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The Graphic Continuum is a poster created by Jon Schwabish and Severino Ribecca (the man behind the Data Visualisation Catalogue). It lists almost 90 different chart types and organizes them into five large groups: distribution, time, comparing categories, geospatial, part-to-whole, and relationships. Some of them are connected across groups where there are further similarities.

The poster is printed very nicely and makes for a great piece of wall art to stare at when thinking about data, and maybe to get an idea for what new visualization to try.

An article in the Publications of the American Statistical Association by the Joint Committee on Standards for Graphic Presentation laid down some standards for how to create good data visualizations. In 1915. The chairman of that committee was none other than Willard C. Brinton, author of the highly opinionated (and much more complete) Graphic Methods for Presenting Facts. Andy Cotgreave is collecting some tidbits and highlights from Brinton’s books.

The paper Becksploitation: The Over-Use of a Cartographic Icon by Kenneth Field and William Cartwright (free pre-print PDF) in The Cartographic Journal describes the Harry Beck’s famous map of the London Underground and what makes it great. It also offers a collection of misuses of the superficial structure, and critiques them. I wish we’d had papers (and titles!) like this in visualization.

The paper is available online for free for the next twelve months, along with a selection of other Editor’s Choice papers (including Jack van Wijk’s Myriahedral Projections paper – watch the video if you haven’t seen it). Continue reading Link: Becksploitation: The Over-Use of a Cartographic Icon

Tapestry 2015 will take place March 4 in Athens, GA. This is the third time we are holding the conference, and it is again taking place on the day before NICAR. As in the past years, have a kick-ass line-up of speakers. The keynotes will be given by Hannah Fairfield (NY Times), Kim Rees (Periscopic), and Michael Austin (Useful Fictions). We also have a great set of short stories speakers: Chad Skelton (Vancouver Sun), Ben Jones (Tableau Public), Katie Peek (Popular Science), RJ Andrews (Info We Trust), and Kennedy Elliott (Washington Post).

On the website, you can watch a brief video summary (click on See what Tapestry is all about) or see all the talk videos from last year. We have also posted information on how to get there, and there will be a bus to take you to NICAR after the event.

Time is running out to apply for an invitation if you want to attend. Attendance is limited, and we’re trying to keep the event small and focused.

Episode 46 of the Data Stories podcast features Andy Kirk and yours truly in an epic battle for podcast dominance a review of the year 2014. This complements well my State of Information Visualization posting, and of course there is a bit of overlap (I wrote that posting after we recorded the episode – Moritz and Enrico are so slow). There are lots of differences though, and the podcast has the advantage of not just me talking. We covered a lot of ground there, starting from a general down about the year, to end up finding quite a few things to talk about (just check out the long list of links in the show notes!).

Andy Kriebel’s Data Viz Done Right is a remarkable little website. He collects good examples of data visualization and talks about what works and what doesn’t. He does have bits of criticism sometimes, but he always has more positive than negative things to say about his picks. Good stuff.