Black & White Charts

Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York; And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. By the way, black & white is also a great starting point for better charts.

Hans Rosling

Hans Rosling was here in Lisbon today, for one of his remarkable presentations. It seems that almost no one in the room new about his TED talks and, of course, everyone loved his charts. He gave his presentation in Portuguese, so some extra points there too… If you just return to planet Earth and don’t … Read more

Get a Clown Suit, Instead

Why do people insist on using “professional looking charts” in their presentations? If I wanted to divert the audience’s attention from the data, I would get a professional clown suit, instead. I would look professional. Not exactly the professional-looking presenter people expect in a corporate environment, but nevertheless a professional. Meet professional-looking Mr. and Mrs. … Read more

Can Edward Tufte Do Business Charts?

1. Tufte, the Father of Eye-Candy Charts Tufte’s The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, published in 1983, is probably the most influential book in the history of data visualization, and it is likely to remain so for some more time. In his book, Tufte outlines for the first time a consistent theory of how a … Read more