This post is a review of Jer Thorp’s “Living in Data”. It’s one of the hardest books I’ve had to review, in part because of the nature of the book and in part because of my own circumstances and the nature of how I read this book. But if you want a spoiler (a tl:dr; […]
Recent Posts
What’s happening to Questions in Dataviz?
OK, so you’ve seen that I’ve made many book recommendations (though they seem to have dried up recently). And this blog has asked, addressed, answered (and dodged) many questions over the last (almost) five years. Well this post explains why I have found less time for book reviews recently. And it comes in the form […]
What can we learn from colour interactions?
This is a review of the seminal book “Interaction of Color” by Josef Albers – in particular the 50th Anniversary Edition (below). Right from the start, it’s important to state that it is full of high quality colour plates, every one illustrating an important experiment, illusion or lesson around colour theory. This experience already is […]
What happens when you combine red and blue?
This is not a post about colour theory, though colour theory is on my mind due to my current reading matter. If you’re interested in colour theory then I hope you’re keeping abreast of my book reviews this year. They’re all here on this blog under the #bookreview tag and Josef Albers’ legendary book – […]
What can we learn from the Minard System?
This post is a review of The Minard System – Sandra Rendgen’s excellent book from 2018. It’s a book which showcases the full collection of Charles-Joseph Minard’s distinctive work, the most famous (and notorious) of which is displayed on the front cover. The depiction of Napoleon’s Russian campaign has been championed by Edward Tufte with […]
How do you make better data visualisations?
This question might be a pretty broad subject, and a pretty ambitious one to answer. But in fact, the answer is simple – you read “Better Data Visualizations” by Jonathan Schwabish. This post is a review of that book – recently released with the subtitle: “A Guide for Scholars, Researchers and Wonks”, continuing my series […]
How do we visualise branches of knowledge?
This question is answered by the subtitle of “The Book of Trees” by Manuel Lima. I’m reviewing this as part of my 2021 project to review 20+ books on my shelves – a combination of those that are unread, and those that are brand new. For me, The Book of Trees falls into the first […]
How do you build inspired analytics communities?
This is the question that Eva Murray’s latest book “Empowered by Data” aims to answer. And it certainly does that. Eva’s book is the latest in my list of books to read and review throughout 2021, but in many ways it’s an “odd one out”. It’s probably least relevant to most of my ambitions in […]
Are beeswarm charts possible in two dimensions?
Recently I set about creating a new data visualisation. I don’t think I knew at the time what I was aiming for, but once I’d looked into the data and got inspiration from a few of my favourite sources, it occurred to me that what I was trying to create was a beeswarm chart in […]