Diagrams dominate our times. The more image-like they are, the less we can control their impact on us. Pictures burn deep into our brains before our conscious mind can prevent permanent damage when they [...]

Time runs from left to right. Same with text. Sometimes time and text are in the way of each other. Then you rotate it. Have a look. Source: WSJ Europe, 2013-04-26, page 32. Funny, what do you [...]

It is difficult to compare time series. Indexing can help. Can be calculated in one way or the other. Equal with all: Everything is compared with the same point in time. It  has to be chosen carefully [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

The diagram in my last posting is a pitfall. Do you remember? Japan is too old. Look at it again. If you use columns, you must not use a logarithmic scale. If the values spread widely, you must use a [...]

Standard & Poor’s gives Japan bad marks. AA- instead of AA. Japan spends more than it earns. And it is too old. That’s what this diagram in the Journal wants to show. Quelle: Source: Wall Street [...]

Rupert deletes out algebraic signs in the Wall Street Journal. And draws triangles instead. Red and green. We already had this. Not good. Source: Wall Street Journal Europe, 2010-10-25, page 1. However [...]

Last time: Spoiling shadows. Today: enlightening shadows. Sometimes a column is more imporant than another. Then it is highlighted. That works good with shadows. As we see here. Source: Wall Street [...]

Some charts need more than 1,000 words. Yet, sometimes, seven words can be more effective than a chart. Today, we will put an end to the myth that all charts are pictures – and chatterboxes as well.

All school children learn: Go with green. Stop at red. Green is good. Red is bad. Stick to this and you're less likely to be run over. Traffic lights are simple. Prices are not. For some it's good if [...]

No one likes to get lost in a strange place. That’s why we pay extra attention to where we are headed. In fact, I learned a lot from traffic signs on a recent trip abroad.

Whether it’s Barbie and Ken, Madame Tussaud, Playmobil or even the ‘Männleinlaufen’ in Nuremburg – people as figurines are either fun or educational. But as we can see from the following examples [...]

Handelsblatt and the Wall Street Journal Europe, which are affiliated through a mutual cooperation, have recently relaunched their publications. Unfortunately, both instances are not exactly good news [...]

Legends are mostly unnecessary. Instead: get to the data. Look, that's what they've done here for the dollar and percentage signs. And for the scale info. Source: Wall Street Journal, 2006-11-21 [...]

Obama times: Yes we draw. Bars as long as they actually are. No problem at all in Obama country: The Wall Street Journal draws them over the whole page (click for full view). In the German newspaper [...]