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The Visualising Data Newsletter - Issue #19, October 2025
Published 14 days 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. This month's issue relates to content I saw published during September 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 and you'll find the growing collection of archived goodness.
Thanks, as always, to all of you who subscribe and read these collections. If you like the content, your onward sharing with others or referring people to subscribe is always hugely appreciated!
Andy
Latest from me...
Firstly, some recent posts or announcements relating to my professional services and activities.
Last week I published a new episode of Explore Explain, welcoming my great guest Liuhuaying Yang, a Data Visualisation Designer who works at the Complexity Science Hub Research Center in Vienna, Austria. We explored the story behind Liuhuaying’s unique data visualisation ‘Not My Name‘, which explores the process and components of translating Chinese names into Pinyin.
I’m thrilled to see a visualisation I created has been included in a new graphics book by the magnificent man-in-blue, Nigel Holmes, titled ‘Let’s Get Infografit: A Graphic Look at Exercise and Health‘. In this post I share a few more details and include a few additional shots of this visualisation piece.
Obinna has resumed his lovely series of short 'Data in the Wild' posts where he highlights real-world examples of data collection and visualisation in action.
I missed this beautiful piece, by Davies Christian Surya, when it came out in July but I caught it last month. I love the colours, I love the variation in the styling of the icons, its just a further demonstration of the endless supply of exquisite static graphics produce by SCMP.
Andrew Aquino's debut on The Pudding is a cracker, looking at the mathematics behind optimal dicing of onions. It would be merited for inclusion based on the eye-wateringly splendid red-onion title typeface alone.
You'd be proud if you had accomplished even just one of these mega-ambitious, gorgeous design preservation/enhancement projects. Nicholas pumps them out every few months! We should never take the frequency of his brilliance for granted. This one involved "a months-long treasure hunt for 1,200+ books spanning 450+ years to digitize Daniel Updike’s Printing Types from 1922, detailing the history of printing and typography. Made a nifty poster too." As ever the companion making-of post is also worthy of awards.
Nicola is one of the most prolific publishers of fresh data visualisation pieces, mainly for her wonderful commitment to the #TidyTuesday series. Here she's made a lovely 'annotated barcode plot to show the distribution of age by title' but the main reason for inclusion in this newsletter is simply encouragement to just go follow all her work.
Typically excellent visual article investigating the data story behind the powerful magnitude 6 earthquake which struck northeastern Afghanistan in August.
Published in Japanese but with an English translation also available, this is a smart visual exploration of the 'Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone' "a sprawling seaside resort on North Korea's eastern seaboard" which opened this summer. "Seven years in the making, the resort is more than just a leisure destination, it is a symbol of Pyongyang's expanding ties with Moscow. Using satellite analysis and social media footage, Nikkei shows the full picture of this ambitious beachside development."
7. Inside the everyday Facebook networks where far-right ideas grow | The Guardian
A visualisation report following a year of the Guardian's data projects team and reporters studying "far-right radicalisation across 51,000 Facebook messages trading in anti-immigration sentiment and misinformation".
"Building upon thousands of hours of analysis by scientific experts from around the world, the Drawdown Explorer provides detailed information on the many technologies and practices proven or proposed to effectively reduce greenhouse warming pollution in the atmosphere."
From Naël Shiab, Senior Data Producer for CBC/Radio-Canada, this "interactive notebook aims to help journalists understand math concepts often used in news stories" (but is also ever so useful for non-journalists too!)
"We’ve distilled the last 40+ years of FT content (over 3mn articles) down to a single economic sentiment series... called the FT 'macro mood'. The figure shows average weekly sentiment since 1982, with sentiment troughs highlighted"
I'm not trying to bring the mood down here, I promise, and here's Georgina Struge to challenge the 'mood of boiling discontentment in Britain' - where is the evidence that it even exists?
Excellent work from Rudi O'Reilly Meehan, with this new platform focusing on sustainable mobility in Ireland, not just through the lens of issues that exist but also the opportunities that are there to improve the lives of local citizens.
"CBFC Watch is an independent research project dedicated to exploring film censorship actions in India. It is the first public, searchable database of censorship information for nearly 18,000 films released between 2017 and 2025." developed by Aman Bhargava and Vivek Matthew.
16. How do you quantify ‘tempo’ in football? | The Athletic
Another demonstration of Mark Carey's rare talent to not only pose insightful curiosities, then follow up with a smart data investigation that fully explores and answers them, and then communicates them to a reader in such clear terms.
Lovely visual article about how math(s) can inspire ideas about buildings and structures "offering a new way to see and appreciate the world. Inspired by this idea, The New York Times created a virtual tour of some of the most striking architecture in Barcelona, a city where math and exploration meet."
An occasional reminder of the benefit of consistently reading these weekly collections of "the best small and large data visualizations we find, especially from news organizations" - now on to its 212th edition!
20. The House Color That Tells You When Your Neighbourhood is Gentrifying | Washington Post
"A Washington Post color analysis of D.C. found shades of gray permeate neighborhoods where the White population has increased and the Black population has decreased."
21. Alcaraz and Sinner, the new era of the 'Big 2' (translated) | Mundo Deportivo
Sports-graphics extraordinaire Ferran Morales examines the careers and performances of the latest dominant players in men's tennis, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.
"To create those new ways of watching, we first have to understand stories deeply. That means looking at them from every angle, breaking them down into their parts, and uncovering the threads that link them together. The Narrative Explorer is a reflection of that effort. It’s a peek into OZU’s cinematic universe - visualized in 3D, moment by moment, mood by mood -so you can see how different moments relate, overlap, and contrast."
25. Do you know where the U.S. gets its goods from? | Reuters
I love love love the isometric visuals in this piece: "We are about to take a tour around the world to a few of the many countries from which the U.S. imports products. At each stop you will have the chance to test yourself: do you know where Americans get their goods from?"
27. The unconscious process that leads to creativity: how ‘incubation’ works | The Guardian
Not explicitly data viz related but certainly data viz relevant, looking at the creativity process and how one of the now-recognised four phases includes one where you need to let your unconscious do the work. Something I really recognise in how I try to approach creative tasks.
28. Designing for Readers: Sónia Matos on Público’s Mobile-First Future | Newspaper Design
"Sónia Matos, Art Director at Público since 2006, shares insights on the newspaper’s design philosophy and Portuguese print culture in a conversation" - Lovely piece with examples of so much creative flair.
Brilliant article from RJ, might even be the best thing I read this month, articulating something that is hard to pin down, but he nails it with aplomb: "Our world feels awash in information windows but devoid of information diamonds."
31. Synthetic Data and the Shifting Ground of Truth | Arxiv
Dietmar Offenhuber offers thoughts on the implications of an emerging "shift from a representational to what could be described as a mimetic or iconic concept of data".
32. Integrating Emerging Technology in Newsrooms Must Preserve Journalistic Agency | CNTI
"In interviews with more than 70 journalism professionals, Emilia Ruzicka found that daily journalists are being left out of conversations about the future of AI in the field."
33. Introducing The Art of Visualization with ggplot2 | NRennie
More Nicola Rennie! This time its a blog post giving a "brief introduction to 'The Art of Visualization with ggplot2', a book of data visualization case studies showing the end-to-end process of building charts, starting from data acquisition to custom styling, entirely in R."
34. A Reading List on GenAI for Data Visualization | FILWD on Substack
Here is a research paper reading list Enrico has compiled for a new course he's launching devoted to the intersection of 'Data Visualization and Generative AI'.
"This is the list of accepted papers for VIS 2025, as well as the paper sessions and schedules." (which takes place next week, look out for the talk videos and or published papers)
36. Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events | Princeton
I'd not come across this title before (from 2019) - "From Nobel Prize–winning economist and New York Times bestselling author Robert Shiller, a groundbreaking account of how stories help drive economic events—and why financial panics can spread like epidemic viruses"
"Applied Works has evolved from a design start-up in 2005 into a leading data design studio, partnering with influential non-profits, philanthropists, and intergovernmental organisations. To mark our twentieth year, co-founders Joe Sharpe and Paul Kettle sat down with Hannah Foulds to share some insights and reminisce about their learnings along the way."
The Economist’s data and visual journalism weekly newsletter where each "week a different member of the team will explain one element of their role - whether it’s a piece of software they can’t live without, advice on how to visualise outliers or a guide to using data in the fog of war" (Free subscribers can receive one newsletter sent to their inbox)
Latest developments, announcements, or announcements affecting the data viz world, as well as additional references to pieces covering broader data, tech, or design matters.
Brilliant to see the new issue of this pioneering and enduring data viz magazine. "Our latest issue of Market Café Magazine explores the invisible side of information: the gaps, voids, and silences in data. This issue explores what happens when knowledge is withheld, unrecorded, or lost — and how these absences can tell stories of their own."
44. Bland, easy to follow, for fans of everything: what has the Netflix algorithm done to our films? | The Guardian
Long read from the Guardian: "When the streaming giant began making films guided by data that aimed to please a vast audience, the results were often generic, forgettable, artless affairs."
45. 10-Minute Challenge: Bosch’s ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’ | New York Times
I've posted these before but I will again because I adore these monthly challenges where "we invite you to spend uninterrupted time looking at one piece of art."
46. Microsoft launches ‘vibe working’ in Excel and Word | The Verge
"The software maker is launching a new Agent Mode in Excel and Word that can generate complex spreadsheets and documents with just a prompt" - I'm sure it will work out fine, what with zero organisations on this planet operating from and relying entirely on the workings of a small handful of vital spreadsheets...
"Our Rowboat tool is about instantly seeing what's in a dataset, so we added a Chrome Extension that lets you open random datasets from all over the internet. Right click, poof! 0.2 seconds later we see what this dataset actually looks like. "
49. Mapping a City with One Continuous Line | Maps.com
"This map of Salt Lake City from Abu Dembélé is a breathtaking example of a map as a piece of art. Drawn with a single, continuous line, it depicts the familiar shapes of Utah’s largest city through the clever use of negative space."
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.
Newsletter compiled and published by Andy Kirk on behalf of Visualising Data Ltd, 41 Talbot Road, Leeds, West Yorkshire LS8 1AG Unsubscribe | Update your profile
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. Due to a busy work schedule and lots of non-work distractions, the previous issue had to be a combined collection of the best...
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. Due to a busy work schedule and especially lots of non-work distractions, in this issue I chronicle some of the best content I...
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...