The German magazine “Der Spiegel” shows: everywhere in Germany, it is dangerous to go swimming. Water poor. Lots of dots on a map. 15 red. 36 black. Ughhhh! While I like swimming so much. I turned [...]

Man as value is difficult. I find bad: carving man, shrinking man, amputating man, ballooning man. I find good: man as measure. Eye level. Knee-high. Hand deep. Foot long. By a hair. At arm’s length [...]

He was upset about it. Because there is no logarithm. And everything appears wrong: electricity rises more than gas. Fuel oil prices explode. Wrong. I have drawn it with logarithm. Gas rises more than [...]

The newspaper "Die Welt" drew a picture. Of 100 eBay stars. 23 are filled, 77 are empty. One star is 10 percent. 10 stars are 100 percent. A star can be filled. Each star has 5 spikes. 2 spikes are 4 percent [...]

If you want to compare something, put it on the same level. Works with numbers, too. Even when they are connected. Like in time series. Jan did it like this. The small lines where concatenated before [...]

The Süddeutsche Zeitung draws graphical tables. Good. And has done so for a while. Since 2007, I think. Now they've changed something. I rushed to the kiosk. And had a look. Share prices in the Süddeutsche [...]

It's hard to print my lovely coat. Because it's black. And printing black is hard. I learnt that from my book (in German). That was printed by someone who can do black well. Because he normally prints [...]

The colored cars again. Did you notice? The values weren’t just tangled up. But incorrectly scaled as well. Brown increased the most. Wasn’t noticeable. Because: The values are so different. Brown [...]

Die Welt tangles up developments. About automobile colors. Pretty spaghetti-ish to me. New registrations by color in percent (* Colors other than those shown not listed). Source: Die Welt, 2011-11-27 [...]

kicker magazine still isn't doing sparklines. So I'll do them for you: This is how they played soccer. So far. PosTeamPldWDLGoalsDiff.PtsPerformance 1Bayern München17121443:103337 2Borussia Dortmund17104335:122334 3Schalke [...]

William* says: Chop the feet off lines. And move them around until everything is banking at 45 degrees. On average. Then it looks good. And can be read well. Because: Every angle is as different as it [...]

Variety is the spice of life. But sometimes Die Welt has too much variety. Three times from percent to percent. Three times different diagram types. Three times a new lesson to learn. Column 1: Circles [...]

Stock market in the daily newspaper is tricky. Because: The prices are from yesterday. There are new ones today. And tomorrow. What's important? Mood? Yesterday's? Exact index level? Change? Absolute? [...]

The newspaper "Welt kompakt" drew Italy. Punched the flag. Got rid of the zero line. Silvio would think it's great. More deficit now means less area. But he'd be insulted about the flag. State finances [...]

I'll have a snap at William one more time. He invented and botched up time series, dual time series - and pies: The width of the pie means something. The two columns to the left and right also mean [...]

I wanted to add something about pictograms and ships. Firstly: There are good pictograms and bad pictograms. The ships are good. As I already said. And as he did. Source: Wall Street Journal, 2010-08-17 [...]

Spending money is more fun when you're pale blue than dark blue. But it's most fun when you're cornflower blue. No? Girls are paler than boys. The younger you are, the paler you are. No? No. 2011 [...]

Warnings also have to be issued about the German weather. Officially. The national meteorological service in Germany is called Deutscher Wetterdienst. On 9 September there was a sudden formation of ice [...]

Maps for data are difficult. Traffic lights as well. Maps for a country are great. Traffic lights for "danger" - "don't know" - "no danger" are great as well. I find map traffic lights for dangers in [...]

Nice: The German bank Comdirect is drawing graphical tables. Not so nice: The reference lines. They are wrong. Because they make some of the bars look like columns. I've corrected them. The way I did [...]

You can't see some things. Because they are not an object. Or because they are a law. Or because they apply to a lot of things. Then you have to find an example. The example can involve an object. You [...]

Some people say Bill (Clinton), Fannie (Mae) and Freddie (Mac) are to blame for the financial crisis. The one from 2008. Bill wanted everyone to have a house. So he said to Fannie and Freddie: Don't be [...]

The German newspaper Die Welt showed changes in sales. Of the top 500 German companies. From 1995 to 2010. In annual growth rates. Do you see sales? I don't. Is the situation after the crisis like it [...]

Vodafone compared its subsidiaries. How quickly they have grown. In the regions around the world. There is only one subsidiary in the US. It was still compared though. But what with? Looks rather amusing [...]

William Playfair invented bars, columns, and pies. Over 200 years ago. And drew many timelines. People still draw the same way. Not always a good idea. For example, William drew this. Above: England [...]

Looking into the future is hard. Look: Forecast down, remained the same. Forecast down again, gone up. Forecast up, gone down. Forecast a little down, gone down a lot. And so on and on. Up and down. Source: [...]

Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa are developing. Die Welt shows how. Memorize the color. Find the column. Read the height. Jump to the right. Find the next column. Memorize the height. Jump [...]