He already railed against pies. So did I. With a lot of good reasons. Labels difficult. Area comparisons difficult. And so on. Actually, a pity. Because pie-charts state clearly: That's all you can share [...]

In October I said: I write a book. There was still a lot to be done. Layout. Litho. Inspect text. Check sources. Specify material and outfit. Find a printer who prints my beautiful fur beautifully. Press [...]

Perspective is: You want to show space. On paper. That is 2D. But it should look like space. Many use 3D. Perspective also is: How large something appears when it is a certain distance away. And vice [...]

Picture and figure may be good. Here the chair is on focus. Picture and figure may be bad. The nice guy could also work for Ford, or Mercedes, or, or, or. Picture without a figure may be good. Aha [...]

He wrote about the Wall Street Journal. The European issue. And the facelift from 2009-11-17. Ha. He should have taken a look at the issue from 2009-11-13: Source: Wall Street Journal Europe, 2009-11-13 [...]

Once more didactic. Again the graphic from the newspaper Handelsblatt: Source: Handelsblatt, 2009-04-30, No. 83, p. 1, original copy this time. Trucks (Straßengüterverkehr), trains (Eisenbahnen) [...]

Today it’s getting didactic. I did some cutting. Source: Handelsblatt, April 30th 2009, no. 83, p. 1, redesign by me. Click for original. Graphic displays increase of highway transportation in billions [...]

PowerPoint is in discussion. It works well as a slide projector. Then they can all see what they are supposed to see. Not good if they see what they are supposed to hear: Slides look like notes for somebody's [...]

6 reasons for vacation. 2 years. 2 parts of Germany. 24 values. Sounds easy. It’s not. A lot to think about in this chart. Source: Welt am Sonntag (WAMS), No. 43, 2009-10-25, p.24 Motivations of Germans [...]

Time only runs top down in sandglasses. But not in charts. There, time is from left to right. Because it’s like that. Take a chart with a horizontal x-axis and a vertical y-axis. The independent variable [...]

Oh, ZEIT. I didn´t mean that. My scribbled design was born out of necessity. Yours is intentional. Scribbling threefold from Die ZEIT. Not supposed to take it seriously? Source: DIE ZEIT No [...]

We are on vacation in France. In France they play Boule. With the neighbor's dog I bet on the outcome. I watched five throws from each of them and measured. I heeded his advice. And sketched the entire [...]

He says: If you have the data, show them. Instead of whining about "crash" and "upswing" and "slump" and "boom". Otherwise, someone believes it is 70 % and someone else believes something else. So, the [...]

Tax revenues collapse. Tells us the Handelsblatt. He thinks, 9 percent minus and collapse don't go together. I read the article, too. And nearly collapsed: Perceptive priority not understood. Once again: [...]

Now I'm pinned to the office wall. I like that. My own small multiple.

Apropos of resolution: General Electric has got a web page with health data. You can play with the data. 300 stickmen symbolize America. They are in every picture. Depending on "Diseases & Conditions" [...]

I’m in France. The water bill has a chart. The chart is all right. Consumption is displayed compared to the years before. The EU wants it that way since May 2008 (Directive 2006/32/EG, PDF). Already [...]

One of my rules: Graphs must be good to read. Good means fast and clear. That applies to all measuring instruments. For watches, too. Classical watches are beautiful because they are mechanical. They [...]

Apropos competent with media. Leo from the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) got width, height and position. But that doesn't mean anything. The 100 % value can be at the top middle, bottom middle or in the middle [...]

It's the school's fault. They say so. But not here: most information designers create junk charts when using areas. In 7th grade kids learn how it is right and wrong. It makes them competent with media. Lambacher [...]

Johannes Kreidler gives time series a sound. I did that two years ago. In fact, I copied it from him*. I guess Johannes wants to make fun of the crisis. Businesses take this very seriously. Your human [...]

The magazine CHIP from Munich reports: "Believe it or not, most discount stores put beer and diapers fairly close to each other." That's due to Data Mining. Because: Young men come. Sent by young women [...]

Good news: More people are reading Bella, fewer people are reading Germany's boulevard newspaper Bild. The German magazine Der Spiegel seems happy, too. So much so that -24% is steeper than -31%. I've [...]

I like the German journal Auto Motor Sport. First I liked the chart from Thursday (6/2009, p. 130), too. Then it felt strange: arrows for security at Mercedes and quality at Opel indicate nearly identical [...]

I visited my friend Namib. He lives at the Epupa Falls. They are in the North of Namibia, on the border to Angola. By day he tends goats. In the evenings he thinks about visualization. Bella [...]

The German newspaper "Die Welt" doesn’t know how tickers work. Correct: The information passes by your eyes. Very comfortable. Especially if there wouldn't have been enough room to display the information [...]

At November 18th I received this email. Unasked. They cannot blame Excel's diagram wizard for that. It likes to chop axes. But not always. And not with this data.