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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.

For those of you new to this newsletter, 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 October 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

ps. There won't be an issue in December, instead I'll merge curating what I encounter during November and December into a combined newsletter in the New Year.

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. Deep Time Australia | ABC​

The culmination of what appears to be five years of work to build this comprehensive interactive project "that provides a glimpse into the ancient history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have occupied this land for more than 65,000 years."

8. Lighting the Way | Maps.com​

"This engaging map from Mike Huff and Ryan Huff charts more than 600 lighthouses along the Atlantic Ocean in North America."

9. What's My Size? It Depends on the Brand | The Straits Times​

Brilliant visual exploration into 'the confusing world of women's clothing sizes': "Why does shopping for clothes feel like a guessing game? We looked at the numbers to find out."

10. Inside Ukraine's drone campaign to blitz Russia’s energy industry | Reuters​

A full repertoire of contemporary visual-story excellence formed of charts, illustrations, maps, animations, and photography.

11. Money, Muscles, and Anxiety | The Guardian​

A visual deep dive into why the 'manosphere' clicked with young men.

12. Nearly 20% Fewer International Students Traveled to the US in August | The Upshot​

The largest decline on record outside of the pandemic, explored also in this thread from Aatish Bhatia.

13. Economic Barcode: Mapping Global Inflation | Yu-Shan Chiu on LinkedIn​

"This project turns global inflation data into a barcode-inspired visual. By combining the familiar look of product barcodes with economic data, it shows how inflation is spread across different income groups"

14. Hot Water: How Much Are Oceans Warming? | National Geographic​

Finding different ways to quantify and try help us relate to the overwhelming impact of climate change on oceans - heat, not necessarily just temperature.

15. Climate in Motion: Dancing with Data | Richie Lionell on LinkedIn​

There are other ways of conveying climate change, this is a novel portrayal of "a very Indian climate data story told through music, dance and mime".

16. The Jewelry code: Data as wearable art | Syldyr​

"We invite you to visit an exhibition where art and data merge into something entirely new — wearable jewelry pieces, each telling a unique story."

17. Walkachusetts | The Pudding​

Russel Samora ruptured my achilles in January. "Couch-bound for most of the winter, I read over a dozen books about walking journeys. I was inspired. Obsessed? I decided to walk across Massachusetts.". This is his story which you can experience either through text/visuals or mostly images.

18. Trump Canceled 94 Million Pounds of Food Aid. Here’s What Never Arrived. | ProPublica​

"ProPublica obtained records from the Department of Agriculture that detail the millions of pounds of food, down to the number of eggs, that never reached food banks because of the administration’s cuts."

19. The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better. | Our World In Data​

Not a new thing but new to me and I love how they use these three-contrasting statement perspectives to give proper all-round context to situations.

20. How TikTok keeps its users scrolling for hours a day | Washington Post​

Some lovely charts in this piece, where the Post "collected TikTok watch histories from more than 1,000 users and created a database of roughly 15 million videos served up to them in a six-month period last year."

21. Climate Tech Map​

I'm not 100% sure I've not shared this in some form before but regardless I'll share it here: "The Climate Tech Map is your guide to the known frontiers and unknown breakthroughs that will define our future. Explore the frontiers and find a breakthrough of your own."

22. How To Read This Chart​

I loved this newsletter when Philip Bump was at the Washington Post and now he's left he's resurrected it in the form of his own newsletter. A must subscribe.

23. Global Electricity Mid-Year Insights 2025 | Ember​

A long read with plenty of smashing visuals about how solar and wind "outpaced demand growth in the first half of 2025, as renewables overtook coal’s share in the global electricity mix". Good long thread accompanying it from Dave Jones on Bluesky.

24. FiftyPlusOne | Katie Marriner on Bluesky​

Formerly of FiveThirtyEight, Katie (now Elections Data Viz Developer at Associated Press) has posted about a 'thing' she's been working on called FiftyPlusOne, a new website "devoted to political polling and elections"

25. This Year's Hurricanes Keep Turning Away From the East Coast | New York Times​

"Again and again, this year’s Atlantic hurricane season has featured storms that seemed to be heading straight to the United States, only to suddenly take a sharp turn toward the east, veering away from land and out to the open ocean."

26. Impact Stories Dashboard | International Initiative for Impact Evaluation​

Developed by Revisual Labs, this dashboard development for 3ie "Explores stories of impact and influence of 3ie's work on programs, organizations and on the evidence ecosystem"

27. How mega batteries are unlocking an energy revolution. | Financial Times​

New visual story from Sam Joiner's team reporting on "A boom in grid-scale storage is solving renewables’ reliability problem and extending the use of clean power."

28. This crosswalk in Istanbul visualises a decade of pedestrian deaths | Famous Campaigns​

Street-level depiction of the more than 20,000 people who have been killed or injured at crosswalks across Turkey over the last ten years.

Learning

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

32. Data Visualizations as Propaganda: Tracing Lineages, Provenance, and Political Framings in Online Anti-Immigrant Discourse | ACM Digital Library​

New paper from Priya Dhawka, Nina Lutz, and Kate Starbird: "Along with other visual content, data visualizations are increasingly used within online discourse, including political communication. Though often considered to be 'objective', data visualizations can also be created and/or appropriated to mislead. Here, we study the use and evolution of data visualizations within social media discourse around the ongoing 'crisis' at the US-Mexico border in 2024"

33. Good Charts, Wrong Data: A Data Sanity Check Framework for Data Visualizers | FILWD on Substack​

"In this post, I will share a framework I have developed to think systematically about evaluating your data, so that you can be more mindful of the impact it can have on the validity of your visualizations."

34. Redefining Visual Journalism: Alexandre Calderón Speaks on Creativity, Data, and Trust | Newspaper Design​

Nice interview with Alexandre Calderón, Graphic Editor at El Financiero in Mexico.

35. Visualizing the Cost of Truth: How The National Told the Story of Journalists Killed in Gaza | Newspaper Design​

...And another from Newspaper Design featuring Fadah Jassem, Head of Data Visualization Journalism at The National News, who "led a powerful visual storytelling project that documents the lives and tragic deaths of journalists killed during the Gaza war... humanising the toll of the conflict, blending data, profiles, and design to show the dangers faced by media professionals reporting from the front lines."

36. Human-Centered Workflow for Hundreds of Icons | Chartography on Substack​

RJ talks us through his 'handmade system for colorful Isotype-style pictographs' for his work on designing a 'Maps for Kids' poster plotting 200 foods by macronutrient composition.

37. What 9 Superstar Designers Actually Want From AI | Fast Company Design​

Includes a contribution from Giorgia Lupi (which if you can't access the article above you can get an insight from her LinkedIn post)

38. Brain Cartography | Stamen​

"Mapping a place that everyone knows, but (almost) no one has ever been"

39. Preparing the Particular: Arendt on the Imagination’s Role in Judgment | Medium​

Interesting reflections on the role of imagination and reflection in the act of making judgments.

40. Why designers abandoned their dreams of changing the world | Financial Times​

"Design was once seen as a tool to improve lives — but as modernism has become marketing, that sense of social purpose has drifted away"

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.

42. Do you want a bit more sketchiness in your datavis? | Jo Wood on Bluesky​

Jo's Observable Plot plugin that effects a sketchy aesthetic to chart designs.

43. SVA Announces New Graduate Program in Data Visualization and Communication | School of Visual Arts​

"In Fall 2026, SVA will welcome the inaugural class of a brand-new degree program, the Masters of Professional Studies in Data Visualization and Communication (MPS DV&C), a 10-month program that blends design, storytelling, and data fluency"

44. Tourists, watercolours and the sad, still Star | The Guardian​

"Sketching the route 35 tram showed me a Melbourne I had never really noticed... When you are in a city every day, you start to take things for granted. So, after three years in Melbourne, Josh Nicholas decided to be a tourist"

45. Apostrophe One​

Lovely fresh website to launch Valentina D'Efilippo's new data design practice, Apostrophe One. Good luck with it all Valentina!

46. The Campaign for Vertical Television | Interconnected​

Very much agree with this idea and like how its been framed... "TV networks should have an extra channel that shows exclusively portrait mode content. i.e. BBC Vertical."

47. "A new visual language of war" | Jack Sapoch on Bluesky​

Fascinating thread exploring the use of artists' renderings and stock materials in the 3D animations used in propaganda videos.

48. "Launching our Bluesky account and our Open Beta phase!" | Lapis on Bluesky​

Lapis is an "all-in-one platform that allows users to create compelling data stories that inform, engage, and inspire" brought by the Kontinentalist team and this announcement marks the open beta release.

49. Pelican photoviz | Brett Banditelli on Bluesky​

Three pelicans diving after sunset captured through 58 frames over 3 seconds.

50. "Happy Longest Day Of The Year" | Alex Selby-Boothroyd on Bluesky​

A chart of hours per day.

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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