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The Visualising Data Newsletter - Issue #16, May 2025
Published 2 months ago • 11 min read
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. So, in this issue I chronicle some of the best content I saw published during April 2025.
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, as always, to all subscribers and readers, see you next month with another compilation packed full of visualisation goodness.
Andy
Latest from me...
Firstly, some recent posts or announcements relating to my professional services and activities.
My next public data viz training course will be a two-day 'Masterclass in Data Visualisation' course taking place in London on Tuesday 2nd and Wednesday 3rd July, 9:30am to 4:30pm each day. Visit the link for more details about the course, the pricing, and information about how to register. Newsletter subscribers can access a 10% discount by using the promo code [SUBSCRIBERS ONLY!] at checkout. At the time of writing this class is now half full so still spaces available but they are going at a steady pace.
This is a renewed appeal for any owners/readers of my new book to consider submitting a review on whichever book-buying platform you got it or prefer to use. I'm particularly grateful for any folks willing to submit Amazon reviews as there have been instances of buyers giving low review scores - understandably and quite reasonably - due to Amazon's poor quality print-on-demand. Unfortunately, though both reviewers enjoyed the content and are right to reprimand Amazon, the scores ultimately only have a negative impact on the perception of the book's worth rather than Amazon as a seller.
The freshest data visualisation (or related) design pieces and collections.
1. To Understand Global Migration, You Have to See It First | New York Times
For Times Opinion, Kathleen Kingsbury provides 'the clearest picture to date of how people move across the globe: a record of permanent migration to and from 181 countries based on a single, consistent source of information, for every month from the beginning of 2019 through the end of 2022' which uses estimates from the location data of three billion anonymised Facebook users all over the world.
2. You read the terms and conditions, right? | ABC
Would be a worthy inclusion just for the inserting of the little illustrated monkey-puppet-side-eye-meme gif thing but its also a super interesting piece about the lengths of terms of conditions in the context of protecting children's data (with some excellent inspiration along the way from this well known 'I agree' art installation by Dima Yarovinsky).
World-class punning, magnificent animated titling, and next-level niche curiosity. What a delight this is from Fox Meyer and Jan Diehm exploring the intersection between wine price, wine quality, and the inclusion of animals on the label designs.
4. New York and Erie Railroad Organizational Diagram | C82
A typically exquisite recreation from Nicholas Rougeux of a snapshot of the New York and Erie Railroad’s company structure in 1855 which is 'often hailed as one of the first modern organizational charts in the history of American business' by Daniel McCallum.
Another signature piece of digital-visual excellence from Mohamad, this work offers a means of navigating nearly 200 years of interstate wars in an interactive 3D environment.
Magnificent effort this from Erik visualising 'A timeline of every Star Wars show, charted in story-order from the dawn of the Republic to the First Order'.
7. Can You Stop an Outbreak of a Contagious Disease? | The Upshot
Brilliantly designed participatory interactive: 'we simulated an outbreak of a hypothetical disease, about as contagious as the flu... We’d like you to contain it.'
9. Charting solar power's explosive global growth! | @laorso on Bluesky
One of the analyses from Ember's 'Global Electricity Review 2025', I love this connected scatter plot charting, as Lauren describes, 'solar power's explosive global growth!'
New work from Nadieh, beautifully designed as always. I often say that in most cases data visualisation is not complicated, but more complex. Here's an example of a data visualisation that will have been inherently complicated to formulate, but there's nobody better placed to handle that with such flair!
12. Exploring London’s Royal Observatory, the capital’s original time machine | Ian Bott on LinkedIn
'I’ve written and illustrated another London Museum walk for FT Globetrotter, the Financial Times' guide to cities.'. The above links through to the FT site which might be paywalled for some visitors.
13. How South Korea's largest and deadliest wildfire spread | Reuters
'Spread by strong winds in bone-dry conditions, the wildfires have killed scores of people and charred thousands of hectares in the southeastern part of the country.'
14. Over five decades, here’s how voters have shifted away from the major parties | ABC
'This triangle is going to help us explain how Australian politics has fundamentally changed. Like typical triangles, it has three sides and three corners. But this one has special meaning - each corner represents different electoral groups.' These opening lines give you a flavour of the excellent way this ternary-plot inspired scrollytelling piece is carefully unveiled and presented to the viewer.
'As an agency that makes charts, we’re jumping on the #30DayChartChallenge to re-share old RVL work!' I liked this approach to participating in April's annual chart challenge, for which you should also check out the wide range of other excellent original works created via the Bluesky hashtag search.
16. They Criticized Musk on X. Then Their Reach Collapsed. | New York Times
Tons of smart little design details in this piece which nevertheless offers a reminder that, even when presented with excellent design, compelling data is always the star of the show.
17. The Beast: 2025 NFL Draft guide | The Athletic
'The goal for “The Beast” is the same each year — to create the most comprehensive and detailed NFL Draft guide available.' And boy do they achieve it. Its not my sport of interest, and its not necessary a feast of visualisations, but as a sports-analytics curious person I don't half appreciate the leg work that went into this 'passion project that takes more than a year to put together'.
Similar in theme to the above, basketball is not my sport but I really appreciated the writing and the mini charts showing Jokic's 'no look passing' maps.
Again, this link in this might take you behind a paywall, like several pieces on here, but if you can view it its another masterpiece of visual storytelling from the FT team about another look at the supply chain behind the iPhone and why it would be impractical to manufacture in the US.
A related piece, this magnificent analysis uses an isometric cutaway house to illustrate how reliant on Chinese-imported products the typical American household is.
'Introducing Hot Air, a publicly-available interactive database and visualisation tool highlighting the volume of online misinformation surrounding climate change.'
Found via Francis Gagnon, this interactive map allows you to see just how '15-minute' worldwide cities are based on the times of accessibility to services from any place in a city by walking or biking
Relevant articles, interviews, or videos to help further your development in data viz.
25. Minimalism and the absurdity of the data-to-ink-ratio | Frank Elavsky
Frank writes about 'the data-to-ink ratio and a new game I've invented called "ink golf" for data visualization', which also stirred some great comments and conversations in his associated Bluesky posting.
27. Listening Before Visualising: Why I Didn’t Visualise Data in My New Audiovisual Installation | Tiziana Alocci
Lovely piece and project from Tiziana... 'When working with emotional, vocal, and biographical data, design ceases to be a matter of aesthetics. It becomes an act of listening.'
30. European data on animals aloft now publicly available | Springer Nature
'Weather radars continuously register the movements of billions of animals in the air! We have now published datasets covering large parts of Europe, providing an overview of the aerial habitat in a way no other method can.'
Came across this piece again recently and though, in date terms, it is an 'oldie', the thought process Jonathan Corum goes through here to explain how he defines and designs for an audience is as fresh and as relevant as ever. From one of the best in the game.
Love this piece from a few years ago about 'A Lesson on Radial Charts with Dr. James Naismith' - 'To demonstrate the activity patterns of 1 hour and 9 minutes of basketball action — and to answer the research question: “Is Basketball Injurious” — Naismith logged periods of motion and rest for one representative player, subdivided into blocks of 3 minutes or less...'
Really relevant article from Jason about an 'issue' I'm experiencing a lot at the moment which is the fraying of the clarity in terminology and the purpose of 'dashboards'.
Mike Davidson writes 'a little piece about how AI is changing the job market for designers. Something similar happened in 1995, and there is a clear way through it if you stay curious.'
I love these short weekly threads that show some of the thinking behind a data viz challenge. This week's posts look at a waterfall chart showing 'the path to net-zero emissions for India’s buildings sector'.
39. Shading In Between Two Lines In Tableau (Using Area Charts) - Tableau Tips With TableauTimothy | The Data School
I've included this for two reasons: 1) it specifically helped me solve a related problem and 2) I am just so appreciative of the volume of how-to posting like this people like Timothy and The Data School make available.
40. The big idea: do we worry too much about misinformation? | The Guardian
Perhaps a slightly misleading heading (ironically), but I like the premise of the article: 'Seeing falsehoods everywhere is as damaging as believing too much. Our focus should be on helping people interpret information better'
41. AI-Assisted Authoring of Text and Charts for Data-Driven Communication | Tableau
This post summarises the interesting research paper 'Pluto: Authoring Semantically Aligned Text and Charts for Data-Driven Communication' by Tableau research scientists, Arjun Srinivasan and Vidya Setlur, and Prof. Arvind Satyanarayan from MIT.
A second entry for Enrico who is doing some really excellent writing and positioning of ideas right now. This offers an 'initial investigation trying to put some order in this space'.
43. Why data viz competitions are good for our industry... | Viz Resonsibly
'...but are so tough to judge'. Amanda Makulec reflects on the conversations she's recently had and the questions she's been asked about the experience of judging a data viz competition.
Latest developments, announcements, or announcements affecting the data viz world, as well as additional references to pieces covering broader data, tech, or design matters.
Super new book by Bill the premise of which is perfectly captured by the enticing subtitle: "Uncover What People Need Before Doing What They Ask" and acts as a perfect 'solution' companion to the article written by Jason above about dashboards.
...and speaking of new books, congratulations to Edit for news of her first title about the process behind 50 storytelling pieces' offering 'an honest reflection on the creative process, the struggles of balancing different skills, and the lessons I’ve learned along the way'.
An interactive gallery of the results from the 46th edition of the Best of News Design Creative Competition. 'Winners are selected by visual journalists who are gathered in Minneapolis to assess the best work published in 2024' and wow this really is a collection of THE best work.
'When you decide on freelancing from home, plan the position and layout of the studio very carefully. Remember that clients will be visiting, so try to separate it as much as possible from the rest of the house'
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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Andy Kirk | Visualising Data
Independent Data Visualisation Expert
Subscribe to the 'Visualising Data Newsletter' to elevate your understanding with my monthly chronicle of the most insightful and delightful data viz content.
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. In this issue I chronicle some of the best content I saw published during March 2025. I hope you continue to find this...
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. In this issue I chronicle some of the best content I saw published during February 2025. I hope you continue to find this...
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...