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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 new content I saw published during July.

With the format of this newsletter becoming established with many of you now repeat viewers, I'm going to cut down on the usual introductory text and instead divert you towards my 'Newsletter' page which has more info as well as the public archive of all monthly issues.

As always, I hope you continue to find this newsletter useful, whether you are working on a dataviz, working in dataviz, or working to get working in dataviz.

See you same time, same place, in September.

Andy

ps. In the last issue I mentioned the imminent news of how to pre-order the 3rd edition of my book, 'Data Visualisation: A Handbook for Data Driven Design'. I'm still awaiting the confirmed details so as soon as I have this I'll add the details to my site and in the next issue of this newsletter.

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.

5. The view from Paris: From 1924 to today | Washington Post​

I really liked the fun style and scrappy tone of this daily "visual scrapbook", from Álvaro Valiño (congrats on his publishing debut at The Post!), Bonnie Berkowitz, Artur Galocha and Samuel Granados, showing 'some of the wonders and weirdness you couldn’t otherwise see without being in Paris'.

6. Who killed the world? | Alvin Chang, The Pudding​

"I analyzed the top 200 sci-fi films and tv shows every decade from the 1950s to present day.' What I found was that sci-fi narratives from yesteryear were quite different from today's stories." Also check out Alvin's brilliant 'behind the scenes' write-up.

7. Portfolio | Dea Bankova​

Updated interactive portfolio showcasing Reuters Graphics Journalist Dea's exceptional body of professional and personal work, covering data visualisation, data art, creative coding, and front-end design.

8. How Thousands of Middleman are Gaming the H-1B Program | Bloomberg​

Brilliant piece of visual investigating from the Bloomberg team: "Every year, a lottery determines who gets an H-1B visa to work in the US. The game, it turns out, is rigged." If you can't access the paywalled project, check out Eric Fan's Twitter thread.

9. Extreme Heat Threatens Future Summer Olympics | Axios​

A ton of visual goodness in this piece which, as the title explains, looks at the possible impact of rising temperatures on the viability of holding the Olympics during the summer.

10. How Fast Is That Going? | New York Times​

Excellent 'participatory' viz quiz testing your judgment of how fast the speeds reach in 8 different Olympics sports.

11. On land, they waddle. Under water, they soar. | Straits Times​

Absolutely joyful visual explainer of how Singapore's "Penguin Cove" has been designed for the "varying needs of its 36 penguins"

12. Inside the race to make the world’s fastest running shoes | FT​

Super interesting piece, typically stunning visuals, and a fascinating data-gathering methodology: using CT scans to "reveal the technology propelling record-breaking long-distance runners"

13. K-Pop Reimagined | Bloomberg​

Investigating on the attempts to make K-Pop even more internationally successful and globally appealing: by "consciously trying to become less Korean".

14. Twelve charts that show how Labour won by a landslide | The Guardian​

Some smart analysis in this piece reflecting on how the UK election was won and lost.

15. Anatomy of a Landslide | New York Times​

Similarly, some great visuals accompany this analysis from Josh Holder and Lauren Leatherby to "explain the trends behind Labour's historic victory"

16. Taiwan's high-mountain oolong tea [Translated] | @CW_Graphics on Twitter​

New visual story about Taiwan's high-mountain oolong tea and the potential negative impact on its survival caused by the changing fog and humid climate of Alishan.

17. Golden Generation vs. Soul Generation | Panorama​

Lovely piece by Edit Gyenge comparing the achievements of Romanian football's past and current generations

18. Olympic Athletes go Hi-Tech to Beat Extreme Heat | Bloomberg​

Another entry for the prolific Bloomberg visuals team, this piece exploring the impact of heat on athletes in Paris, focusing on the most gruelling of events: the marathon, "which starts at Paris City Hall, an area with a high density of zinc rooftops and lack of vegetation".

19. Decade-Long Battle for “Yogurt” vs. “Yoghurt” on Wikipedia | FlowingData​

"This chart shows the back and forth between the two spellings, based on the variation used first in each article revision"

20. How Much Do Subway Maps Distort Geography? | Maps.com​

"This animated map shows how the clean lines and schematics of subway maps compare to their real-world locations. It uses data from OpenStreetMap to explore these differences across six of the most famous subway systems on Earth."

21. Trump remade the GOP in his image — and its platform in his words | Washington Post​

"If the 2024 Republican Party platform sounds as though it was dictated by Donald Trump, that’s because a lot of it was." Qualitative analysis of how Trump’s wording is echoed in the 2024 RNC platform.

22. A different opening, the River Seine scenario | SCMP​

Beautiful infographic from Victor Sanjinez analysing "the role of the Seine in these Olympic Games", from the opening ceremony to the attempts to make the water cleaner, safer for the events. If you can't get through the paywall, check out the first entry here.

23. Italian Limes​

"Italian Limes is a research project and an interactive installation that explores the most remote Alpine regions, where national borders drift with glaciers."

24. Amsterdam Startup Landscape | @NadiehBremer on Twitter​

New data viz from Nadieh about the "(academic) startups in Amsterdam over the past decade+"

Learning

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

28. InsightOut | Revisual Labs on LinkedIn

Worth following their weekly #InsightOut posts (published on Twitter but I'd suggest better on LinkedIn): "we'll take you behind the scenes of a chart, map, or interactive graphic, sharing insights on the design process, challenges overcome & the story behind the data"

29. “Semantic Clashes” in Data Visualization | FILWD on SubStack​

Enrico Bertini writes about "when it's hard to figure out what a graph communicates"

30. A Search for the Heart: Digital collections, machine learning and legacies of care | Jer Thorp and Jonathan Ashley​

"A few days into writing a report on machine learning and cultural data for the Library of Congress, I came back with a question: Can it be a comic?". This is the exquisite result of two years and many iterations...

31. Visualization as a shared revealing experience | The Art of Insight on SubStack​

Alberto Cairo writes about "learning objectives and persuasive charts to use in court"

32. When Oversimplification Obscures | Ama Nyame-Mensah on Nightingale​

From a couple of years ago but I rediscovered it in my bookmarks and found it a really pertinent piece to reinforce the idea that simplifying the complex can have negative consequences in data visualisation

33. Good Morning Data #3 | The C(h)art Before the Horse | Julie Brunet on Nightingale​

A more recent piece from Nightingale and its another appearance on this newsletter from Julie, who is close to accomplishing a residency on these pages. She asks, "why is it that starting by a design inspiration goes with a pinch of guilt, even of shame?"

34. '51 pieces of data journalism published during the election' | @PaulBradshaw on Twitter​

Excellent, comprehensive collection from Paul Bradshaw highlighting "51 pieces of data journalism published during the election".

News

Latest developments, announcements, or announcements affecting the data viz world.

37. Map Gallery Award Winners | Esri​

Plenty of map-based inspiration available from the 2024 Esri User Conference.

38. Wallpaper* USA 400: meet the people shaping Creative America in 2024 | Wallpaper​

Congratulations to Giorgia Lupi who has been included (for the second year in a row) in the Wallpaper* USA 400 "a list of the 400 creative people currently defining America"

39. Five Years of the Nightingale Community! | Nightingale​

Congratulations to all involved in the accomplishment of the five year milestone of Nightingale which "has blossomed into a vibrant community with over 1,200 articles published online and hundreds of contributors, many of whom are first-time authors".

40. Dennis Wong, RIP | SCMP​

Important to recognise in this issue the terrible news that the hugely talented and multi award-winning designer Dennis Wong, of the South China Morning Post, sadly passed away.

Sundries

Additional references to pieces covering broader data, tech, or design matters.

42. How Photog Jerome Brouillet Got the Viral Shot of Olympic Surfer Gabriel Medina | Newsweek​

You'll have seen it, the apparently levitating surfer, here's how it was setup and shot

43. Rudy Willingham X Simone Biles At The Paris Olympics 2024 | Giant​

More photo-imagery-creative excellence with Simone Biles' routine recreated with 120 paper cutouts

44. President Venn Diagram | xkcd​

Everyone loves a Venn, even the potential next US President...

45. Scrolling map on receipt paper | FlowingData​

"Aaron Koelker printed a six-foot long map on receipt printer"

46. If a snake was responsive... | @DarylGinn on Twitter​

would it be like this... or like this...

47. Greggs make accessible pasties & sausage rolls | @WonderpusGospel on Twitter​

It might be an example of unintended accessibility but although "the patterns are designed for staff to differentiate between products" each one has a different pattern baked into the top that means you can tell what's inside by touch, as well as just by looking, and with a handy guide printed onto the paper bags.

48. I edited every Tom Cruise run | @StephenSeanFord on Twitter​

Most of them, at least.

49. 'Freak in the spreadsheets' | @ExcelHumor on Twitter​

You'll start off being appalled at the prospect but then you'll also secretly think "yeah, I might actually get one of those!"

50. 'Author's note on language' | @LivvieHarts on Twitter​

Zzzzzz

Thanks for reading!

I’m ANDY KIRK, an independent data visualisation expert currently based in the UK. 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 three-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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