Input: What is a Dashboard?

I have great admiration for research projects that set out to investigate seemingly obvious things, and then suddenly a whole ocean of questions …

Book Review: W.E.B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits (Princeton Arch. Press)

The Library of Congress holds a collection of hand-drawn infographics about the life and progress of the African-American population. The …

Fun: Get your own Minard

Dear visualisation enthusiasts, it’s MINARD DAY! Charles-Joseph was born on March 27, 238 years ago today. To celebrate his birthday, …

History: “The Comparative Machine” (1836)

There is a very basic joy in roaming through atlases and in looking at maps. Atlases are rich collections of places, and if there is one thing they can do it is making you travel around the world, to places near and far…

Book Review: “Mapping Time” (Esri Press)

There’s hardly any infographic that is more famous, more often cited and more often re-designed than the graphic on Napoleon’s march …

Book Review: “Dear Data” (Penguin)

To craft something requires skills, mastery and patience. It means to create something step by step, with a passion for …

Workshop: “The Future(s) of the Atlas” (Leipzig)

My work throughout the past years has involved researching current trends as well as the long history of information visualisation. This research focus …

Article: “The Feltron Annual Reports” (Süddeutsche Zeitung)

Nicholas Felton‘s work has been an inspiration to many people in the field of information visualisation, not only when he …

Article: “Ephemeral City” (Süddeutsche Zeitung)

Urban cartography has long been an authoritative matter: companies or authorities invested time, energy and money in researching the data …

Jury Member: “Information is Beautiful Awards” (London)

I felt honoured to be part of the jury of this year’s “Kantar Information Is Beautiful Awards”. The awards’ winners …

Interview Jer Thorp: “Let the data speak”

For a few years now, Canadian-born Jer Thorp has been working on the forefront of data visualisation, creating ever new …

Interview Moritz Stefaner: “The city is alive”

Moritz Stefaner came to the field of data visualisation with a background in cognitive science and interface design. His works …

Research: “The Forgotten Maps of Minard” (Paris)

UPDATE January 2019: This article is a few years old and outdated. In 2018, my book on Minard’s work and …

Inspiration: Wind map by Viégas & Wattenberg

Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda Viégas have been working in data visualisation for many years now and are currently leading Google’s …