation-related content I've encountered during the previous month. This month's issue relates to content I saw published during January.

(Continuing the change from last month's issue, I've decided to merge 'News' and 'Sundries' into a combined section and have switched to showing 6 preview images from the Visuals section, 3 from Learning, and 1 from News & Sundries. This is the last time I'll mention it!)

I hope you continue to find this newsletter useful whether you are working on a dataviz, working in dataviz, or working towards working in dataviz. To catch up on all previous monthly issues visit my Newsletter page.

Thanks for reading and see you next month.

Andy

Latest from me...

Firstly, some recent posts or announcements relating to my professional services and activities.

Visuals

The freshest data visualisation (or related) design pieces and collections.

7. Parkrun comes of age: six of its best international 5ks | Alan Smith on BlueSky​

"I can now add ‘running in sub-zero temperatures’ to the list of things I’ve done for the Financial Times - a little celebration of the international phenomenon that is Parkrun"

8. How Much Snow Will Fall Where You Live | New York Times​

"Most weather maps show you only the center of the distribution of snowfall estimates. Search [this viz] to see the full range of possibilities for your community over the next few days."

9. Maps, videos show area of D.C. plane crash, massive recovery effort | Andrew Ba Tran on Bluesky​

"There's going to be a lot of focus on figuring out the altitude of the plane and helicopter that crashed and I wanted to give some context on why these numbers are so tricky to work with"

10. Fast fires | Reuters​

Linked to the work profiled above, this is another piece about the Palisade wildfires. I might normally seek to NOT profile two works from the same organisation about the same subject but this has such a magnificent unified colour design that I can't stop looking at it, so thought you should see it too.

11. More Americans Than Ever Are Living in Wildfire Areas. L.A. Is No Exception. | New York Times​

Some stunning cartography in this showing the exposure of LA residents to the potential impacts of wildfires.

12. New Force-Directed Graph with Philosophers as Nodes | Deniz Cem Önduygu​

This latest evolution in this wonderful project that has been part of Deniz's life for over 10 years, introduces an alternative force-directed network visualisation.

13. Living With Nausea: My Story in Six Charts | Nicholas Rougeux​

"When I realized the nausea was becoming chronic, I started doing one thing I could control - collect data about it.". A personal but typically thorough data story from Nicholas about his very unfortunate developing of chronic nausea.

14. Player Stats pages | Opta Analyst​

Glorious looking new designs from Peter McKeever for Opta Analyst's comprehensive player stats pages.

15. An exclusive look inside the restored Notre Dame | Amanda Hobbs on LinkedIn​

Working alongside the incomparable Fernando Baptista, Amanda shares their December 2024 issue of National Geographic feature offering an in-depth look at the restoration of Notre Dame. The digital version is splendid but its the print version I would wish to see, as shown in Amanda's photos of the four-page fold-out graphics.

16. Super Bowl LIX: Three-time championship or revenge [Translated] | Alex Calderón on LinkedIn​

Alex has got a fantastic design style and this latest piece for El Financiero about the recent Super Bowl, for which I have little interest, grabbed my attention. Check this out but also browse through his portfolio of other work.

17. See wind data on Mars through tele-present wind | David Bowen via FlowingData​

"With the art installation tele-present wind, David Bowen displays data collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover mission. Grass stalks are attached to mechanical devices that shift the stalks back and forth in unison."

18. Singapore’s divisive ethnicity-based housing policy | Kontinentalist​

"Under Singapore's Ethnic Integration Policy (EIP), public housing blocks have quotas for the maximum number of households that can be allocated to Chinese, Malay, and Indian/Others ethnicity owners... We analysed the available data to find out the implications of this policy, especially on minority ethnicity homeowners. 35 years on, is the policy still worth it?"

19. Who’s Investigating South Korea’s President | New York Times​

A brilliant depiction of such a complicated and complex story, a blueprint for how to show interconnections and directional relationships changing over time.

20. Deportation at ‘light speed’ | Washington Post​

Visually breaking down how Trump’s mass deportation could unfold and the people it might affect.

21. Scorched Earth: A Sonification of Fires in Southern Sweden in 2018 | Loud Numbers on YouTube​

"Scorched Earth is more than just a depiction of data; it is a commentary on the increasing frequency and severity of wildfires due to climate change. By transforming raw data into an immersive sensory experience, the artwork aims to provoke a deeper emotional connection to the issue and inspire action and awareness about the impact of human activity on our environment." (This is where my heading 'visuals' needs an asterisk to incorporate 'sounds' as well).

22. Pelle Cass on Instagram​

I adore these PhotoViz composites by artist and photographer Pelle Cass.

Learning

Relevant articles, interviews, or videos to help further your development in data viz.

26. Amen Escaped | The F5​

Included mainly for the second part of this newsletter issue featuring an interview with Shri Khalpada, creative coder and software engineer for Cleaning the Glass.

27. Artificial intelligence could transform football. So what might the future look like? | The Athletic​

“It’s totally feasible that an artificial intelligence (AI) agent could simulate more football in 24 hours than has ever been played professionally in the real world in the entire 150-year history of the game”

28. BBC Newsnight, 2010 | Brian Suda on YouTube​

Broadcast on 9th August 2010, this is a section from BBC's Newsnight programme about 'the art of making information beautiful' featuring David McCandless and with a vox pop from Stef Posavec.

29. This dataviz has wings | Voila​

"I love it when great data visualization comes from unlikely places and so I have an amazing update on a project by Sandrine Huot, a PhD student at Université Laval in Québec City, and former dataviz workshop participant."

30. I kind of hate beautiful hotel shower faucets | Nick Desbarats on LinkedIn​

"I’m somewhat of a connoisseur of hotel shower faucets. I travel frequently to deliver workshops, so I’ve seen many different models. A lot of them look almost like modern art sculptures. Clean lines. Pleasing symmetry. Modern aesthetics."

31. Episode #243 with Nigel Holmes | PolicyViz Podcast​

From July 2023 but I came across it again last month and I'll always enjoy listening to and learning from Nigel.

32. Tutorial: How to create voxel-styled maps like this one | Marco Hernandez​

"This tutorial explains how I used QGIS, Blender and little optional touches of Photoshop and Illustrator to create a voxel-like map"

33. Tales of 2024 | The Data Journalism Podcast​

Reflecting on 2024, Simon, Alberto and Scott discuss the last 12 months of data, AI and elections.

34. The Marshall Project’s Aaron Sankin on AI, large data sets and contextualizing data stories in the real world | Storybench​

I think that title is sufficient description!

35. This Map Helps Fascists | Nightingale​

Smart article from Elijah Meeks: "The distortions of the Mercator projection don’t just exist in some theoretical vacuum—they’re a reminder of how easily visualizations can be weaponized to amplify or bury ideas."

36. "There is no growth without criticism..." | Elijah Meeks on Bluesky​

...who also triggered off one of the first big sprawling conversations on Bluesky about the state of data visualisation and (in his view/words) its 'stagnation'. Lots of branches and spin-off debates but all useful stuff.

37. Discussing Design: Improving Communication and Collaboration through Critique | Discussing Design​

I don't yet own it but have lined up this book to buy next: "In this practical guide, authors Adam Connor and Aaron Irizarry teach you techniques, tools, and a framework for helping members of your design team give and receive critique."

38. When A.I.’s Output Is a Threat to A.I. Itself | The Upshot​

"The 'slop' problem for A.I.: When generative A.I. is trained on a lot of its own output, it can get a lot worse."

News & Sundries

Latest developments, announcements, or announcements affecting the data viz world, as well as additional references to pieces covering broader data, tech, or design matters.

40. The Perfect Movie Screen… | Chaz Hutton on Bluesky​

I feel seen.

41. 2024 State of the Dataviz Industry Report | Data Visualization Society on Bluesky​

[Members can access this report] summarising "861 responses about the state of data viz, the people who make it, the challenges they face, and where the field is headed."

42. 'Sum of Us: A History of the UK in Data' | Georgina Sturge on Bluesky​

"I'm very excited to announce that my new book SUM OF US: A History of the UK in Data will be published this April by Bridge Street Press/ Little Brown."

43. Information Plus 2025 Conference​

Confirming the date of the next event taking place in Boston, MA over 14 - 16 November.

44. Flexoki 2.0 | Kepano on Bluesky​

"Here's a little tool I built to design Flexoki 2.0. I wanted artistic control over ramping while still interpolating colors programmatically with Oklab."

45. Share Your Presentation in a Single Click | iA​

"Sharing a presentation should be quick. But it’s slow. Viewing a presentation should be easy. But it’s hard. Until now."

46. Announcing the Public Domain Image Archive | The Public Domain Review on Bluesky​

"We are v excited to share our new sister-project, the Public Domain Image Archive (PDIA), a curated collection of 10k+ out-of-copyright historical images, all free to explore and reuse"

47. Guitar string vibrations | Technology on Instagram​

"By matching the frame rate of a high-speed camera to the vibration frequency of a guitar string, we can visually observe the wavelength of different musical notes."

48. Visualising Data & Data Dashboards with JavaScript | Lean Pub​

Not one but TWO new books published by visualisation developer Peter Cook: Visualising Data with JavaScript offers an introduction to using JavaScript to visualise data and Data Dashboards with JavaScript shows you how to build a data dashboard using JavaScript.

49. CHART: Designing Creative Data Visualizations from Charts to Art | Routledge​

News of a very exciting new book coming out in a few months by Nadieh Bremer.

50. A range of 'solar' installation projects | Pierre Brault on Instagram​

I really love installations like this that react with their environment to change their meaning, message, or form.

Thanks for reading!

Hi, I’m ANDY KIRK, an independent data visualisation expert. My vision is to deliver data viz excellence, everywhere. I offer data visualisation professional services to clients worldwide in my capacity as a design consultant, a prolific and experienced trainer, as a four-times published author, as a researcher and sought-after speaker. I'm editor of visualisingdata.com and host of the Explore Explain video and podcast series. If you have a desire to elevate your data viz capabilities, whether at the start of your journey or further along, get in touch.

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