Embracing complexity, getting published and time for a break!
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Lots of moving parts!
May was a hectic month for me. Lots have happened, both personally and professionally. And to top it all, COVID-19 made its way into our household. I haven’t caught it yet, and I must confess I’m impressed by my Neo skills in dodging COVID-19 bullets over the past three years. Let’s see if I manage to keep it that way a little longer!
All things considered, I decided it’s best to take June off from work, so I can focus on getting everything else back on track. This means I won’t be publishing on the blog this month. It also means this will be a shorter newsletter.
The Data Viz Bookshelf posts will be back in July, when I’ll also open my schedule for Rescue Sessions.
But now, to the good stuff!
- My article talking about the process behind my Dataviz self-portrait has been published in the Nightingale! I am beyond excited! This is definitely a big achievement for me.
From the Data Viz Bookshelf
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This month, I talked about the dataviz classic Show Me The Numbers by Stephen Few and how not every representation of data needs to be a bar chart.
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I have also threaded through lots of questions we all ask when working with dataviz, accompanied by Neil Richards’ outstanding Questions in Dataviz book.
I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing!
Other interesting bits and bobs:
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Nick Desbarats wrote this really insightful piece about why choosing a chart is not as clear-cut as we may think and all the nuance that goes into deciding how to best represent your data using a visual.
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If you have one hour to spare, I came across this wonderful lecture by Don Norman (the design legend and author of Design of Everyday Things) where he talks about living with complexity. He makes a very compelling point that what we seek in design is not simplicity, but understanding. You know the lecture is good when the video was uploaded to YouTube 11 years ago, but the content of the talk is as fresh as if it was given last week. Definitely worth a watch!
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And if you feel like stepping a little bit into adjacent areas to information design, Rachel Koberts published this provocative look into the future of user interfaces - from screens to more interactive forms, blurring the lines between the physical and virtual worlds. It is an interesting perspective, and it makes me wonder how dataviz may evolve into a future where we use more than screens to consume information.
Last but definitely not least, I am looking for my next awesome client! My schedule will be available again in July 2023.
If you have a cool project involving data visualisation, reach out either through this email or my website and let’s chat!
If you’d like to keep the conversation going, just reply to this e-mail. I’d love to hear your thoughts!
See you again in July!
-- T.
If you’d like to keep the conversation going, just reply to this e-mail.
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