Welcome to a life updates issue of Will's Newsletter. If you're reading this on Sunday morning, then I hope you'll join me and my friend Gabrielle Merite this afternoon at our unconference session for Outlier conf. At 3:40PM Eastern time we'll be doing a fun newlyweds style game followed by a Q&A, so come hang out, chat, and ask me anything you'd like!
The main update today is that I just quit my job. For the last year, I've been working at Fidelity as a data visualization designer. The company is great, my colleagues are great, and by all metrics it was an excellent job. But after a year in the role, I realized I'm just uninterested in the world of dashboards and KPIs.
One of the drawbacks of my job with Fidelity was that none of my work was public-facing. What I truly love is telling interesting stories in new and exciting ways, and that was an itch Fidelity just couldn't scratch. So, I'm incredibly excited that my new position is a visual journalist at Axios! I'm so excited to get started telling more stories, but I'm not publizicing this position yet, so please keep it quiet for now.
I have a few weeks off between jobs, and besides relaxing, I'm hoping to use this time to catch up on some personal projects. For the last few months I've been livestreaming my process of creating a new dataviz project about The Office, and things are really starting to heat up. I've now begun the coding process, so if you want to see how I build a dataviz website with Svelte, and iterate on the data-design-coding process, follow me on Twitch where I stream every Thursday at 6PM ET. And you can see all my archived streams on my YouTube.
I've also got a trio of projects that are just getting off the ground and I want to hear your feedback (reminder: you can respond to this email to give me your thoughts). First is a shop to sell my artwork and posters. The plan was to feature prints, pen plots, t-shirts, stickers, and more. Using artwork from my 12 Months of aRt project, and eventually new artwork. So the big question is, what do you want to see here? Any particular piece of art or generative system you love? What types of products should I feature? Anything else you'd like to see in the shop?
Second is a course I'm making on dataviz in R, with a special focus on design. Is there anything you find particularly difficult with ggplot? Any areas of dataviz design that really trip you up? What kind of content would you like to see in this course?
Finally, I'm considering writing a guide to critiquing, editing, and revising creative projects. I've found that most of the critique in design, dataviz, art, and other creative fields is inconsistent at best. Most people don't know how to effectively provide or receive critique, nor do people know how best to brainstorm, edit, and revise their projects. Do you have any resources you love on this topic? Any areas of critique or special topics you'd like me to include or know more about? What are the aspects of critique that work the best for you, and which don't work so well?
To end, I'd like to give an update on one of my learning goals from last year: to read more about design. I did pretty well on this one (by my standards at least) so I'm going to do a quick flash review of the books I read over the past year.
Grids
Grid Systems in Graphic Design Josef Müller-Brockmann I know I'll probably get crucified by the design community for this, but I hated this book. I had high expectations because everyone described this as the ultimate guide to grid systems, but I found it more like a preacher's sermon. Each chapter basically read like this, "Grids are of the utmost importance to the designer, you must use a grid to have legible pleasing designs. Here's 10 examples of grids."
This mantra about the importance of grids was repeated ad nauseum, but aside from some context-less examples, the book gave almost no practical advice. There were occasional mentions of how to construct a grid mathematically, but no explanation of what types of grids you might apply to different content, and why it works. I need to know why something works to really understand how and when to apply it, but I found that this book left me no more enlightened about grids than when I opened it. Not recommended.
Making and Breaking the Grid Timothy Samara This book is basically the opposite of the previous. It's jam packed with theory and practical advice that helps you understand when, where, how, and why to apply grids in your design. Highly recommended.
Typography
Thinking with Type Ellen Lupton I wanted to like this book, I really did. And it's not terrible, it's just kinda... meh. There was some useful advice, but it was muddied by an equal amount of designery hem-hawing about the qualities of type that are just undefineable and must be honed over years of practice. While it might be true that you need to practice to master something, this kind of writing is just lazy and unhelpful. Instead, I recommend that you read Practical Typography, which is far more informative, contains more practical advice, is better written, and best of all, it's free. I also highly recommend Font Review Journal, where Bethany Heck gives the most thoughtful and in-depth reviews of typefaces I've ever seen.
Just my Type Simon Garfield This is basically a pop-history book about the history of some of the worlds most famous typefaces. It's a fun book, more like cocktail-party anecdotes than really in-depth history, but fun nonetheless. Recommended.
25 Years at the Public Paula Scher If you're a fan of typography (or of design at all) then you must love Paula Scher's iconic work with The Public Theatre. This book chronicles her 25 year collaboration, and it was fabulous. Very inspiring and recommended.
Data visualization
The Minard System Sandra Rendgen Every data visualization designer should study historic dataviz, and this book is a wonderful resource, full of inspiration and fascinating history. Highly recommended.
W. E. B. Du Bois's Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America The W.E.B. Du Bois Center at the University of Massachusetts Another amazing historical viz resource. You'll be totally wowed by the beauty and creativity of these bespoke data visualizations Du Bois created over 100 years ago. Highly recommended.
Transit Maps of the World Mark Ovenden This one is definitely a niche subject, but if you're as fascinated by transit maps as I am, you'll love this one. It's the ultimate resource on both historical and modern examples. Recommended
Dear Data Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec Hand-drawn dataviz goodness. This one is a must-have, highly recommended.
How Charts Lie Alberto Cairo You can read my full review of this one over on Amazon, but the short story is I loved it, highly recommended.
Others
The Design of Everyday Things Donald Norman This one was pitched as the bible of UX and human centered design, and it really lived up to the hype. Incredibly well researched, well written, and if you put in the work to really understand it, totally enlightening. Everyone who makes things that people interact with should read this, highly recommended.
Understanding Comics Scott McCloud Although the title mentions comics, this book should really be called Understanding Storytelling. It's both a work of art in its own right (the whole thing is a comic book, that teaches you about comics!), and it's the most valuable resource I've ever read on storytelling. This is one of those books that blows your mind on every other page. Highly recommended.
That's all I've got for now, I hope to see you all on the last day of Outlier, and look forward to hearing any of your thoughts on my upcoming personal projects.
Hasta luego!