Welcome to the latest issue of the 'Visualising Data Newsletter', chronicling 50 of the most insightful and delightful data viz pieces of content I encountered during January 2026.

As I stated last issue, we're now two years into this newsletter's life so I won't bore you with any more intro, let's just get straight into it

Happy Viz'ing, see you in March.

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. America isn't exceptional — it's the exception | Not-Ship​

"Americans have long believed their country is exceptional: uniquely great, superior to other nations, destined for a special role in the world. Outstanding. But exceptional has another meaning: Atypical."

8. India’s electrotech fast-track: where China built on coal, India is building on sun | Ember​

Includes a smart 'ternary' plot cleverly portraying this observation that 'India is taking the electrotech fast-track, bypassing the fossil detour taken by the West and China'

9. 2025 Year in Graphics | Reuters​

Does what it promises, dive in.

10. ¡2025 en mapas y gráficos! | El Pais​

I'm not going to include *every* publications yearly collection of works but here's another from El Pais via Kiko Llaneras.

11. The year in data | The Economist: Off The Charts​

...and here's a roundup from Alex Selby-Boothroyd and the economist team.

12. 2025 Year in Graphics | New York Times​

...the NYT graphics team's work.

13. Everything You Could Possibly Want to Know About This Winter Storm | New York Times​

While with the NYT, here's their excellent approach to handling the display of snow storms

14. What Can Hundreds of Pieces of Litter Tell Us About Manhattan? | New York Times​

And lastly from the NYT patch, this lovely piece about the meaning of litter.

15. Which Skilled Immigrants Does America Need? | Washington Post​

From Youyou Zhou "A hypothetical think piece asking you to design the selection process for skilled immigrants to the United States."

16. Timelines for people references in “We Didn’t Start the Fire” | FlowingData​

What a brilliant angle! "In his song “We Didn’t Start the Fire”, Billy Joel makes 119 historical references from his life at the time. Of those, 57 of them are people, and as the internet likes to remind us, the number of those on the list who are still alive approaches zero with time. With the passing of Brigitte Bardot at the end of 2025, the count is down to three. These are the timelines of everyone on the list."

17. See for yourself just how massive Meta’s Hyperion data center is | Sherwood​

Go on, see it.

18. Dithering | Visual Rambling​

A unique "personal project by Damar, someone who loves to learn about different topics and rambling about them visually", this time exploring the idea of 'dithering', an explanation about which the project is a far better place to find than any attempt from me.

19. Visualizing Neglect | The End Fund​

A visual report on 'Neglected' tropical diseases which "threaten approximately 1.5 billion people globally including nearly 1 billion children"

20. Radar for Wind Farms | Robin Hawkes on Bluesky​

"I've been working on a prototype that you can use on your phone to discover more about the wind farms around you."

21. What if We Go Bananas? | MHInfographics​

Marco seeks to visually convey how just because bananas 'emit a small amount of radiation due to their potassium... it would take absurd circumstances for them to become dangerous'.

22. Feathertype​

Jer Thorp has made a new tool for creating typographic art with bird names!

23. Featherbase | Krista Koeller on Bluesky​

...and related, here's a "database of feather pictures from a bunch of bird species"

Learning

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

27. Tips and Redesigns | Joey Cherdarchuk on Bluesky​

Another entry for Joey, this time a thread collecting his general tips and makeover approaches in data viz.

28. Saloni's guide to data visualization | Scientific Discovery​

A huge article from Saloni Dattani that details 'why data visualization matters, and how to make charts more effective, clear, transparent, and sometimes, beautiful.'

29. #NACIS2025 recording highlights | Lauren Tierney on Bluesky​

"I've spent the last few weeks slowly going through #NACIS2025 recordings, looking for inspiration and joy in map-making to get me through a difficult time. This is in no way a comprehensive list, but these cartographers and their presentations really stood out to me in their creative process."

30. The trouble with maps... | Financial Times​

"The trouble with maps: Greenland’s allure for Trump is based on an illusion. Who dares tell the US president the Arctic island he covets is not as big as it seems?"

31. How we visualise currents | The Economist: Off The Charts​

Rosamund Pearce talks us through the process she followed when having "a crack at some amateur oceanography" in order to animate the Kuroshio, 'a powerful current that connects East Asia'.

32. X is like Y | The Plot​

Nice piece from Evelina about how "analogies are an incredible tool in our data storytelling belt" looking at how they work and how to use them to our advantage.

33. A culture of work we believe in | Fathom​

Reflecting on the potential use of AI in Fathom's practice, this piece explains why "The short answer is that we don’t use generative AI, and we don’t have any plans to do so."

34. SystemViz​

"SystemViz is a research project by Peter Stoyko exploring how visuals can enhance systems thinking, especially as it relates to inter-disciplinary, collaborative design." (With thanks to Francis Gagnon for sharing originally)

35. Cover story | Economist​

Via Filippo Teoldi, exploring the 81 print edition cover designs of the Economist: "Here they all are—and how each one came to be"

36. PolicyViz | Zencaster​

Nice new episode about 'Exploring Creative Data Visualization" with Nadieh Bremer

37. Colour as Strategy and Aesthetics | The Datavist​

"What the Bureau of Meteorology’s Radar Teaches About Data Visualisation: An ill-fated radar redesign reminds us that colour decisions are never cosmetic, they define how data is read and believed."

38. Constraint-Based Breakpoints for Responsive Visualization Design and Development | IEEE VIS 2025​

Interesting paper from Sarah Schöttler et al, 'This article introduces constraint-based breakpoints, a technique for designing responsive visualizations for a wide variety of screen sizes and datasets.'

39. Misleading or Misinterpreted? | FILWD on Substack​

"I have been struggling with this for quite a while. Should we talk more about the ways visualization can be misleading or misinterpreted? It may seem irrelevant, but think about it for a moment..."

40. Why You Should Start Joking Around | Chaz Hutton on LInkedIn​

I mentioned my episode with Chaz in the opener, here's a nice piece from here about the importance of cartoons, which he says "aren't the most obvious medium for advertising and promoting your brand, but in a media landscape increasingly full of soulless AI content and generic template design, maybe they should be. Let me tell you why."

41. Info+ | Nightingale​

Erica Gunn offers a nice reflection on the Information Plus Conference 2025.

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.

43. It’s hard to justify Tahoe icons | Tonsky​

Another hat-tip to Francis who shared this article by Nikita Prokopov looking at the first principles of icon design and how Apple failed to apply all of them to the MacOS Tahoe.

44. Announcing Outlier 2026 | Data Visualization Society on LinkedIn​

Taking place online over June 24-26, this year's event is titled 'The Final Draft'.

45. Scribble Magic​

This is fun, "Scribble Magic transforms your maps into stunning images and videos with just a few strokes. Simply draw annotations on your map to guide the transformation. Circle an area for a forest, draw a line for a river, or outline where you want buildings to appear."

46. Appearing on 6 Music! | Miriam Quick on Bluesky​

"I went on the Nick Grimshaw show on BBC 6 Music talking about turning data into music, and about visualising David Bowie’s Space Oddity." Follow the link to the audio recording.

47. RIP the metaverse | Sherwood​

Good riddance (mostly) to a product that harnessed some of the most unimaginative creative thinking I've ever seen.

48. HCIL touchscreen toggle switches (University of Maryland) | Youtube​

As shared by Moritz Stefaner on Bluesky, this is a 1991 video showing early research at the Human-Computer Interaction Lab into different touchscreen based toggle switches allowing the control of two state devices.

49. Plotivy​

A newly encountered data viz tool offering "The AI-powered workspace for reproducible science. Generate journal-quality figures, perform statistical analysis, and export code that ensures your work is transparent, FAIR-compliant, and ready for publication."

50. Introducing 'sneckdowns' | Streetsblog NYC on Bluesky​

"Snow is nature's urban planner: It can show us what parts of the roadway drivers don't use — and what can be reclaimed for pedestrians.

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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